US House Passes Bipartisan Bill to Promote Human Rights in North Korea
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – The US House of Representatives on November 20 passed a bipartisan bill to update and reauthorize the 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. With the Act having expired in 2022, US Reps. Young Kim (R-CA) and Ami Bera (D-CA) introduced the bill to renew the legislation.
The US 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act seeks to promote human rights for all North Koreans, including Christians, ICC reports. North Korea ranks 1 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.
The bill will be valid until August 30, 2028. In addition to promoting human rights, the legislation calls for the reunification of Korean American family members with their immediate relatives in North Korea, promoting freedom of information within North Korea, and appointing a special envoy for North Korean human rights should the post remain vacant, ICC reports.
“North Korea’s oppressive regime continues to commit heinous human rights abuses against its own people, including arbitrary detention, forced disappearance, torture, and severe restrictions on freedom of religion and belief,” Rep. Bera said in a statement.
In a website report on the extreme persecution faced by North Korean Christians at the hands of brutal dictator President Kim Jong Un, the Open Doors international Christian advocacy organization explains: “Being discovered to be a Christian in North Korea is effectively a death sentence. Either believers will be deported to labor camps as political criminals, where they face a life of hard labor which few survive, or they are killed on the spot. The same fate awaits family members. There are believed to be tens of thousands of Christians held in labor camps across the country.”
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