Search Results for: Aijalon Gomes

Free Aijalon Gomes

It should go without saying that I am in sympathy with the goals of Robert Park and Aijalon Gomes, and in complete disagreement that they advanced those goals through their quixotic walks into North Korea. Most people today only remember Park for his bizarre confession and his crypic references to the sort of sexual torture that, without knowing more, sounded like something more than a few of us have purchased for our friends at bachelor parties in our boorish youth....

North Korean “Court” Sentences Aijalon Gomes to 8 Years at Hard Labor

North Korea’s sham legal system has sentenced U.S. citizen Aijalon Gomes to 8 years at hard labor and a ransom fine of $70,000 for walking across the border into North Korea. An American has been sentenced to eight years of hard labor and fined the equivalent of $700,000 for illegal entry into North Korea. Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 30, who had taught English in South Korea, is the fourth U.S. citizen in the past year to walk into North Korea from...

Aijalon Gomes Doesn’t Sound Much Like a Defector After All

Update, 24 March 2010: Well, KCJ’s first guess turns out to have been right. A Boston man detained in North Korea is a quiet, devout Christian so concerned about an American missionary held in Pyongyang that he was moved to tears at rallies protesting the communist regime, fellow activists said Wednesday. North Korea announced Monday that Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 30, would stand trial after entering the country illegally. The trial date was not mentioned in a brief report in state...

2016 Defense Authorization Act would define N. Korea as state sponsor of terrorism

On Sunday, I spotted this interesting Yonhap headline: “U.S. defense bill calls N. Korea terror sponsor.” Given my own recent work on this subject, I was curious about the effect of this provision, so I pulled up the text of the bill, H.R. 1735, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016. The versions on Thomas and Congress.gov don’t yet reflect the amendment, but clues from the Yonhap piece led me to the amendment in question, offered by Rep....

North Korea Gets Another Free Chip

While we don’t know any of the details, and so  my resigned sigh might turn out to have been unfair,  I cannot say  it  surprised  me this morning to learn  that there are still American citizens capable of getting themselves arrested in and around North Korea despite this, this and this, not to mention this, and it will surprise  me even less  should I  find that the North Koreans use it  as a way to try and undercut the ongoing...

Jimmy Carter’s Trip to North Korea Was a Raging Success, and Here’s Why

First, Carter brought Aijalon Gomes home. Second, he apparently gave away nothing in exchange. Third, he felt so snubbed he hasn’t even been on the talk show / op-ed circuit (at least not yet, fingers crossed) telling everyone how prepared North Korea really is for dialogue. Fourth, Carter’s apparently intentional snubbing has demonstrated to most vaguely reasonable minds that North Korea is not ready for dialogue, and that not even Carter’s generous assistance to North Korea’s nuclear program has earned...

Being a Fascist Still Shouldn’t Be a Crime

Next time you see press coverage that characterizes the “Reverend” Han Song Ryol as a “liberal” or “peace activist,” his own words will add to your insight about just how tortured the words “liberal” and “peace” have been at the meaty hands of some correspondents. How does one apply such words to an avowed supporter of the world’s most belligerent and least liberal regime? “Our land and people in the North are armed with weaponry far more powerful than nuclear...

Nothing Good Can Possibly Come of This

I posit the following: Jimmy Carter would not have agreed to go to North Korea had North Korea not agreed to release Aijalon Gomes. The North Koreans know Carter is the best friend they have in this country, and not even they are foolish enough to humiliate him by sending him home empty handed. I also posit that North Korea would not have induced Carter’s visit without the expectation of some benefit to the regime. At a minimum, they can...

That’s funny, I thought North Korea liked the idea of unification. The traitor talked about “unification tax,” sheer nonsense, at a time when the situation prevailing in Korea is so tense that a war may break out any moment. This is no more than sophism let loose by an idiot who knows nothing about reunification, insensitive to what is happening in the world and ignorant of the inter-Korean relations, a profiteer who knows nothing but money and a political imbecile....

North Korea raised the stakes in its face-off with the United States and South Korea on Saturday, threatening to use nuclear weapons if Washington and Seoul go ahead with military exercises planned for regional waters this summer. [WaPo] President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 to reward it for giving up its nuclear weapons, and as of June 23, 2010, President Obama saw no particular reason to disturb that decision....

Smart Diplomacy! Obama Commemorates Korean War Anniversary by Keeping N. Korea Off the Terror List

I believe American citizens owe the presidents they collectively elect a clean-slate judgment that begins at the moment when they assume office. Never mind what they said during the campaign; it’s the actions of a president in office by which we judge him. And on North Korea policy — without comment on his other policies — I’ve tried to be objective in judging President Obama; perhaps because of my low expectations, I’ve found much to praise in his actions since...

At Last, China Regrets June 4th Shootings!

And obviously, I refer to the killings of three Chinese citizens and the wounding of a fourth by North Korean border guards: Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang, briefing reporters in Beijing, said the shooting incident occurred in the early morning hours of June 4, around the northeastern town of Dandong, when the Chinese civilians crossed into North Korea to engage in illicit trading, common along the 880-mile border. South Korean and Japanese media reported that the Chinese were in a...

Tremble, Commies!

Forwarded by a friend: WASHINGTON, D.C. ““ Today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) issued the following statement in response to the conviction of American Aijalon Gomes by a North Korean court. Senator Kerry called on the DPRK to release Mr. Gomes immediately on a humanitarian basis: “This is a mother’s worst nightmare and a horrific situation. This young man belongs in Massachusetts with his family, and I join with them in expressing my hope that North Korea...

If there was ever any cognizable justice in holding Gomes in a prison cell for peacefully presenting a petition to North Korean border guards, it ended months ago. North Korea says an American man being held for illegally crossing its border has tried to kill himself. A statement issued by the regime’s official Korean Central News Agency says Aijalon Mahli Gomes’ suicide attempt was “driven by his strong guilty conscience,” plus disappointment and despair that the U.S. government “has not...

Statement from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on North Korea Freedom Week

Dear People of both South and North Korea, Members of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, Ms. Scholte of the Defense Forum Foundation, Members of the NGO Human Rights Community, Pastors, North Korean Defectors, Abductee Families, Members of the Korean-American Community and Friends of Korea: It is particularly fitting and proper that this year’s annual North Korea Freedom Week will be held for the first time on the Korean peninsula. This week of events also comes at a particularly critical time...