H. R. 4011
One Hundred Eighth Congress
of the
United States of America
AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
the twentieth day of January, two thousand and four
An Act
To promote human rights and freedom in the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘North Korean Human Rights
Act of 2004’’.
SEC. 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS.
The table of contents for this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title.
Sec. 2. Table of contents.
Sec. 3. Findings.
Sec. 4. Purposes.
Sec. 5. Definitions.
TITLE I—PROMOTING THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF NORTH KOREANS
Sec. 101. Sense of Congress regarding negotiations with North Korea.
Sec. 102. Support for human rights and democracy programs.
Sec. 103. Radio broadcasting to North Korea.
Sec. 104. Actions to promote freedom of information.
Sec. 105. United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Sec. 106. Establishment of regional framework.
Sec. 107. Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea.
TITLE II—ASSISTING NORTH KOREANS IN NEED
Sec. 201. Report on United States humanitarian assistance.
Sec. 202. Assistance provided inside North Korea.
Sec. 203. Assistance provided outside of North Korea.
TITLE III—PROTECTING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES
Sec. 301. United States policy toward refugees and defectors.
Sec. 302. Eligibility for refugee or asylum consideration.
Sec. 303. Facilitating submission of applications for admission as a refugee.
Sec. 304. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Sec. 305. Annual reports.
SEC. 3. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) According to the Department of State, the Government
of North Korea is ‘‘a dictatorship under the absolute rule of
Kim Jong Il’’ that continues to commit numerous, serious
human rights abuses.
(2) The Government of North Korea attempts to control
all information, artistic expression, academic works, and media
activity inside North Korea and strictly curtails freedom of
speech and access to foreign broadcasts.
(3) The Government of North Korea subjects all its citizens
to systematic, intensive political and ideological indoctrination
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in support of the cult of personality glorifying Kim Jong Il
and the late Kim Il Sung that approaches the level of a state
religion.
(4) The Government of North Korea divides its population
into categories, based on perceived loyalty to the leadership,
which determines access to food, employment, higher education,
place of residence, medical facilities, and other resources.
(5) According to the Department of State, ‘‘[t]he [North
Korean] Penal Code is [d]raconian, stipulating capital punish-
ment and confiscation of assets for a wide variety of ‘crimes
against the revolution,’ including defection, attempted defection,
slander of the policies of the Party or State, listening to foreign
broadcasts, writing ‘reactionary’ letters, and possessing reac-
tionary printed matter’’.
(6) The Government of North Korea executes political pris-
oners, opponents of the regime, some repatriated defectors,
some members of underground churches, and others, sometimes
at public meetings attended by workers, students, and school-
children.
(7) The Government of North Korea holds an estimated
200,000 political prisoners in camps that its State Security
Agency manages through the use of forced labor, beatings,
torture, and executions, and in which many prisoners also
die from disease, starvation, and exposure.
(8) According to eyewitness testimony provided to the
United States Congress by North Korean camp survivors, camp
inmates have been used as sources of slave labor for the produc-
tion of export goods, as targets for martial arts practice, and
as experimental victims in the testing of chemical and biological
poisons.
(9) According to credible reports, including eyewitness testi-
mony provided to the United States Congress, North Korean
Government officials prohibit live births in prison camps, and
forced abortion and the killing of newborn babies are standard
prison practices.
(10) According to the Department of State, ‘‘[g]enuine reli-
gious freedom does not exist in North Korea’’ and, according
to the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom, ‘‘[t]he North Korean state severely represses public
and private religious activities’’ with penalties that reportedly
include arrest, imprisonment, torture, and sometimes execution.
(11) More than 2,000,000 North Koreans are estimated
to have died of starvation since the early 1990s because of
the failure of the centralized agricultural and public distribution
systems operated by the Government of North Korea.
(12) According to a 2002 United Nations-European Union
survey, nearly one out of every ten children in North Korea
suffers from acute malnutrition and four out of every ten chil-
dren in North Korea are chronically malnourished.
(13) Since 1995, the United States has provided more than
2,000,000 tons of humanitarian food assistance to the people
of North Korea, primarily through the World Food Program.
(14) Although United States food assistance has undoubt-
edly saved many North Korean lives and there have been
minor improvements in transparency relating to the distribu-
tion of such assistance in North Korea, the Government of
North Korea continues to deny the World Food Program forms
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of access necessary to properly monitor the delivery of food
aid, including the ability to conduct random site visits, the
use of native Korean-speaking employees, and travel access
throughout North Korea.
