SEOUL PEACE PRIZE COMMITTEE
Olympic Park 88-2, Bangi-dong,
Songpa-gu, Seoul 138-050 Korea
Tel: (02) 2203-4096/8 Fax: (02) 417-1982
Press Release
Ms. Suzanne Scholte Wins Seoul
Peace Prize 2008
Seoul – September 3: Ms. Suzanne Scholte was named the recipient of the 2008 Seoul Peace
Prize.
The Seoul
Peace Prize Committee (President, Chul-Seung LEE)
held the final screening committee meeting on September 3 at the Korea Press
Center and announced that Ms. Suzanne Scholte, a
human rights activist and the president of the Defense Forum Foundation, was
selected as the 9th Seoul Peace Prize laureate in recognition of her
contribution to world peace she has made while working to promote the freedom
and human rights of the North Korean people and the status of the Sahrawi
refugees in West Sahara.
President
Lee said that the selection committee, comprised of 15 members from various
fields in the nation, decided to award Ms. Scholte
after a rigorous and careful screening process. The nominated candidates included
incumbent and former presidents, politicians, international human rights and
rescue organizations, and the leaders from the economic sector, religious
groups, academia and the press.
After
starting her career as the youngest-ever adviser to a U.S. legislator, Ms. Scholte, the mother of three children, has served as
president and chairwoman of human rights organizations such as the Defense
Forum Foundation and the North Korea Freedom Coalition and has shown special
interests in the human rights situations in North Korea. In particular, when South Korea was intentionally neglecting the
human rights issues of North
Korea in consideration of political
relations while studying the Chinese face, Ms. Scholte
addressed the North Korean human rights issues in a decisive manner and focused
on unveiling the realities facing North Korean refugees around the globe and
working out measures to improve such realities.
Since
1996, Ms. Scholte has engaged in the efforts to
improve human rights conditions in North Korea and such efforts
finally led to the first hearing on the North Korean political prisoner camps
in April of 1999 at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on
East Asian and Pacific Affairs. She testified at the hearing. She also hosted
the first appearance in the United States
of survivors of North Korea’s
brutal political prisoner camps, Chul-Hwan Kang, Myong-Chul Ahn, and Soon-Ok Lee.
She has raised the international awareness of the human rights situations in North Korea by testifying on the realities of
the human rights violations and political prisoner camps in North Korea and the sufferings of North Korean
defectors hiding in China
before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom. In 2003, she also hosted the appearance of Mr. Jang-Yop Hwang, North Korea’s
highest ranking defector, on Capital Hill, playing a leading role in getting
the realities of the Kim Jong-il regime across the United States
and the rest of the world.
To help
galvanize support for the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004, Ms. Scholte chaired and organized the first North Korea Freedom
Day in April 2004 in Washington,
D.C. The program included a
Capital Hill rally attended by over 1,000 people, Congressional hearing, and
demonstration at the Holocaust
Museum, building the
momentum that led to the unanimous passage of the North Korea Human Rights Act.
Ms. Scholte has helped organize numerous Congressional hearings
and briefings on North Korea.
During North Korea Freedom Week 2006 and 2007, members of the U.S. Congress
hosted hearings to expose North Korea’s
illicit activities, the regime’s involvement with abducting citizens of Japan, and its
continual holding of POWs from the Korean War. In addition, she hosted the largest
delegation of defectors ever to visit the United States during North Korea
Freedom Week in April 2008.
In an
effort to protest against the repatriation of North Korean refugees hiding in China to North
Korea, Ms. Scholte conducted a
campaign to wear rubber bracelets with a slogan of ‘Freedom to North Koreans’
during the 2008 Summer Olympics Games in Beijing,
playing a leading part in raising the international awareness of the North
Korean human rights issues. In addition, she has promoted the adoption of
orphans of North Korean refugees while revealing their miserable conditions to
the world and working to help improve their human rights.
Prior to
her engagement in the promotion of freedom and human rights for the people of North Korea, Ms. Scholte
worked to promote the awareness of human rights violations in Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Her work for the people of the two countries led her to recognize the serious
human rights conditions in North
Korea. In 1996, she first launched a program
to bring defectors from North Korea
to the United States to
raise awareness of the human rights violations in North Korea through forums and
seminars. The testimonies in the United States
by the North Korean defectors in turn helped her make her mind again to work harder
to disclose the miserable human rights situations in North Korea to the world.
