The South Korean government should maintain its principled stance and consistently include a strong human rights agenda in all future dealings with North Korea, Human Rights Watch and three other nongovernmental organizations said today in a letter to the South Korean unification minister, Hyun In-taek.

In a joint letter, Human Rights Watch, Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, and the Society to Help Returnees to North Korea urge the South Korean government to make human rights a central priority in all dealings with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and to maintain a solid and principled stance on rights issues, irrespective of the state of inter-Korea relations.

In a letter to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea in advance of an upcoming conference on Korea's E-2 Teaching Visa policy, Human Rights Watch urges the commission to find the current policy discriminatory and to recommend abolition of its HIV testing requirement.

Despite the deteriorating relations between North and South Korea since early last year, the Gaeseong Industrial Complex remained largely unchanged.

South Korea's restrictions on entry, stay and residence for people living with HIV broadly violate international human rights law provisions banning discrimination and upholding equality.

NGOs around the world call Sri Lanka's defeat in today's Human Rights Council elections a victory for the UN body.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak should use the occasion of the Olympic torch’s passage in Seoul on April 27 to urge Beijing to stop arresting and repatriating North Korean refugees in China.

Today in Pyongyang, the New York Philharmonic, the most prominent U.S. cultural institution ever to visit North Korea, performs live on state TV and radio. Many observers have cautiously dubbed this a prelude to a thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. But for North Koreans, a very real thaw, unseen by the musicians, has been transforming life for years.