Senate passes N. Korean Rights Act to fund defectors' settlement

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. Senate has approved legislation to finance for the coming four years efforts to help North Korean defectors settle in the U.S. and promote democracy in the reclusive communist state, sources said
Tuesday.
The North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act cleared the Senate late Monday,
and is awaiting passage by the House of Representatives, possibly in a few days,
the sources said.
The current congressional session will end Friday as lawmakers focus on the Nov.
4 elections.
The extension of the North Korean Human Rights Act, which expires later this
month after a four-year run, calls for "activities to support human rights and
democracy and freedom of information in North Korea," as well as "assistance to
North Koreans who are outside North Korea" and "12-hour broadcasting to North
Korea."
The act, valid until September 2012, also calls for the special envoy on North
Korean human rights issues to be promoted to the rank of ambassador.
Under the current act, the Bush administration appointed an envoy to be in charge
of North Korean human rights affairs and provided financial aid to help improve
North Korea's human rights and accept North Korean defectors.
Since the act went into effect in September 2004, the U.S. has accommodated 63
North Korean defectors. In the first case of its kind, it recently granted
permanent residence to a North Korean defector who was admitted in 2006 via
Thailand.
More than 10,000 North Korean defectors have settled in South Korea since the end
of the Korean War in 1953.
Most North Korean defectors risk deportation and political persecution when
passing through China, which considers North Korean defectors to be economic
migrants rather than refugees under a bilateral agreement with its communist ally
North Korea calling for their immediate deportation.