Perpetrators of North Korean human rights violations revealed

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Kim Ryeon-hee, who was pregnant when repatriated to North Korea after defecting from the communist country, was beaten for eating stolen corn, and had a miscarriage before dying. The suspected perpetrator in this case was Chae Myeong-il, then staff sergeant and guard at Songpyong Station of the People’s Public Security Bureau in North Hamkyong Province.

Won Myeong-hwa, who was detained at the Hoeryong City Jeongeori correction house in North Hamkyong Province, was severely beaten to death by a security guard in February 2011. The suspected perpetrator is Kim Chang-soo, a security guard in charge of the eighth chamber at Jeongeori correction house.

This information is part of a “case report on North Korean human rights,” recently released by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, and the first time that detailed profiles of suspects involved in human rights violations in North Korea have been specifically documented.

The disclosure of the profiles of perpetrators in North Korea is aimed at sending both those individuals and the Kim Jong Un regime a message: “Personal profiles of those responsible for human rights violations are being accumulated, and those who are responsible will be brought to justice without fail.”

These efforts are also linked with a campaign by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry, which in July began to gather specific data required to substantiate Kim Jong Un’s crimes, leaving open the possibility of bringing the North Korean leader to the International Criminal Court.

Data contained in “Reports on North Korean human rights cases” have been gathered through interviews with North Korean defectors, and then undergone a review process by the verification committee within the Database Center. Of the 300 North Korean defectors surveyed, who suffered torturous acts at detention facilities in the North, half (49 percent) are still suffering physical and mental aftereffects.

[Dong-a Ilbo]

This entry was posted in , , by Grant Montgomery.

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