The 6th international conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees was held in Seoul February 14th – 16th. The conference confirmed the growing concern for the human rights condition in North Korea, and the 200 participants represented academia, NGOs, and governmental organisations. The Egil Rafto House Foundation will host the 7th conference, which is to be held in Bergen in 2006. Important meetings with key participants will be arranged in Oslo by the Human Rights House Foundation. (28-FEB-2005)
“The systematic human rights violations in North Korea are among the most serious human rights abuses in the world today”, says Therese Jebsen, executive director of the Egil Rafto House Foundation. “The suffering people of North Korea have limited possibilities to fight for their basic rights. Raising the issue is a moral challenge to us, who enjoy free and open societies. As the conference will be held in Norway next year, we have an opportunity to increase the involvement from NGOs and government institutions in Europe.”
The conference in Seoul focused on the North Korean human rights problem in general, and discussed missions and strategies, also regarding the situation for North Korean defectors/refugees in the People´s Republic of China. Moreover, the conference had particular focus on the maltreatment of women and children, including illegal trafficking. Quite a few North Korean defectors/refugees gave their testimonies, and all of them had experienced inhuman treatment, especially from the prison camps.
The prison camps in North Korea, also called “the hidden Gulag”, are very similar to the concentration camps in Nazi-Germany under WW2. This was shown through a documentary, where a North Korean defector, who was held several years in the camps in North Korea, visited Auschwitz together with a Polish man who survived Auschwitz. The two former prisoners shared the horrible experience from the inhuman camps. However, in North Korea the camps are not museums, but the cruel reality for thousands of people.
It is not possible to know the exact number of people held in the concentration camps in North Korea, but it is estimated around 200 000 political prisoners, so called enemies of the state. According to testimonies from North Korean defectors/refugees, the human rights situation in the concentration camps has not been improved, in spite of international pressure on North Korea over the last few years.
In 2004, the UN Commission on Human Rights once again adopted the North Korean Human Rights Resolution, and appointed a special rapporteur to investigate and report on the human rights situation in North Korea.
The situation in North Korea is certainly not only a regional issue for the Korean peninsula, and it is important to pull forces together internationally. The series of international conferences were initiated in 1999 of the South Korean NGO “Citizens Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea” (HRNK). Since 1999 HRNK has organised six conferences together with local counterparts in Seoul (1999, 2000, 2005), Tokyo (2002), Prague (2003), Warsaw (2004). HRNK receives funding for the conferences from National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