Ms. Scholte’s human rights activities and concerns are not
confined to North Korea
and North Korean defectors. She also has been working to raise awareness of the
issue of the Western Sahara and the plight of
the Sahrawi people. Western Sahara is the only colony in Africa under the rule
of Morocco.
Ms. Scholte made a petition to the U.N. General
Assembly so that the U.N. could address the issues of the Sahrawi refugees and
a referendum on their self-determination. She has been advocating the need for
a free and fair U.N.-sponsored referendum for the Sahrawi people and working on
enhancing awareness of the seriousness nature of the Western
Sahara across the international community.
As a
human rights activist, Ms. Scholte has shown
unlimited affection and interest in refugees across the globe whose human
rights are not respected properly. Although she is interested in both the North
Korean and Sahrawi refugees, it seems to her that the human rights situations
facing North Koreans and North Korean refugees are more serious and severer.
This has forced her to more concentrate on the North Korean issues even though
she still believes that the Sahrawi people are also in desperate need, which
leads us to imagine difficulties facing her as a human rights activist.
At a time
when countries are purposely neglecting the human rights conditions in North Korea for
their political interests, Ms. Scholte has taken the
lead in raising awareness of the miserable plight of North Korean refugees and
encouraged the refugees who are seeking freedom. Highly evaluating these
activities as a rare courageous achievement, President Lee said that, for all
these reasons, Ms. Scholte was finally selected as
the winner of the 9th Seoul Peace Prize.
Upon
hearing the news of her selection as the laureate, Ms. Scholte
said, “I feel ashamed but also I feel honored. It is a great honor to receive
this great prize even when I just did what I should do.” “Doing all that we can
do for the promotion of the human rights for North Korea and North
Korean refugees represents the conscience of the age,” she added.
Ms. Scholte will formally receive a diploma, a plaque and an
honorarium of US$200,000 at an awarding ceremony to be held on October 7 in Seoul. From this year, a
certificate of honorary Seoul
citizenship will also be awarded to the laureate.
The
previous winners of the Seoul Peace Prize, which has been awarded biennially
from 1990, include former International Olympic Committee President Juan
Antonio Samaranch, former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Doctors
Without Borders, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata, Oxfam, former
President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, and Dr. Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank of
Bangladesh. Of them, Doctors Without Borders,
Secretary-General Annan and Dr. Yunus later became
the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, respectively.
September
3, 2008
Statement
of Suzanne Scholte Regarding Acceptance of the Seoul Peace Prize
(Washington, DC)
..."I am deeply honored to have been selected by the Seoul Peace Prize
Committee to receive the 2008 Seoul Peace Prize. To be recognized by such a distinguished
group of Korean leaders who have been champions in academia, government
service, journalism and other fields for this prestigious and internationally
recognized award, is truly humbling. It
is also humbling to join alongside the previous laureates and to reflect on
what this award symbolizes in promoting peace and harmony as was symbolized by
the Seoul Olympic Games of 1988, which brought together more nations than ever
before to participate in the Olympics.
I wish to
accept this great honor on behalf of the people for which I have devoted much
of my life: the North Korean defectors who are valiantly working for freedom,
democracy and human rights for their homeland, and the Sahrawi refugees of
Western Sahara, who are seeking self-determination and the right to live as a
free people through peaceful and democratic means.
By
recognizing my work through this award, you also honor them for they have
inspired me in all my efforts and given me the strength and endurance to
continue this work despite many trials, setbacks and difficulties. Those, however, are nothing compared to the
enormous challenges and suffering the people of North Korea and Western Sahara
face in their daily lives.
You also
honor all those activists for human rights who, rather
than seek popularity, fame and fortune, devote their lives to seeking freedom
and justice for those who are enslaved.
We are all driven by a simple belief that every human being whether born
in Pyongyang or Seoul
or in a refugee camp in the Sahara desert has
the God-given right to freedom, human rights and dignity. World peace and harmony is achievable when
these God-given rights are secure and all men and women can pursue their dreams
without being enslaved by dictators, military juntas, or kings.
I thank
Chairman Chul Seung Lee and
all the members of the Seoul Peace Prize Committee for this tremendous honor
and look forward to being with you in October.
Suzanne Scholte
President
Defense
Forum Foundation
Seoul
Peace Prize website http://www.seoulpeaceprize.or.kr/english/subm02.html