Prison camp escapee: North Korea won't change its repressive ways
October 28, 2014 -- Updated 0357 GMT (1157 HKT)
Text: "Solitary confinement punishment. Capturing mice from inside the cell."
HIDE CAPTION
North Korean torture methods
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Shin Dong-hyuk was raised in a political prison known as Camp 14
- He has been labeled as "human scum" by North Korea
- North Korea denies human rights atrocities, existence of political prison camps where he was born
Editor's note: Shin
Dong-hyuk is a human rights advocate and subject of the best-seller
"Escape From Camp 14," which tells his story about being born and raised
in a brutal political prison camp in North Korea. Shin is the only man
known to have been born in and to have escaped such a facility. He's the
founder and executive director of the group, Inside NK where he raises
awareness about North Korea's human rights abuses. The opinions
expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
(CNN) -- In North Korea's utopian society, the very
words "human rights" do not need to exist -- because it's so perfect,
the regime maintains.
The North Korean regime
controls and monitors the usage of the very words. The concept is not
even taught. I had never even heard of the term "human rights" when I
was in North Korea.
Shin Dong-hyuk is the subject of a bestseller about escaping from North Korea's infamous prison camp.
It also strongly denies the existence of the political prison camp system throughout the country.
It maintains this
position even though I was born in the most infamous, political prison
camp in North Korea: Camp 14. Even now, there are people who are born
into a life of an inmate in a political prison camp.
North Korea also denies
committing human rights violations, threatens and intimidates defector
activists working to raise awareness of human rights issues, and
attacking and criticizing those who have testified during the United
Nations Commission of Inquiry's investigation, calling these defectors
"human scum."
Looking back at life in a prison camp
UN hears story of North Korean torture
Understanding North Korea
North Korea has also
launched personal attacks on me, labeling me "human scum" and releasing a
statement that my testimony is all based on lies.
The dictatorship in North Korea has never been honest or truthful for more than six decades it has been in existence.
Could North Korea change?
The North Korean
dictatorial regime should not just emptily deny that these political
prison camps exist. If they are truly honorable and fair they should
immediately allow an international inspection delegation, comprised of
myself and organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights
Watch, or the United Nations, to be able to conduct on-the-ground
visitations to the political prison camps. These delegations must
include political prison survivors like myself and other defectors.
Only recently did they
concede that "labor detention centers" exist, but solely for the
incarcerated to have their lives improved "through their mentality and
to look on their wrongdoings."
Earlier this year, the UN published a report on the human rights situation in North Korea, through the Commission of Inquiry that was established last year.
It was followed by a
special North Korean human rights side event during the recent UN
General Assembly in New York in which U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry, the newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid
Ra'ad Al Hussein, and the Foreign Ministers of Japan and South Korea
demanded improvements in North Korea's human rights record.
To counter this, and
perhaps fearing a challenge to its stability and of losing the
initiative, the regime adamantly opposed and obstructed any discussions
at the UN of a resolution regarding its rights record, as well as the
issue being brought up at the Security Council.
North Korea: UN report a political plot
I believe ultimately the
regime is using diplomatic tactics to deflect pressures from the
international community regarding its nuclear ambitions, missile tests
and human rights violations.
Amnesty: Victims need to come forward
North Korea's human rights treatment
North Korea defectors speak at UN inquiry
Regime travels freely as North Koreans starve
Some say that the most
recent actions and conciliatory gestures on the part of the North Korean
regime can lead to the revival of six-party talks and progress on the
nuclear issue. But these talks have happened many times before, and the
regime still goes ahead and conducts nuclear tests in a bid to become a
nuclear power. This has showed the abject failure of the objectives of
the six-party talks to denuclearize the peninsula.
Even if negotiations
were to be restarted, the attitude of the regime must change first --
most importantly by ceasing its provocative behavior.
However, though there
may be a temporary détente in tensions if the regime were to participate
in restarted talks, it would be difficult to expect a fundamental
change in attitude on the part of the North Korean regime.
Also, the human rights
issue must be on the same level as the nuclear issue and dealt with
together, and for this to happen, the human rights issue must be
included as an integral part of six-party talks.
The international community must show continued interest and become actively involved.
The dictator's family
travel freely, while ordinary North Koreans cannot enjoy any freedom of
travel. People are dying of hunger while the North Korean dictator
wastes money on building a useless golf course and earns money from
Western tourism, which both angers and saddens me.
The dictatorship in Pyongyang says its citizens chose the system in North Korea through their own will and that they are happy.
But there is no place,
no country on this Earth where the people would knowingly choose a
system that starves and kills its own citizens and be happy.
Footnote:
The North Korean
government website Uriminzokkiri released videos about Shin Dong-hyuk
this week, calling his testimonies lies. The video featured a man, Sin
Kyong Sop, whom Shin recognized to be his father. In the video, which
has English subtitles, Sin denies they lived at a prison camp.
In response, Shin Dong-hyuk released this statement:
"My only 'sin' against
the North Korean dictator is that I told the entire world about the
suffering of the political prison inmates in the political prison camps.
My only 'crime' against the dictator is that I escaped from the
political prison camp.
I love my father. Through this, I seek my father's forgiveness. The dictator is holding my father hostage.
No matter what the
dictator does to my father, they cannot cover my eyes; no matter what
the dictator does, they can not cover up my mouth."
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น