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North Korea Uses Defector’s Partial Retraction to Lash Out at Washington North Korea Uses Defector’s Partial Retraction to Lash Out at Washington
(about 12 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Tuesday demanded that Washington stop pressuring it over human rights, citing a prominent North Korean defector’s partial recanting of his story as evidence that an unprecedented United Nations report on its rights violations could not be trusted. SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Tuesday demanded that Washington stop pressuring it over human rights, citing a prominent North Korean defector’s partial recanting of his story as evidence that a United Nations report on its rights violations could not be trusted.
Over the weekend, the defector, Shin Dong-hyuk, 32, said that he had lied about key parts of a life story that had made him the best-known symbol of torture and other rights violations by North Korea. His retractions came amid mounting pressure from fellow North Korean defectors and the South Korean news media to clarify suspicions about his background.Over the weekend, the defector, Shin Dong-hyuk, 32, said that he had lied about key parts of a life story that had made him the best-known symbol of torture and other rights violations by North Korea. His retractions came amid mounting pressure from fellow North Korean defectors and the South Korean news media to clarify suspicions about his background.
The retractions also raised concerns among human rights advocates that North Korea would seize upon them to further its campaign to derail a Washington-supported attempt at the United Nations to bring its top leaders before the International Criminal Court on charges of rights abuses. The retractions also raised concerns among human rights advocates that North Korea would seize upon them to further its campaign to derail an attempt at the United Nations to bring its top leaders before the International Criminal Court on charges of rights abuses.
Those concerns were borne out on Tuesday. A commentary posted on Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean government-run website, said: “It’s not ‘parts’ of his story that are untrue. Everything he said and the things the so-called ‘defectors’ said and submitted to their American boss and the United Nations Human Rights Commission are all lies, woven with trickery.”Those concerns were borne out on Tuesday. A commentary posted on Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean government-run website, said: “It’s not ‘parts’ of his story that are untrue. Everything he said and the things the so-called ‘defectors’ said and submitted to their American boss and the United Nations Human Rights Commission are all lies, woven with trickery.”
It said the United States and South Korea should stop their “human rights racket” because their evidence against the North was “fabricated” by “human trash” like Mr. Shin.It said the United States and South Korea should stop their “human rights racket” because their evidence against the North was “fabricated” by “human trash” like Mr. Shin.
Human rights advocates countered that the landmark report last year by the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry, which propelled the world body to adopt a resolution condemning the North’s rights abuses, was solid, even without Mr. Shin’s account. The report drew from interviews with hundreds of other defectors and with experts on human rights in North Korea.Human rights advocates countered that the landmark report last year by the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry, which propelled the world body to adopt a resolution condemning the North’s rights abuses, was solid, even without Mr. Shin’s account. The report drew from interviews with hundreds of other defectors and with experts on human rights in North Korea.
Through numerous news interviews and “Escape From Camp 14,” a best-selling 2012 book by Blaine Harden, a former Washington Post reporter, Mr. Shin has detailed his life in Camp 14, where he had said he was born in 1982 and lived, surviving torture and starvation, until he escaped in 2005. Camp 14, located north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, is one of the worst prison camps in the North, from which no inmate is expected to leave alive, according to North Korean defectors and human rights officials. In numerous interviews and “Escape From Camp 14,” a best-selling 2012 book by Blaine Harden, a former Washington Post reporter, Mr. Shin has detailed his life in a notorious prison camp, where he had said he was born in 1982 and lived, surviving torture and starvation, until he escaped in 2005. Camp 14, located north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, is one of the worst prison camps in the country, from which no inmate is expected to leave alive, according to North Korean defectors and human rights officials.
In his amended account, which was first reported in The Washington Post, Mr. Shin now says that he actually spent most of his time in North Korea at Camp 18, a much less repressive political re-education camp that former inmates have said they were allowed to leave at the conclusion of their sentences. Mr. Shin said recently that he actually spent most of his time in North Korea at Camp 18, a much less repressive re-education camp, from which former inmates said most prisoners were freed and assimilated into the rest of North Korean society in the 1980s and ’90s, when Mr. Shin now says he lived there.
Two former inmates of Camp 18 who live in South Korea said that most of those imprisoned at the camp, a constellation of villages across hills and valleys north of Pyongyang, were gradually freed and assimilated into the rest of North Korean society through the 1980s and ’90s, when Mr. Shin now says he lived there. In 2006 or 2007, the camp was relocated and greatly reduced in size, according to a 2014 South Korean government white paper on human rights in the North. Mr. Shin returned on Monday from a trip to the United States, where he frequently traveled to discuss North Korean human rights. But he said on Tuesday he needed time before he could face the news media to explain his story, which began developing some cracks a few years ago after the 2011 publication of another former Camp 18 prisoner’s memoir.Last October, North Korea released a documentary aimed at discrediting Mr. Shin in which Mr. Shin’s father and people identified as neighbors and work colleagues called Mr. Shin a liar and a criminal.
