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U.S. commission to Vatican: Focus more attention to North Korea rights abuses
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ROME – Members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom met July 13 with Vatican diplomatic officials, urging the Vatican to give greater attention to human-rights abuses in North Korea.But Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces, N.M., a congressional appointee to the government advisory board, told reporters after the meeting that Saudi Arabia tops the Vatican's list of countries of concern regarding religious freedom. Bishop Ramirez and other members of the commission were in Rome for a July 12 conference on religious freedom in North Korea. Freedom House, a research institute, sponsored the conference. At a July 13 press conference, which included three people who had escaped from North Korea, Bishop Ramirez said that, while the world is concerned about North Korea testing missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, most people do not know the extent to which North Koreans are denied their basic human rights. "We want the whole story to be known so that there could be diplomatic pressure on behalf of so many people who are suffering so much under a very oppressive government," the bishop said. Bishop Ramirez said the Vatican follows the human rights situation around the world very closely. He said Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican foreign minister, "was very sympathetic to our cause," but Archbishop Lajolo also said the Vatican's top concern is Saudi Arabia, which forbids the public practice of any religion other than Islam, depriving the sacraments and spiritual assistance to hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, many of whom are Catholic. "We said, 'What about North Korea?' and they said, 'Well, that's No. 2,'" said Bishop Ramirez. Bishop Ramirez said commission members told Archbishop Lajolo and other Vatican officials: "What is going on in North Korea is executions. What is going on in Saudi Arabia is extreme repression." The Vatican, he said, did promise to collaborate with the commission in getting governments to put pressure on North Korea "because, after all, we are looking for the same thing." Many North Korean Christians fled to South Korea between 1945 and 1953. During and immediately after the Korean War of 1950-53, the North Korean government classified large numbers of religious believers as "counterrevolutionaries," and many of them were killed or imprisoned in concentration camps. Son Jong Hoon, who escaped from North Korea in 1997, participated in the Rome conference, appealing for help in securing his brother's release from death row. After his brother crossed the border into China, "he began to embrace Christianity. I urged him to go to South Korea with me, but he refused. He wanted to spread the Gospel to our brothers and sisters in the North," Son said. The brother, Son Jong Nam, first fled to China in 1998. Arrested by the Chinese authorities in 2001, he was forced to return to North Korea and was sentenced to three years in a prison camp for illegally leaving the country. He fled again in April 2004, but stayed in China only for a month, meeting with his brother and explaining his desire to go home and evangelize. Son said his brother was arrested in January 2006 in North Korea as a traitor and in March was sentenced to death. Son said he has no way of knowing if the sentence has been carried out, although he believes his brother still is on death row. Kim Hyunuk, a South Korean Catholic and president of the Peace Forum for Foreign Policy and National Security, told reporters, "No form of religious practice of any faith is permitted in North Korea; 400 people die each year because they believe in Jesus Christ. "North Korea is probably the only country in the world that condemns people to death for believing in a religion," he said.
