N. Korea should open to public 9 teenagers deported from Laos

North Korean propaganda website Uriminzokkiri TV released a video of four among nine North Korean teenagers deported back to the North from Laos in May last year. Via a video titled "Whereabouts of teenagers who were kidnapped by South Korea but came home thereafter," the website TV said, "These nine teenagers are living a happy life." This is in response to South Korean and U.S. human rights activists` claims of possible execution of two teenager defectors, but the North`s propaganda can`t be trusted before all nine of them are opened to public.

Chairman Park Sun-young of Dream Makers for North Korea claimed on last Monday, "Two among nine teenagers deported back were executed." Suzanne Scholte, chairman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, said she also heard the news of their execution. Most of the nine defectors were orphans who couldn`t able to withstand hard life. While living with a South Korean pastor for three years in China, they attempted to escape to the South but were arrested in Laos and deported back to the North. North Korea had them appear at a TV in June last year and made them make a lie to say, "We were rescued after having been kidnapped by South Korea."

North Korea showed just four of the nine teenagers but didn`t open up the time of video shooting. Among the five the North didn`t disclose included Moon Chul whom Chairman Park claimed of having been executed. There is no reason for the North not to show them if they were not executed.

The international efforts to urge North Korea to enhance human rights of its people have mobilized even the U.N. The U.N. Security Council will officially adopt this month North Korean human rights as agenda. Even if China and Russia, permanent U.N. member countries, exercise veto to founder detailed measures, it is still a major step that the council discusses North Korean human rights and adopts a resolution to send the issue from the third committee of the General Assembly to the International Criminal Court. North Korea`s response to denouncement of international organizations including the U.N. is an effort to prevent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from being called to the International Criminal Court.

Ed Royce, chairman of U.S. House of Representatives Committee of Foreign Affairs, will attend a press conference Wednesday along with Scholte at the U.S. Capitol. Royce will urge prompt passage of the law to strengthen sanctions against the North Korean government that is currently mooring at the Senate after unanimously having been passed the House. The international community should continue its pressure until North Koreans discontinues its human rights abuse.