Rights Activists to Stage Protest in N.Korea

A group of human rights activists will attempt to stage a protest in North Korea after gaining access to the Stalinist country ostensibly to make up audience numbers for the “Arirang” mass calisthenics performance.

The maverick human rights advocate Norbert Vollertsen said during a conference on North Korea’s human rights violations at the National Assembly the same day that the protest was planned in detail.

Asked about the chances of the protest going ahead, Vollertsen put them at an optimistic 100 percent. The German doctor,

who spent 18 months traveling around North Korea as an honored guest of the regime, said protesters would not go to extremes like burning North Korean flags. Instead, what would be the first demonstration by foreigners in North Korea would focus on the display of images symbolizing the country’s human rights problem, he said.

Vollertsen arrived here on Wednesday to join a Korean medical team that will be dispatched to quake-stricken Pakistan. He was expelled from Korea when his visa expired in May.

(englishnews@chosun.com )