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PRESS RELEASE: HRNK-FLETCHER SCHOOL-LANTOS FOUNDATION FORUM ADDRESSES HUMAN RIGHTS IN KIM JONG-UN’S NORTH KOREA
April 03, 2013
Medford, Mass. – “The ongoing human rights violations in North Korea are an insult against humanity and human norms,” said Professor Sung-Yoon Lee yesterday at a forum held at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts.
At a time when North Korea is dominating the front page of the news with its threats of attack, the forum, entitled “Human Rights in Kim Jong-un's North Korea: Is Progress Possible?”, brought together a number of subject matter experts to focus on different topics – the nation's notorious political prison camps, the plight of North Korean refugees and the remedies available through the U.N. system to address the North Korean human rights conundrum.
The event, held by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), a non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C., The Fletcher School, and the Concord, New Hampshire-based Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, brought together a group of speakers including: Katrina Lantos Swett, President of The Lantos Foundation and HRNK Board member; Roberta Cohen, HRNK Co-Chair; Jacqueline Bhabha, Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and Harvard University Advisor on Human Rights/Human Rights Education; Hurst Hannum, Professor of International Law at The Fletcher School; Sung-Yoon Lee, Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies at The Fletcher School; Joseph Bermudez, Senior Analyst at DigitalGlobe Analytics; In-ae Hyun, Resident Fellow at HRNK and Deputy Representative at NK Intellectuals’ Solidarity; and Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director, HRNK.
On Human Rights in North Korea
Katrina Lantos Swett, the President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice and Board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, remarked, “The world’s attention on North Korea’s threats is a reminder of how the world is once again setting aside the fundamental values of human rights; and we do so only at our own peril.”
Hurst Hannum, Professor of International Law at The Fletcher School, commended the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea for the UN Human Rights Council’s adoption by consensus of a Commission of Inquiry on North Korean human rights, a measure first proposed by the Committee in 2006. At the same time, emphasizing the need to truly help the North Korean people, Hannum cautioned, “Accountability is an important goal. But that doesn’t necessarily improve the human rights of the North Korean people.”
On North Korea’s Political Prison Camp System
Joseph Bermudez, Senior Analyst at DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, indicated that at least two of North Korea’s six political prison camps had expanded in size. The area of Camp 25 in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province, expanded twofold between 2009 and 2010.
Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, noted, “Under the Kim Jong-Un regime, the crackdown on defections has intensified. That explains the decrease in the number of North Korean refugees reaching South Korea, and this is one possible explanation of the expansion of Camp 25.”
On North Korean Refugees
Professor Jacqueline Bhabha of Harvard University, an expert on refugees, emphasized “The current international refugee protection system is extremely flawed and unreliable for people who need protection.”
Roberta Cohen, Co-chair of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, noted, “North Korea restricts access to food, resources and opportunity according to songbun, a social classification system based on loyalty to the regime. Many North Korean refugees face a well-founded fear of persecution if forcibly repatriated to North Korea. They qualify for full protection as political refugees under the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, as refugees sur place.”
Mrs. Hyun In-Ae, a Resident Fellow at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and a former professor of philosophy in Pyongyang, North Korea, pointed out that “the number of North Koreans arriving in South Korea declined by almost 50 percent from 2011 to 2012.”
Contact: Greg Scarlatoiu, [email protected]; 202-499-7973
In this submission, HRNK focuses its attention on the following issues in the DPRK: The status of the system of detention facilities, where a multitude of human rights violations are ongoing. The post-COVID human security and human rights status of North Korean women, with particular attention to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The issue of Japanese abductees and South Korean prisoners of war (POWs), abductees, and unjust detainees.
This report provides an abbreviated update to our previous reports on a long-term political prison commonly identified by former prisoners and researchers as Kwan-li-so No. 25 by providing details of activity observed during 2021–2023. This report was originally published on Tearline at https://www.tearline.mil/public_page/prison-camp-25.
