[BBC] South Korea court bans 'pro-North' political party

South Korea court bans 'pro-North' political party

UPP members, led by party leader Lee Jung-hee (centre), demonstrated against the decision on Friday

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South Korea has banned a political party for the first time in decades, with a court ordering a party accused of supporting the North to disband.

The government had petitioned the constitutional court last year to ban the leftist Unified Progressive Party, which has five members in parliament.

Some UPP members were previously arrested for plotting a rebellion.

The move has sparked concern about freedom of expression and association in South Korea.

The decision was closely watched by political groups, with hundreds gathered near the constitutional court in Seoul amid a tight security presence of about 1,000 riot police.

Both UPP supporters and its opponents held demonstrations, shouting slogans and waving signs, reports said.

It is the first time South Korea's constitutional court has banned a political party since it was established in 1988, said AP news agency.

Eight out of nine judges agreed on Friday to accept the government's petition to disband the UPP, order it to forfeit its seats in parliament and ban an equivalent party from forming.

Chief Judge Park Han-chul said "there was an urgent need to remove the threat posed by the party to the basic order of democracy".

Conservative groups gathered outside the constitutional court in Seoul called for the UPP's dissolution

Ban 'raises questions'

Justice Minister Hwan Kyo-ahn, making the government's final argument before the court last month, said the UPP has attempted to "establish a pro-communist government and unification to realise North Korean-style socialism".

But the UPP has said it only wants greater reconciliation with the North.

The government's petition was prompted by the arrest of several UPP members in 2013.

Seven members were eventually convicted of plotting to overthrow the South Korean government in the event war broke out with the North.

UPP's leader Lee Jung-hee told reporters on Friday that the decision "opened a dark age with an authoritarian decision" and had turned South Korea into a "dictatorial country".

Amnesty International's East Asia research director Roseann Rife said the ban "raises serious questions as to the authorities' commitment to freedom of expression and association."

"Security concerns must never be used as an excuse to deny people the right to express different political views," she said.

[The Huffington Post] North Korea Launches Bizarre Website In An Attempt To Encourage Tourism

North Korea Launches Bizarre Website In An Attempt To Encourage Tourism

The Huffington Post  |  By Nick Robins-Early

Posted: 12/02/2014 6:03 pm EST Updated: 12/02/2014 6:59 pm EST

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North Korea launched a travel website on Monday that is decidedly more strange than it is inviting -- particularly since the country currently has a ban on international tourists entering the country due to fears of the Ebola virus.

Dprktoday.com is a Korean-language site full of the bizarre imagery and hard-to-navigate portals that one might expect from the Hermit Kingdom. Different areas of the site highlight a variety of North Korea's attractions, from a pyramid-themed water park to aspects of local culture.

Some of the choices are a bit more confusing, including pictures of rockets and a single dog.

The site is even more abnormal given that North Korea currently has a travel ban in place that would prevent tourists from entering the country anyway: In October, authorities reportedly told tour companies they were barring international tourists from entry because of Ebola fears.

South Korea's Yonhap News reported that the aim of the site is to "attract foreign tourists," but since the page is exclusively in Korean, it's unclear who exactly the target audience is

Before the travel ban, North Korea had been on a push to encourage visitors, including building a massive ski resort over a period of just 10 months.

The website features a number of videos in addition to images and text, including this one, which appears to be a beatific karaoke video featuring footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

While the Hermit Kingdom did have something of a tourism industry before the travel ban, North Korean tourism is a contentious issue, and there is much debate over whether it is ethical to visit the reclusive nation. Critics say that trips end up funding the repressive regime, and that the carefully led tours offer little insight into what actually goes on in the country.

The United Nations voted this month to refer North Korea's leaders to the International Criminal Court for heinous crimes against humanity that include a sprawling prison camp system and systematic torture, killings and starvation.

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[HuffingtonPost] Fleeing for Freedom

Posted: 20/10/2014 17:14 BST Updated: 20/10/2014 17:59 BST

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This blog was written by Yeonmi Park. Yeonmi is a One Young World delegate originally from North Korea. She is speaking during the Peace and Conflict Plenary Session at the 2014 Summit in Dublin about her life in North Korea and escape from the Kim regime. 

I am a North Korean defector who escaped the hardship of the region in 2007. Korea has remained in the media spotlight in recent weeks due to the unprecedented disappearance, and reappearance, of leader Kim Jong-un. Countless people have spoken about the missing dictator, but very little attention is being focused on the invisible victims of the Kim regime. People born in North Korea are born prisoners for life.

In 2012, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimated that there are 150,000 to 200,000 people in North Korea's notorious prison camps. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea estimated earlier this year that between 80,000 and 120,000 people were in the camps - often being imprisoned without a fair trial.

Some are there for what would be considered minor crimes outside of North Korea; it doesn't take very much to get jailed for life or executed by the Kim regime. Growing up in North Korea, I heard about and witnessed public executions for reasons such as:

Stealing cows: A 27-year-old man, who had tuberculosis and was starving, stole a cow. He was gunned down in a public execution. Cows are needed for labor in North Korea, so it is a serious crime there to steal or eat one.

Defacing the likeness of the dictator: A man who rolled a cigarette to smoke was arrested by a policeman who witnessed the "crime." The smoker was executed because the newspaper included Kim Jong-Il's likeness. There are numerous stories of people being hailed as heroes for rushing into burning buildings to rescue portraits of the Kims. Those who allow such portraits to be burnt are publicly executed.

Watching foreign movies: When I was nine years old, I witnessed my best friend's mother get publicly executed, along with about seven other people. They had been caught watching foreign movies from South Korea and the United States. The "criminals" had their teeth broken and stones stuffed in their mouths so they couldn't speak or scream, their joints broken so they couldn't walk or escape, then were shot several times as a warning to the rest of us, à la Animal Farm.

Fleeing North Korea: One of my mom's friends borrowed money from us. The next day, the entire family disappeared. They had been caught talking about escaping to South Korea and so the entire family was wiped out.

Those executions were carried out by Kim Jong-il's regime when I was living in North Korea, but the carnage hasn't stopped under his son, Kim Jong-un. 80 people were recently slaughtered in one day, for the "crimes" of watching South Korean movies and reading the Bible. They were machine gunned in a stadium, shot repeatedly so that it was difficult to identify them.

So many people in North Korea have been killed needlessly by the Kim regime. The amount of attention that had been focused on the disappearance and reappearance of the dictator does prove that the world can pay attention to North Korea, but what about their victims? Where has the compassion gone for human life?

As I continue to try to raise awareness about the human rights crisis in North Korea, I hope that we will be able to focus more attention on the invisible victims of the Kim regime. So many Korean refugees in China and elsewhere are desperately seeking, and dying, for their freedom.

You can watch the One Young World Summit 2014 in Dublin as it happens on our livestream: www.oneyoungworld.com.

Follow One Young World on Twitter: www.twitter.com/OneYoungWorld

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