The Washington Post carries today’s must-read article, recounting the ordeal of former North Korean political prisoner Shin Dong-hyuk. The only known prisoner to escape from the Stalinist regime’s gulag, Shin was the victim of the most perverse form of guilt-by-association:
An unforgettable — almost unfathomable — chapter of that story is about the execution of his mother, who was hanged in 1996, on the same day Shin’s only brother was shot to death. Both killings, Shin writes in his book, occurred at Camp No. 14 in a kind of public square, a place where he had seen many others executed.
Before he was taken to the square and ordered to watch them die, Shin said, he had spent seven months in an underground cell, where guards used torture to force him to talk about a supposed “family conspiracy” to escape from the camp.
Since his mother hadn’t told him about such a plan, Shin said, he was startled to hear of it. His torturers also surprised him by telling him, for the first time, why he and his family were in the camp. Two of his father’s brothers had collaborated with South Korea during the Korean War and then fled to the South, the guards told him. His father was guilty because he was the brother of traitors. Shin was guilty because he was his father’s son.
After you’ve read that, check out a new report from the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), entitled Legal Strategies for Protecting Human Rights in North Korea and co-authored by Skadden, Arps, Slade Meagher & Flom LLP. HRNK states: “The report serves as a handbook for groups seeking to use the international legal system to advance human rights in North Korea. After making the case against the Pyongyang regime, the report outlines the strategies available, including the International Criminal Court, the UN Security Council and the Alien Tort Claims Act, as well as various international covenants and conventions.”
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