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Photos
of the 3-Day Conference
Grace
Yoon, whose father was arrested by the Chinese authorities
on May 9, 2005 while attempting to help North Korean
refugees, addressed the group.
Read Grace Yoon’s
speech here |
The
3 Former Foster Children Are:
1.
Lee Yong Ae (female, born 1987)
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Because
of the prejudice and discrimination still faced by
North Koreans living in South Korea, two of the children
have requested
that we not show their photos.
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Born
in Musan city, North Hamgyong province, North Korea.
When
her mother and father both died, she escaped into
China, because
she had heard rumors that food was more plentiful there.
In
1998, at age
11, she was found and put under the protection of
LFNKR
by one of our local shelter workers. She started school
in Yanbian, the Korean Chinese autonomous region of
China under
our group’s
foster parent program.
In
spring of 2002, she was arrested during a raid by Chinese
authorities and sent back to
North Korea. However,
later that same year, she managed to escape once
again, and returned to the protection by LFNKR.
In
2003, we
escorted her
secretly out
of China, to South Korea via a lengthy and hazardous
route.
2.
Lee Gwang-Ryon (male, born 1988)
Born in
Hesan city in Yangang province, North Korea.
His father
died following a serious leg injury in an accident. Shortly
after that, his mother disappeared. He went to
China, looking for food.
In 1998,
at age 10 he was found and brought to an LFNKR shelter
by one of our local workers, where he received the
basic necessities, including education, under our foster
parent program. He quickly
learned Chinese.
But in the
spring of 2002, at age 14,
he was arrested in a raid by Chinese police and sent
back to North
Korea. He was sentenced to hard labor, but later
that year he
managed
to escape once again and returned to an LFNKR shelter.
When he reached
the shelter, he required hospitalization because of his
injuries and extreme exhaustion.
In 2004,
after considerable delay, he finally reached South Korea, where
he was
reunited with the other foster children from his group.
3.
Oh Chun-song (male, born 1988)
Born in a
coal-mining town in North Hamgyong province.
When both
his parents starved to death, he made his
way to China seeking
food.
He was found
by a local LFNKR worker, and he began classes in Yanbian under
our group’s foster parent program.
In the spring
of 2002, he was arrested in a raid by Chinese authorities
and sent back to North Korea. But that same year
he managed to escape and returned to the shelter.
In 2003,
LFNKR secretly
escorted
him out of China to South Korea via a dangerous
and roundabout route.
During the
escape, a guard at the check point of
a third country stopped him, but he managed to
talk his way past the
security guards and made it through the gate
on his second try.
Interviewed
for Television
On
August 1, Japan’s Asahi Television aired
a 16-minute segment featuring one of the three children,
Lee Gwang-Ryon (now 17), and his Japanese foster
mother (Chizuko Yamashita,
a founding member of LFNKR).
A
streaming video version of the feature is available online.
It is all in Japanese, but you can view
it by clicking here.
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Second Day ~
Seoul Train Documentary
August
1, 2005
Screening of the Japanese version of “Seoul
Train,” the award-winning documentary, was followed
by a panel discussion.
LFNKR translated the original English into Japanese subtitles.
FNKR
issued tickets for this event priced at 1,000 yen (about
$10), and nearly 100 people attended.
Seoul
Train Website
Attempts
to suppress the movie
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Screening
of the 54-minute “Seoul Train” documentary
was followed by an enthusiastic question and answer
session that continued for nearly 2 hours.
Panel
members included (from left to right) Jim Butterworth,
producer-director of “Seoul
Train”; Tim Peters, Christian activist
and founder of Helping Hands Korea; Chun Ki-won,
South
Korean activist
and Director of Durihana Mission; Kato Hiroshi,
Secretary-General of LFNKR; and Noguchi Takayuki,
LFNKR member.
After
the screening, one of the Waseda University
students inquired about screening the Japanese version
of
the film at their university.
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Third Day ~
IPCNKR Meeting
August 1, 2005
 Tim
Peters (Helping Hands Korea) discussed the plight of NK
refugees and the humanitarian aid workers who
are still being detained in Chinese prisons. One of
these aid workers is Choi
Yong-hun, now in prison in
Yantai, China. He has now served more than two-and-a-half
years of his 5-year sentence. All the lawmakers
attending from four nations signed petitions demanding
release of Choi Yong-hun and An Chung Hak, who are
imprisoned in China. |
 Tim
Peters also related the most recent incident with which
he was involved.
He
explained that embassy officials of his own country
(the USA) had declined his request that they support
his efforts to help a 17-year old North Korean
refugee
hiding in a shelter in China under particularly precarious
conditions.
The
father of the teen refugee had been an officer in the
NK army, and when the family was
arrested in China
and repatriated to North Korea, the father was immediately
executed without trial. The mother was sent to a labor
camp, and the two daughters (ages 14 and 17) were released,
only to bravely risk their lives by crossing to China
again. The
younger of the two daughters was picked up by Chinese
police & repatriated, and the older sister
runs the risk of being trapped into human trafficking
if not rescued soon.
Peters
sharply criticized the yawning gap between the spirit
of the North Korean Human Rights
Act of 2004 and the actual behavior of State Dept.
employees in diplomatic missions in China, which he
characterized
as timid and overly fearful of offending the host
government of China. Read
the text of his speech here.
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 One
of LFNKR’s former foster children talks about his
experiences while in hiding in China, and his current life
in his new home in South Korea. |
 Kato Hiroshi, Secretary-General of LFNKR, served as moderator
for the morning NGO session. |
 Jim
Butterworth, producer-director of “Seoul Train” speaks
following the
screening of the Japanese version of his documentary.
Read the text of his speech
here. |
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