A Seoul-based North Korean defectors' group on Thursday called for the designation of April 15, the late North Korean founder Kim Il-sung's birthday, as a commemorative day for defectors worldwide.
Ahn Chan-il, the head of the private World Institute for North Korean Studies, made the proposal at a press conference in Seoul.
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(Yonhap) |
"It's about time we had a day for people who fled North Korea," he said.
He said Kim's birthday, called the Day of the Sun, is observed as the biggest national holiday in North Korea, but for defectors it is the day calamity was brought upon the Korean people.
"We have designated the day as a commemorative day for 30,000 North Korean defectors as part of efforts to put an end to the three-generation dictatorship of the Kim family," Ahn said. He fled the North in 1979 and earned a doctorate in South Korea.
"On April 15 every year, North Korean defectors around the world get together in Seoul to expose the North Korean regime's serious human rights abuses and engage in a variety of activities for Korean reunification."
Some 250 North Korean defectors living in and outside South Korea attended the press conference.
They issued a statement saying they would speak for 24 million North Korean people and make efforts to let them know about the outside world. They vowed to fight until the collapse of the North Korean regime which spends enormously on developing nuclear weapons while not caring for its residents. (Yonhap)
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