The Marmot’s Hole

Freedom House held its big conference on North Korean human rights in Washington on Tuesday. Joshua of One Free Korea posted his initial thoughts on the event, although I expect he’ll be posting more on the conference later on. The Chosun Ilbo, of course, covered the goings on, although it focuses much of its attention on defector Kang Chol-hwan, which is only natural given that he writes for the paper. VOA’s Korean-language service carried a summary of the conference’s events. VOA Korean also reportedly conducted a five and a half hour-long live broadcast of the conference, which listeners with VOA access in North Korea could supposedly listen to. For those of you who accuse OhMyNews of ignoring stuff like this, Kang In-kyu reported what Kang had to say, including his claim that South Korea’s disinterest in North Korean human rights is a crime “equal to that of Lee Wan-yong,” the Joseon dynasty’s last prime minister who signed the Korea-Japan Annexation Treaty of 1910. Also interesting to note is OhMyNews’ interview with Natan Sharansky. Judging from the comments, the readers seemed less than impressed, but at least Kang and Sharansky got coverage.