‘Rights Do Not Exist In N. Korea
Kim told the inquiry he was sent back to North Korea three times by Chinese authorities. He was then taken to a detention center where he witnessed severe beatings and was forced to search prisoners’ excrement for money. “The North Korean prison guards were telling us that, once you get to this prison, you’re not human, you’re just like animals,” he told the inquiry. In February 2007, he finally got away and he now has permanent residence in the United Kingdom. Another escapee, Park Jih-yun, described how she had to leave her dying father at home with only a bowl of rice as she fled across the Chinese border in 1998. In China, she was forced into marriage by “people who buy and sell other people,” she said. The U.N. commission of inquiry also heard from three former North Korean soldiers who spoke of rights abuses, and from the Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) which has documented violations inside the country. “We hope that the commission of inquiry will expose the extent of the North Korean government’s human rights violations and provide the first steps towards justice for the North Korean people who have suffered terribly under one of the world’s most brutal, and closed, regimes,” said CSW’s Special Ambassador Stuart Windsor.
