North Korea Freedom Week 2016

(April 24 – April 30, 2016)

Organized by the North Korea Freedom Coalition in cooperation with Free North Korea Radio and other North Korean defector and South Korean NGOs;

History: North Korea Freedom Week is an annual event held for the specific purpose of promoting the freedom, human rights and dignity of the North Korean people through raising awareness and action. It was first established in 2004 as a single day to galvanize public support in the United States for the North Korea Human Rights Act. On April 28, 2004, the first North Korea Freedom Day, one thousand people came to Capitol Hill in support of North Korea’s freedom and human rights. It was the largest gathering for North Korea that had ever been held outside the Korean peninsula and Members of Congress credited that day with leading to the unanimous passage of the North Korea Human Rights Act.

The following year the event was expanded to a week featuring rallies, Congressional hearings, the North Korea genocide exhibit, film screenings and many different events. It was held in Washington DC up through 2009. During that period it gave North Korean defectors the opportunity to meet with the President of the United States, led the U.S. Congress to host hearings featuring eyewitnesses who testified on North Korea’s political prison camps, the trafficking of North Korean women in China, North Korea’s involvement in abducting South Korean and Japanese citizens, South Korean POWs still being held in North Korea, North Korea’s persecution of Christians and its illicit and illegal activities.

In 2010, it was moved to Seoul, South Korea and hosted by North Korean defectors, many of whom had been part of the visiting delegations to NKFW in the U.S. It is being held in Seoul again this year.

NKFW 2016: This year’s North Korea Freedom Week will focus on the roles of North Koreans for the fall of Kim Jung Eun’s Regime. It will also focus on the roles and responsibilities of North Koreans after justice.