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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| N. Korea Parades Defectors' Families on Video |
| 2011-03-10 |
| North Korea on Wednesday released video footage of interviews with the family members of four North Korean drifters who have defected to South Korea, pleading with them to return. The four were among 31 North Koreans whose boat drifted into South Korean waters early last month. The video, posted on the North's official propaganda website Uriminzokkiri, shows family members of the four accusing the South Korean government for coercing or persuading the four North Koreans to defect. Kim Ok-jin, who claims to be the mother of a 22-year-old female defector, says, "The South Korean puppets are detaining my daughter who drifted in bad weather." She adds the South is "trampling on the hearts of parents who yearn for their daughter's return." A South Korean intelligence official said, "Look at these peopleÂ’s faces. [The regime is] pressuring the defectors to return or watch their families die." North Korea is apparently the first country ever to try and blackmail defectors by blatantly parading their families before the world press. North Korea also sent a letter signed by the families of all 31 drifters and addressed to the unification minister and the head of the South Korean Red Cross demanding the return of all of them. The North once again demanded that South Korea let the North bring the four defectors face to face with their families in the truce village of Panmunjom. A government official said, "I believe the defectors all have their own private reasons for making their decisions. This is not the Cold War, and in an age when there are more than 20,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea, why would the government try to coerce or persuade them to defect?" |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Looking into the true face of evil totalitarian power at its zenith, and wondering how people cannot see that we must never enable these scum with any resources of any kind. |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2011-03-10 14:50 |