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Oct 17, 2023
HRNK's latest satellite imagery report analyzes a 5.2 km-long switchback road, visible in commercial satellite imagery, that runs from Testing Tunnel No. 1 at North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test facility to the perimeter of Kwan-li-so (political prison camp) no. 16.
This report proposes a long-term, multilateral legal strategy, using existing United Nations resolutions and conventions, and U.S. statutes that are either codified or proposed in appended model legislation, to find, freeze, forfeit, and deposit the proceeds of the North Korean government's kleptocracy into international escrow. These funds would be available for limited, case-by-case disbursements to provide food and medical care for poor North Koreans, and--contingent upon Pyongyang's progress
For thirty years, U.S. North Korea policy have sacrificed human rights for the sake of addressing nuclear weapons. Both the North Korean nuclear and missile programs have thrived. Sidelining human rights to appease the North Korean regime is not the answer, but a fundamental flaw in U.S. policy. (Published by the National Institute for Public Policy)
Sep 26, 2022
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George Hutchinson's The Suryong, the Soldier, and Information in the KPA is the second of three building blocks of a multi-year HRNK project to examine North Korea's information environment. Hutchinson's thoroughly researched and sourced report addresses the circulation of information within the Korean People's Army (KPA). Understanding how KPA soldiers receive their information is needed to prepare information campaigns while taking into account all possible contingenc
This report is part of a comprehensive long-term project undertaken by HRNK to use satellite imagery and former prisoner interviews to shed light on human suffering in North Korea by monitoring activity at political prison facilities throughout the nation. This is the second HRNK satellite imagery report detailing activity observed during 2015 to 2021 at a prison facility commonly identified by former prisoners and researchers as “Kwan-li-so No. 14 Kaech’ŏn” (39.646810, 126.117058) and
This report is part of a comprehensive long-term project undertaken by HRNK to use satellite imagery and former prisoner interviews to shed light on human suffering in North Korea by monitoring activity at civil and political prison facilities throughout the nation. This study details activity observed during 1968–1977 and 2002–2021 at a prison facility commonly identified by former prisoners and researchers as "Kyo-hwa-so No. 3, T'osŏng-ni" and endeavors to e
This report is part of a comprehensive long-term project undertaken by HRNK to use satellite imagery and former detainee interviews to shed light on human suffering in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, more commonly known as North Korea) by monitoring activity at political prison facilities throughout the nation. This report provides an abbreviated update to our previous reports on a long-term political prison commonly identified by former prisoners and researchers as Kwan-li-so
Through satellite imagery analysis and witness testimony, HRNK has identified a previously unknown potential kyo-hwa-so long-term prison-labor facility at Sŏnhwa-dong (선화동) P’ihyŏn-gun, P’yŏngan-bukto, North Korea. While this facility appears to be operational and well maintained, further imagery analysis and witness testimony collection will be necessary in order to irrefutably confirm that Sŏnhwa-dong is a kyo-hwa-so.
Jul 22, 2021
"North Korea’s Long-term Prison-Labor Facility Kyo-hwa-so No. 8, Sŭngho-ri (승호리) - Update" is the latest report under a long-term project employing satellite imagery analysis and former political prisoner testimony to shed light on human suffering in North Korea's prison camps.
Jul 01, 2021
Human Rights in the Democratic Republic of Korea: The Role of the United Nations" is HRNK's 50th report in our 20-year history. This is even more meaningful as David Hawk's "Hidden Gulag" (2003) was the first report published by HRNK. In his latest report, Hawk details efforts by many UN member states and by the UN’s committees, projects and procedures to promote and protect human rights in the DPRK. The report highlights North Korea’s shifts in its approach
South Africa’s Apartheid and North Korea’s Songbun: Parallels in Crimes against Humanity by Robert Collins underlines similarities between two systematically, deliberately, and thoroughly discriminatory repressive systems. This project began with expert testimony Collins submitted as part of a joint investigation and documentation project scrutinizing human rights violations committed at North Korea’s short-term detention facilities, conducted by the Committee for Human Rights