By Via a reader tip comes this article about a young attorney who has committed herself to freeing political prisoners in North Korea:
Lee Jee Hae, the current chief of planning for Democracy Network against North Korean Gulag (NK Gulag for short), had just passed the U.S. bar exam in 2009, guaranteeing herself affluence and social status as an international attorney, when she turned her back on the comfortable life that seemed assured and began working with former inmates of the North Korean system of political prison camps to bring about its dismantlement.
The obvious question is why she made this choice. Also, it is hard not to be curious about how she plans to bring about the end of the camps. So The Daily NK visited the NK Gulag office in Seoul late last week to find out.
- Why did you decide to start working for the dismantlement of the North Korean political prison camps? [Daily NK]
Read the rest at the link but I think she has a tough fight ahead of her considering that I can’t think of any political prisoners that the North Koreans have every released back to South Korea? However, the fact that the North Koreans did release some of the Japanese nationals they kidnapped over the years is a precedent that releasing political prisoners isn’t entirely impossible.
12:57 pm on January 31st, 2011 1
I'm sure ultimately the goal is not freeing people but gaining much international publicity that will add some effective pressure on the human rights issue:
Which is pretty much almost a lost cause also…
8:08 pm on January 31st, 2011 2
That's a crock a shizzle. Many (most?) people with law degrees only make an average, middle class class income.
Not only is there NOT a guarantee of affluence and social status – there's a very good chance you will never acquire either.
8:41 pm on February 1st, 2011 3
Guitard, how true…