NORTH KOREAN PRISONERS TESTIFY AT THE UNO

The first North Korean former prisoners ever to testify at the United Nations about the horrors of imprisonment in their country were presented by Baroness Cox who chaired the meeting, the first to be convened on North Korea at the UN Commission on Human Rights
The meeting took place in order to urge the Commission to adopt its first ever resolution on North Korea, which was successfully passed in April.2003.

One former prisoner, Kang Chul Hwan was just nine when he and his family were detained by the authorities for a political crime that his grandfather was supposed to have committed, He never knew what that crime was. For the next ten years Kang spent the rest of his childhood and his adolescence suffering terrible brutality, watching helplessly as his friends were kicked, worked and starved to death.

He told the delegates: 'A third of the children died of malnourishment. In order to survive, I ate rats, cockroaches and snakes. Children simply disappeared from the camp. I can't understand how it's still there and it's a great shame for all mankind that these concentration camps are still tolerated. I call for an international human rights team to investigate the human rights situation in North Korea.' Lee Min Bok is a former North Korean Plant Genetic Engineer who was sent to prison camp after attempting to defect to China. He survived terrible brutality at the hands of guards in both China and North Korea. He told the delegates: The food situation was so bad that cannibalism was quite widespread. A woman who had just given birth was so hungry that she ate her own newborn baby. Brothers ate their own brothers in order to survive. There were no sanitation facilities and no showers and your body became full of insects. There were tens of thousands of lice all over my body.' Mr Lee says he has international pressure to thank for his release. "I speak today as one who almost did not make it,' he said. 'I carry a burden for countless others who will not. I urge you all to intervene in the situation as a matter of urgency.'

In summing up, Baroness Cox stated: ’We have heard a grim and sober catalogue of extreme violations of human rights in North Korea and China, with descriptions of suffering almost beyond comprehension. There is a moral imperative for all of us who have the privilege of living in freedom to use our freedom to influence the international community to try to bring an end to such appalling suffering and human degradation.

A Korean activist who spoke at the meeting said ’We have dreamed for years of testifying at the United Nations about human rights in North Korea. We are so grateful to you for making this dream come true’.

CSW played a lead role in lobbying for the resolution to be adopted lobbied for appropriate wording in the resolution, successfully urging that the text should be strengthened, that key issues should be introduced and that broader and measurable monitoring and reporting should be incorporated.
The investment proved fruitful as the resolution was adopted by a significant majority.
JSM representatives have also made contact with two North Koreans, and one Chinese, ex-prisoners.

JSM action plan:

• Continued coverage of human rights abuses in Noth Korea
• Search for French expertise on North Korea for UNO fact-finding learn.