Freedom House in Seoul launched on 21 May a new report detailing the Kim Jong Il regime´s crimes against humanity. Based on recent interviews with former North Korean political prisoners in the kwan-li-so or “control zone” labor camps, Concentrations of Inhumanity details the criminal acts that are being carried out in North Korea on a massive scale. (30-MAY-07)
Text: HRH/Bergen by Gunta Venge, based on information from the Freedom House, Seoul.
Photos: the Freedom House
Concentrations of Inhumanity distinguishes between commonplace human rights violations such as miscarriages of justice, more serious “consistent patterns of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” and human rights violations that are so egregious that they rise to the level of “crimes against humanity,” “war crimes,” or “genocide.”
Written by David Hawk (left), author of the acclaimed study Hidden Gulag:
Exposing North Korea´s Prison Camps – Prisoner Testimony and Satellite
Photographs ; the report also outlines the international forums where other
states and non-governmental organizations can seek to persuade North
Korea to improve its human rights record.
Why a Rafto engagement for North Korea?
The Rafto Prize is awarded annually by the Thorolf Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, which is a close cooperation partner of the Rafto Human Rights House. Among Rafto Prize Laureates there is Kim Dae-jung, former president of South Korea. He received the prize in 2000, in honour of his «sunshine» policy towards North Korea and in recognition of his life long struggle for human rights in The Republic of Korea. The Rafto Foundation had been trying to find a North Korean candidate, but research showed that these were hard to find. If a candidate was found and named, he or she would face certain death.
The Rafto Human Rights House has been involved in issues concerning the human rights situation in North Korea since 1999, when Chairman of the board, Jan Ramstad, interviewed several North Korean defectors, among them Mr. Whang Yang Yop. This left him with ever-lasting impressions, and a burning commitment to spread awareness in Norway and internationally about the incredible hardships the people of North Korea is enduring.
This commitment was put into action when representatives of the Rafto House started to build a network with relevant NGOs from Asia and the US, and an initiative was taken to produce a series of documentaries, focusing on human rights abuses in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, such as North Korea, the People´s Republic of China and Belarus.
In 2006 the Rafto Human Rights House hosted an international conference “North Korea: New Approaches”.