(15) The risk of starvation, the threat of persecution, and
the lack of freedom and opportunity in North Korea have caused
large numbers, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of North
Koreans to flee their homeland, primarily into China.
(16) North Korean women and girls, particularly those
who have fled into China, are at risk of being kidnapped,
trafficked, and sexually exploited inside China, where many
are sold as brides or concubines, or forced to work as prostitutes.
(17) The Governments of China and North Korea have
been conducting aggressive campaigns to locate North Koreans
who are in China without permission and to forcibly return
them to North Korea, where they routinely face torture and
imprisonment, and sometimes execution.
(18) Despite China’s obligations as a party to the 1951
United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees,
China routinely classifies North Koreans seeking asylum in
China as mere ‘‘economic migrants’’ and returns them to North
Korea without regard to the serious threat of persecution they
face upon their return.
(19) The Government of China does not provide North
Koreans whose asylum requests are rejected a right to have
the rejection reviewed prior to deportation despite its obliga-
tions under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees.
(20) North Koreans who seek asylum while in China are
routinely imprisoned and tortured, and in some cases killed,
after they are returned to North Korea.
(21) The Government of China has detained, convicted,
and imprisoned foreign aid workers attempting to assist North
Korean refugees in proceedings that did not comply with Chi-
nese law or international standards.
(22) In January 2000, North Korean agents inside China
allegedly abducted the Reverend Kim Dong-shik, a United
States permanent resident and advocate for North Korean refu-
gees, whose condition and whereabouts remain unknown.
(23) Between 1994 and 2003, South Korea has admitted
approximately 3,800 North Korean refugees for domestic
resettlement, a number that is small in comparison with the
total number of North Korean escapees but far greater than
the number legally admitted in any other country.
(24) Although the principal responsibility for North Korean
refugee resettlement naturally falls to the Government of South
Korea, the United States should play a leadership role in
focusing international attention on the plight of these refugees,
and formulating international solutions to that profound
humanitarian dilemma.
(25) In addition to infringing the rights of its own citizens,
the Government of North Korea has been responsible in years
past for the abduction of numerous citizens of South Korea
and Japan, whose condition and whereabouts remain unknown.
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SEC. 4. PURPOSES.
The purposes of this Act are—
(1) to promote respect for and protection of fundamental
human rights in North Korea;
(2) to promote a more durable humanitarian solution to
the plight of North Korean refugees;
(3) to promote increased monitoring, access, and trans-
parency in the provision of humanitarian assistance inside
North Korea;
(4) to promote the free flow of information into and out
of North Korea; and
(5) to promote progress toward the peaceful reunification
of the Korean peninsula under a democratic system of govern-
ment.
SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES.—The term
‘‘appropriate congressional committees’’ means—
(A) the Committee on International Relations of the
House of Representatives; and
(B) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.
(2) CHINA.—The term ‘‘China’’ means the People’s Republic
of China.
(3) HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE.—The term ‘‘humanitarian
assistance’’ means assistance to meet humanitarian needs,
including needs for food, medicine, medical supplies, clothing,
and shelter.
(4) NORTH KOREA.—The term ‘‘North Korea’’ means the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
(5) NORTH KOREANS.—The term ‘‘North Koreans’’ means
persons who are citizens or nationals of North Korea.
(6) SOUTH KOREA.—The term ‘‘South Korea’’ means the
Republic of Korea.
TITLE I—PROMOTING THE HUMAN
RIGHTS OF NORTH KOREANS
SEC. 101. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING NEGOTIATIONS WITH
NORTH KOREA.
It is the sense of Congress that the human rights of North
Koreans should remain a key element in future negotiations
between the United States, North Korea, and other concerned par-
ties in Northeast Asia.
SEC. 102. SUPPORT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY PROGRAMS.
(a) SUPPORT.—The President is authorized to provide grants
to private, nonprofit organizations to support programs that pro-
mote human rights, democracy, rule of law, and the development
of a market economy in North Korea. Such programs may include
appropriate educational and cultural exchange programs with North
Korean participants, to the extent not otherwise prohibited by law.
(b) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—There are authorized to be appropriated
to the President $2,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 2005
through 2008 to carry out this section.