Shameful Silence

There's a good article in the JoongAng Daily today about the left's silence on North Korean human rights issues:

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2872334

Here's a few choice howlers from a Mr. Park, "a devoted human rights activist in Seoul." You'll see just how devoted he is in a moment, as he defends silence on rights abuses in the North:

He also contends that the conservatives here are under U.S. influence, saying that Washington has made a “political offensive” of North Korea’s human rights record. He is adamant in using the term “offensive.”“We should remind ourselves,” he said, “that Washington has played a role in bringing about the human right infringements in the North, such as the food shortages, by imposing sanctions.”

He claims that North Korea is a special case. “There is a specific viewpoint needed for North Korean human rights,” he said, “different from that of the general human rights perspective. This is why it is wrong to gauge the North Korean situation by the general perspective.”

“My question here is ‘How verifiable and trustworthy is the information that we have now on the human rights infringements?’”

But because of his skepticism about the reality of such things as starvation and public executions in the North, Mr. Park did concede that there were some issues in North Korea that he would like to look into if he could. “Trans-genders’ and women’s rights,” Mr. Park said, “because there probably are such minorities in the North.”