[Editorial] Human Rights in North Can`t Be Ignored Anymore.

25 North Korean defectors who had gone to Spain Embassy in Beijing left for the third country yesterday and will be coming to the South soon.

The treatment provided will be similar to that provided to Jang Gil- Su family last June.

As there is big possibility for similar things to happen steadily, Government should devise a substantial countermeasure to protect the North defectors in China.

Above all else, we have come to know that human rights in the North are facing inevitable situation.

Disclosed declaration of the North defectors approves human rights violations and it conceives frustration, despair, and fear which they had to experience repeatedly by trying escaping- repatriate- re- defect from the North, in every line.

The wife of Mr. Lee Sung (fictitious name) who said that it is the third time since 1997 failing two times, disclosed,“ I was made to hang from tree reversely at penitentiary and was lashed at, after being sent back by force”

North defectors stated that they determined to escape the North at the risk of their death in order to let their children live a life worthy of man in South Korea.

The fact that dead zone is very next to us and not another place makes us miserable.

The matter of human rights in the North has become international interest now.

As the example of German doctor, Norbert Vollertsen, who helped defectors from the North this time shows, many foreigners who experienced the reality of the North by themselves, in recent few years, are playing a big role to announce matters related to human rights violations in the North to outside world.

On the other hand, the U.S. plans to mention about the matter of human rights in full scale in future negotiations with the North.

Seeing this, the North side ought to realize the fact that they can`t obtain anything from outside world until they keep on ignoring this matter.

Government should raise the voice regarding matters related to human rights in the North, too.

Government has been avoiding the matter of human rights in the North due to sunshine policy so far; however, it should reflect how much reconciliation of the North and the South relieve the pain of North people all the while.

For now, steady interest from outside and protest can only improve human rights in North Korea.