“A lot of the gruesome things Shin Dong-hyuk said in his books he had suffered at Camp 14 had also happened in Camp 18, but not in the 1980s and ’90s when he now says he lived there,” said a former inmate of Camp 18 who said he lived there from 1967 to 1988, when his family was freed. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal against his siblings left in the North. In his revised account, Ms. Shin now says that he was born at Camp 14 but that his village was incorporated into Camp 18 when he was a small child. He also says he was returned to the harsher Camp 14 after he escaped to China from Camp 18 in 2001, but was caught and repatriated.
Mr. Shin has frequently traveled to the United States and Europe to testify at conferences on North Korean human rights. His detailed testimony is cited 11 times in the report by the Commission of Inquiry. Mr. Shin originally told reporters that he was brutally tortured when his mother and brother conspired to escape Camp 14 in 1996. In Mr. Harden’s “Escape From Camp 14,” Mr. Shin revealed that he had betrayed his mother and brother by reporting their escape plan to a prison guard and that he then witnessed them being executed.
For his work, he received the Moral Courage Award from the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch in 2013 and the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch last year. On Dec. 10, in a statement marking the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Secretary of State John Kerry recalled meeting Mr. Shin last year and dubbed him “a living, breathing example of our own duty to uphold justice and expose abuses wherever and whenever violations occur.” But now, changing his story again, Mr. Shin says he witnessed their 1996 executions at Camp 18, not at Camp 14, and that he betrayed his mother and brother twice. After he first informed on them, he now says, a prison guard forced him to sign a document saying that he saw his mother and brother kill another inmate, whom the guard had tortured to death.
Mr. Shin remained incommunicado in South Korea on Tuesday after returning from a trip to the United States. In an earlier telephone interview, he said he needed time to regain his composure before he could face the news media to explain in detail which parts of his story were made up and which truthful. Rights advocates and former prison camp inmates said this week that they were confused about whether to believe Mr. Shin’s revised account, which is difficult to verify.
Mr. Shin’s story began developing some cracks years ago.
In a 2007 Korean-language memoir, he described working with Baek Sol-hee, a well-known female scientist turned prison camp inmate, at Camp 14 from 2001 to 2003. But in a 2011 memoir, Kim Hae-sook, a former inmate of Camp 18 who now lives in Seoul, wrote that she worked with Ms. Baek around the same time in her own camp.
Ms. Kim said she was again surprised last October when North Korea released a video documentary aimed at discrediting Mr. Shin. In the first and second parts of the video, titled “Lie and Truth” and released through Uriminzokkiri, Mr. Shin’s father and people it said were his old neighbors and work colleagues called him a liar and a criminal and said that he had raped a 13-year-old girl in 2001.
The video claimed that Mr. Shin’s mother and brother were executed for murder, not for plotting to escape Camp 14, as Mr. Shin had said. After watching the video, Ms. Kim began telling other defectors and a few reporters that she knew Mr. Shin’s parents and brother well and watched the mother and brother executed on a murder charge while she was at Camp 18. That was the beginning of the crumbling of Mr. Shin’s story.
In his revised account, Ms. Shin now says that he was born at Camp 14 but that his village was incorporated into Camp 18 when he was a small child. He also says he was returned to the harsher Camp 14 after he escaped to China from Camp 18 in 2001 but was caught and repatriated.
Mr. Shin originally told reporters that he was brutally tortured when his mother and brother conspired to escape Camp 14 in 1996. Then, in Mr. Harden’s “Escape From Camp 14,” Mr. Shin famously revealed that he had actually betrayed his mother and brother by reporting their escape plan to a prison guard and that he then witnessed them being executed.
But now, once again changing his story, Mr. Shin says he witnessed their 1996 executions at Camp 18, not at Camp 14, and that he betrayed his mother and brother twice. After he first informed on them, he now says, a prison guard forced him to sign a document saying that he saw his mother and brother murder another inmate, whom the guard had accidentally killed during torture.
Rights advocates and former prison camp inmates said this week that they were confused about whether to believe Mr. Shin’s revised account. It is difficult to verify the accounts of North Korean defectors, especially those from political prison camps, because the country is so isolated.