Statement from Korean American Support for Prisoners of Conscience.
Asserting human rights while merely paying lip service to them — what an absurdity!
To be respected as a human being, one must be free from threats to survival.
One must break free from worrying about where to seek shelter from storms or how to alleviate hunger.
Even San Francisco’s streets, known for their countless homeless and bizarre manifestations of drug addiction that had become commonplace, briefly appeared clean. This was solely due to the San Francisco authorities meticulously cleaning the streets that foreign dignitaries attending the APEC conference would pass through. While efforts are made to deceive foreign dignitaries by disguising the city’s citizens’ shattered lives, there is no genuine concern for these citizens.
In a society where concerns about health issues are compounded by exorbitant health care costs and discrimination in health care insurance that individuals must bear entirely, even the sick struggle to access hospitals easily.
It’s a society where one cannot step out of their homes feeling secure, and even indoors, there is a constant fear for safety. Incidents of minor crimes and reports are routinely disregarded.
Despite a stable living environment being a fundamental right of citizens, this right is infringed upon, and the people have grown numb to this infringement in the United States.
While U.S. Imperialism spends astronomical amounts on wars worldwide, it annually provides $3.8 billion to Israel. Yet, the nation itself teeters on the brink of crisis due to an unsustainable increase in debt, nearly causing the government’s functions to fail.
An Arab boy, aged 5, loses his life, and his mother is critically injured as a white assailant targets a Muslim household. Three Arab youths are shot by a white person on the streets, resulting in the deaths of two. Countless incidents occur where Asian women are assaulted for no reason.
The unfounded China and Muslim hatred instigated by U.S. imperialism has led to persistent hate crimes in American society.
When MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan attempted to discuss events unfolding in Palestine, the ongoing program was abruptly canceled.
A university student supporting Palestinian liberation lost a confirmed job offer, while a Jewish professor advocating for the deaths of all Palestinians briefly left their position only to return. Workers are dismissed from their jobs for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Similarly, in Canada, a broadcaster was ousted for the same reason, while in France and Germany, police violently suppressed unarmed demonstrators.
The double standards imposed by the West and U.S. imperialism, which condemn and oppress underprivileged individuals for their own gain, reveal the true nature of their touted human rights.
Among the distortions and fabrications propagated by the West and nations against North Korea, there is a propaganda war labeling North Korea as a human rights-abusing nation.
Despite Israel indiscriminately bombing schools, hospitals, refugee camps, and residential areas in Palestine, causing the mass slaughter of women and children, U.S. imperialism and Western imperialism continue to support Israel’s inhumane crimes.
These countries have no right to even speak of human rights.
The authorities violently suppress workers fighting for their right to survive, and intelligence agencies and police raid union offices. Under the National Security Law, which claims that “a deeper understanding of North Korea poses a substantive danger to South Korea,” raids are rampant in the South, promoting such actions.
Though rights are violated, lives are taken, and truth is manipulated and suppressed, perpetrators often go unpunished. The National Security Law, a sharp blade that condemns ideologies, controls media, and silences the voices of the people, is shameless in its display while hypocritically talking about human rights.
In this landscape where human rights are being annihilated, there exists the “North Korean Human Rights Act,” purportedly aimed at guaranteeing and improving the basic human rights of North Korean citizens. However, with all communication channels to the North blocked and no real understanding of the basic human rights of North Korean citizens, how does the South claim to guarantee and improve them?
Just as North Korea’s reconnaissance satellite launch claims sovereignty over its territory, North Korea’s human rights are something that its citizens should handle themselves.
Dec. 6, 2023.
Korean American Support for Prisoners of Conscience
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