Tuesday 2 August 2016

Successful Picket Held in Belfast

On Saturday July 30, activists from KFA Ireland were present around Belfast City Hall from 15.30 until approximately 17.00. Activists handed out flyers to the people of Belfast to inform about the unlawful abduction of the twelve DPRK citizens from China. Several people who stopped by to talk to the activists about the abduction, and many where shocked to hear about the gangster style kidnapping carried out by south Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
Also present outside the City Hall were a group of Christian “missionaries”. Unfortunately a few by-passers mistook the KFA activists for the Christians and therefor didn’t want to grab a flyer, but when activists mentioned that our flyers wasn’t of religious content, they were happy to have one.
Several positive comments and support from by-passers where mentioned. One man for example shook the hand with one activist and said that the work carried out by us was good and that it deserves all respect.
Due to the success of the picket, the KFA activists decided to hold more activities in Belfast.
See flyer
“In April south Korea abducted twelve citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) that worked in a Korean restaurant in China. The south Korean regime claimed that it was a “mass defection” while it in reality was a mass abduction. Prior to the abduction the restaurant workers were instructed by one of their managers (who had stolen more than 1.2 million Chinese Yuan (€162,000) from the restaurant), together with south Korean National Intelligence Service that they were going to the airport to go and visit another restaurant. When they were on the plane they were told that they were going to Seoul and the twelve wanted to return, but their kidnappers wouldn’t let them.
DPRK have demanded that the south Korean authorities release their citizens, but the South Korea authorities haven’t taken any measures but to employ heinous methods such as appeasement, deception, threat and blackmail as they are kept in solitary confinement, denied any contact with the outside, while recklessly shutting the door on demands of information openness and personal conversation with representatives from social organizations in south Korea, as well as their families in the DPRK. This is a gross violation of the human rights that is clearly stated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. One of the DPRK-workers, Kyungah Suh, who was the youngest of the twelve, is confirmed dead after hunger striking. This happened under the responsibility of the south Korean authorities.
How can the Western governments consider a state that year after year violate the human rights, as a democracy? South Korea has exploited slave labourer as late as the 1980s which consisted of disabled, orphans, homeless and political opponents. These people who became slaves were forced to work for companies that exported goods to Europe and the US. Still today the slaves haven’t received any compensation, something that they are entitled to as it happened in cooperation between the south Korean regime and its capitalists. It is first during recent years that scandals were people have been kept as slaves has been revealed in south Korea. The international community never criticizes the south Korean government over their continuous violations of human rights. At the same time the UN imposes the harshest sanctions ever in the history of the UN, on the DPRK when the DPRK in accordance to international right launches a satellite into outer space. This is not the first time either as south Korea’s National Intelligence Service has abducted citizens of the DPRK, and it won’t be the last time either.
As Kyungah Suh died during hunger strike, we can’t do much but to fear for the lives and well-being of the other abductees. The south Korean authorities already have blood on their hands. How many more innocent lives are they prepared to take? We demand that the South Korean authorities unconditionally let the other eleven DPRK citizens free.”

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