| North Korean defector seeks to stop brother's execution | |
| Supporters plan rally at North Korean embassy in London | |
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The Associated Press (apwire) 
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In a highly unusual public campaign, Son has launched a protest to save the life of 48-year-old brother Jong Nam _ if he is still alive. The campaign has drawn international attention from Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a London-based Christian organization, which planned a rally at the North Korean Embassy there on Friday.
Son, 43, also planed to submit a petition to South Korea's National Human Rights Commission on Friday. He said he learned about his brother's fate in a telephone conversation with an acquaintance in North Korea in March who had contacts with the North Korean state security agency.
''I was told that an execution order had been made,'' Son told The Associated Press. ''My brother was arrested on charges of betrayal of the country and being a spy who leaked state secrets after meeting me in China.'' In recent years, video footage smuggled out of North Korea has claimed to show public executions, despite the country's insistence it respects human rights. Pyongyang says criticism of its record is part of a U.S.-orchestrated campaign aimed at toppling the regime.
The campaign coincides with North Korea Freedom Week, a series of events under way in Washington including a rally at Capitol Hill and all-night prayer vigil, aimed at highlighting the North's poor human rights record.
The United States has called for improvement of North Korea's human rights and also denounced China for sending North Korean asylum seekers back to the North where they could face severe punishment. U.S. President George W. Bush was to meet several North Korean defectors on Friday and also see Sakie Yokota, the mother of Japanese schoolgirl Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped nearly 30 years ago by North Korean agents.
In March, the White House issued a rare public statement criticizing China for returning a North Korean defector and urging Beijing to honor its obligations under international conventions it has signed dealing with refugees As a key ally of the North, China views the North Koreans as ''economic migrants,'' not refugees, and is obligated to send them back under a bilateral treaty. Activists say China repatriates up to 400 defectors a week, who face harsh punishment when they return.
Son's older brother fled to China in 1998 and became a Christian, working for an evangelical mission for three years before he was arrested by Chinese police and sent back to the North in 2001, where he was imprisoned for three years for religious activities, the younger Son said.After being released in 2004, Son Jong Nam later sneaked into China to meet his younger brother but he returned to North Korea, refusing to defect for worries about putting relatives at risk for official reprisal. He was arrested by North Korean officials in January this year for spying for the South.
Son Jong Hoon insists he didn't receive any sensitive information about the North from his brother and that they just spoke about the food situation and international aid to the country, where famine has killed as many as 2 million people since the 1990s.
''I couldn't understand at all. I didn't work for South Korea's intelligence agency and I just heard from my brother about news in Pyongyang,'' Jong Hoon said.
| KWANG-TAE KIM SEOUL, South Korea |
2006/04/28 오후 1:06
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