CWA's Rios Calls for Human Rights Intervention in North Korea     11/4/2003

Washington, D.C. - Concerned Women for America's President Sandy Rios testified today before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs to call attention to human rights abuses in North Korea.

“This is no time for the faint of heart or spineless appeasers,” said Rios, who also serves as the Chair of the North Korea freedom Coalition (NKFC). “This is a time for Americans of all political stripes to unite for a noble purpose: to bring freedom, food and wholeness to the suffering people of North Korea.”

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) chairs the committee and will use this forum to elevate human rights as a priority concern in U.S.-North Korea relations. Rios shared her experiences of visiting North Korea and her interviews with North Korean refugees driven by religious persecution and starvation to flee to a life in hiding in Northern Manchuria.

“President Bush has led the way on this issue by boldly and rightly declaring North Korea part of an Axis of Evil,” said Rios. “This is a historic day. The Senate has clearly seen evidence that the abuses suffered by the people of North Korea are just as severe as those borne by the people of Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime.”

The North Korea Freedom Coalition is a bipartisan coalition of religious, human rights, non-governmental, Korean and American organizations whose primary purpose is to bring freedom to the North Korean people and to ensure that the human rights component of policy toward North Korea receives priority attention in international negotiations.

"We are a coalition of both the ideological left and right, because on issues of human need and desperation, we can most certainly agree,” Rios said. “We seek to provide safe harbor for North Korean refugees and to provide ways to get information and food to those starving for both. We believe any negotiating with the North Korean regime that says 'you can continue to starve and torture your people as long as you dismantle your weapons of mass destruction' is as unacceptable as it is un-American.”

For Information Contact:
Demi Bardsley
(202) 488-7000, ext. 134
media.cwfa.org

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