NKFW 2025

22ND NORTH KOREA FREEDOM WEEK June 8-14, 2025:

Remembering the Disappeared, Calling for Greater International Cooperation for the Human Rights of North Koreans

(Seoul)…For the first time, the annual North Korea Freedom Week will be held in Europe June 8-14 to release the Berlin Declaration, a call for greater international cooperation to address the ongoing horrific North Korea human rights situation, and to release a new report Remembering the Disappeared. The report includes eyewitness testimony documenting 70 cases of North Koreans who disappeared into North Korea’s political prisons for crimes ranging from attempting to defect to South Korea to being a part of an underground church, and spans thirty years. Many of the testimonies are being told for the first time.

“The political prison camps represent the deepest abyss of human rights violations in North Korea,” said Kim Seong Min, Founder of Free North Korea Radio. “For over two decades, we have placed this issue at the heart of North Korea Freedom Week, securing resolutions at the United Nations and the European Parliament, and fighting tirelessly to open the gates of truth. Yet the screams of those still imprisoned continue, and the pain of defectors who have lost their families remains unceasing.”

According to NKFW Co-Chair Jang Sei Ul who helped compile testimonies, “This report was prepared as part of an urgent effort to officially inform the international community of the existence of individuals in North Korea who, having been designated as political prisoners and forcibly detained, have not even been confirmed to be alive—and to lay the groundwork for structural remembrance and the pursuit of justice for them.”

The individuals described in Remembering the Disappeared were all ordinary people living with legal identities and recognizable faces in their communities, but once they were detained by North Korea’s security agencies and transferred to prison camps, all traces of their existence were erased from public records and administrative systems, and no confirmation of life or death has been provided since.

The reality of North Korean-style enforced disappearance follows a highly systematized cycle of state violence: arbitrary detention, secret investigation, punishment without trial, long-term imprisonment in camps, and the erasure of existence. “This is clearly not just individual suffering—it is a state-run criminal mechanism designed to eliminate citizens and erase them from collective memory,” explained Jang who plans to deliver the report to members of the European Parliament, the German Parliament, Media Outlets, and NGOs during North Korea Freedom Week.

 “Since we are hosting NKFW for the first time in Europe, we are very grateful to our European friends and allies who have been so welcoming of our delegation,” said NKFC Chair Suzanne Scholte. “Now that Kim Jong Un is aiding and abetting Vladimir Putin’s brutal war crimes in Europe, we especially wanted to show our solidarity with the Ukrainian people. It is very meaningful that we will begin the week in Berlin, once a divided city have free and have slave which is now free and united,” she added.

The first day of North Korea Freedom Week will begin with a wreath laying ceremony at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, who also were “disappeared” to be followed by the reading of the Berlin Declaration, a document signed by over 170 NGOs that calls for specific actions to address the ongoing atrocities being committed against the North Korean people by the Kim regime. The week will wrap up in Brussels.

North Korea Freedom Week is an annual event held to promote the freedom, human rights and dignity of the North Korean people that first began in 2004 and has been held in Washington, D.C., or Seoul every year. This is the first time it will be held in Europe. NKFW was established and co-chaired by Suzanne Scholte (North Korea Freedom Coalition) and Kim Seong Min (Free North Korea Radio). 

Confirmed Schedule (as of 6/4)

 June 8th Sunday (Berlin)

Visit to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Opening Ceremony at the Berlin Wall: Reading of the Berlin Declaration

Opening Church Service

Meeting with the Korean Community: German & Korean Unifications

June 9th Monday (Berlin)

NGO Policy Roundtable

Prayer Gatherings in front of the Chinese and North Korean Embassies

June 10th Tuesday (Berlin)

Press Conference and Official Visit to the Korean Embassy in Berlin

North Korean Human Rights Photo Exhibition at Pariser Platz

Private Meeting with the German Foreign Affairs Ministry

Berlin Human Rights Dialogue with North Korean Defectors

June 11th Wednesday (Brussels)

Press Conference and Official Visit to the Korean Embassy in Brussels

Private Meetings with European Union Parliamentarians

June 12th Thursday (Brussels)

North Korean Human Rights Photo Exhibition at EU Square

Private Meetings with EEAS

June 13th Friday (Brussels)

Private Meeting with Missions

“Human Rights & Korean Unification” with Brussels Korean Community

June 14th Saturday (Brussels)

Private Meetings NKFW Delegation

The 22nd North Korea Freedom Week Host Committee

Composed of approximately 170 North Korean human rights organizations from Korea, the U.S., Canada, and Japan, including the North Korean Human Rights NGO Council led by Son Gwang-Ju (Standing Representative), the North Korean Human Rights Organization led by Chairman Kim Tae-Hoon, the North Korean Defectors’ Human Rights Association led by Hu Kang-Il (Standing Representative), and the National North Korean Defectors’ Association led by Jang Sei-Ul (Standing Representative)Leading Organization: NKPLF

The 22nd North Korea Freedom Week Delegation   

Suzanne Scholte (Chair of the North Korea Freedom Coalition): Founder of North Korea Freedom Week which she has co-chaired with Kim Seong Min since 2004. Contributed to the enactment of the North Korean Human Rights Act in the U.S. Seoul Peace Prize Laureate

Hu Kang-Il, Park Sang-Hak, and Lee Si-Young: Heads of North Korean Defector Organizations. Information Campaign. International Solidarity.

Ju Ui-Jong: Representative of the Families of Victims of Christian Persecution and Political Prisoners

Jang Sei-Ul, Lee Byung-Rim, Jung Bo-Kyung, Bae Kwang-Min, Woo Young-Bok, and Lee Yoon-Seo: Witnesses of Families of Political Prisoners and Victims of Forcible Repatriation

Nancy Purcell and Johnny Park: Event Recording and Interpretation

Kim Chun-Young (Lee Sun-Ok), Yang Si-Yun, and Kim Ka-Young: Witness, Event Management and Public Relations, and Administration