Defector-turned-pianist to hold recital at State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean defector-turned-pianist will hold a
recital at the U.S. State Department Monday as part of a U.S. effort to help
promote freedom for North Koreans, the department said Sunday.

"Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula J. Dobriansky
and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor David J.
Kramer will host a reception/recital for North Korean dissident and acclaimed
pianist Kim Choel-Woong on Monday, October 6, at 12:15 p.m. in the Benjamin
Franklin Room of the U.S. Department of State," it said in a statement.
"Mr. Kim escaped North Korea in 2001, and now teaches music courses at the
University of Seoul," the statement said. "The event will underscore President
George W. Bush's message of U.S. solidarity with the people of North Korea, and
will highlight Mr. Kim's courageous pursuit of artistic and cultural freedom."
Bush has met with North Korean defectors in recent months and raised the issue of
North Korean human rights in summit talks with South Korean President Lee
Myung-bak and Chinese President Hu Jintao in August, amid criticism he had
stopped short of addressing the issue in an effort to not provoke the North.
In late July, Bush introduced Cho Jin-hae, a 21-year-old woman who defected from
the North, to an audience at a human rights forum here.
"We stand with Cho Jin Hae, who witnessed several of her family members starve to
death in North Korea," Bush said at that time. "She herself was tortured by the
communist authorities."
The U.S. Congress in late September legislated to finance over the next four
years efforts to help North Korean defectors settle in the U.S. and promote
democracy in the reclusive communist state.
The North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act calls for "activities to
support human rights and democracy and freedom of information in North Korea," as
well as assistance to North Koreans living outside the country and regular
12-hour broadcasts to the North.
The act is an extension of a previous version, the North Korean Human Rights Act,
which expired at the end of September after a four-year run.
Under the current act, President George W. Bush appointed in 2005 Jay Lefkowitz,
a former White House aide, as the special envoy on 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 first went into effect in September 2004, the U.S. has accommodated
64 North Korean defectors. In the first case of its kind, the U.S. 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 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 that calls for the immediate
repatriation of all defectors.