Events >> The Democracy Award >> 2003 Democracy Award
  • 2003 Awards Main Page
  • Biographies of Honorees

    Remarks:
  • Senator Jon Kyl
  • Representative Ed Royce
  • Representative Joseph R. Pitts
  • Emmanuel A. Kampouris
  • Pierre Rigoulot & Robert Pépin
  • Masaharu Nakagawa & Hwang, Woo Yea
  • Awardee Benjamin Yoon


    Event Program:

    Opening Remarks
    ICPNKR Parliamentary Roundtable on the North Korean Refugee Crisis: Members of the International Parliamentarians’ Coalition for North Korean Human Rights and Refugees and Members of the U.S. Congress discuss policy recommendations for managing the refugee crisis.

    Remarks:
  • U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
  • Andrew Natsios, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development
  • Pierre Rigoulot and Robert Pépin, French Committee to Help the Population of North Korea

    Panel I: The North Korean Gulag: The Testimony of Three Survivors
  • Gulag Survivors: Soon Ok Lee, An Hyuk, and Kang Cheol-hwan
  • Benjamin Yoon, Founder of the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights

    Panel II: Documenting the North Korean Gulag
  • David Hawk, Researcher, U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
  • Jack Rendler, Vice Chairman, U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
  • Anne Applebaum, Editorial Board, The Washington Post, and author of Gulag: A History
  • Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

    Reception and Presentation of the National Endowment for Democracy’s 2003 Democracy Award
    		•  Benjamin H. Yoon,
    Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights,
    2003 Democracy Award Recipient

    First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to NED President Carl Gershman, who has lent his enthusiastic support to our [Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights] work for the past five years; and to Senator Sam Brownback, who has presented me with such a precious award as the Democracy Award; and to all of you, ladies and gentlemen, who are present here.

    Often times, today, the Korean War is called "a forgotten war." But, in reality, it is not true. I recently lent a hand in bringing back two South Koreans who escaped North Korea. They were captured by the North Korean military during the war, were not repatriated when the POWs of both sides were exchanged, and were detained in North Korean for over 50 years. To them, the Korean War has just come to an end, and yet there are several thousands of South Korean POWs in North Korea who have never returned.

    Upon my arrival in Washington, D.C., I went straight to the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I thought about the "March on Washington" of 1963, which was a great inspiration to me. That is when I realized that freedom was not something one gets for free, but something that must be fought for, and that, in order to fight for it, one had to take action. I soon joined the anti-dictatorship movement, and in 1972, I established the Amnesty International (AI) Korean Section and started participation in the international human rights movement as the AI Korean Section's executive director. And in 1996, after democracy found its place and human rights conditions started to improve considerably in South Korea, I launched a movement for the improvement of North Korean human rights.

    Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. did, I, too have a dream. I dream that one day, North and South Korea will reunify under a liberal, democratic system and everyone will enjoy freedom and prosperity. To advance that day, I am not only engaged in the work of condemning the North Korean human rights situation before the international community, I offer South Korean teenagers the opportunity to mingle with their counterparts from North Korea and provide them with human rights education. "We learn to love and we love to learn." This is their slogan, and hundreds of South Korean teenagers are taking part in this movement. This movement may be a trivial one now, but I have no doubt that it will make a great contribution to the future of a reunified Korea someday. Thank you very much.

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