N. Korea’s political prisons under international scrutiny

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― A forum on North Korea’s political prisoner camps will be held in Washington this week, reflecting the international community’s growing interest in its human rights situation, organizers said Sunday.

After focusing heavily on tackling the communist neighbor’s nuclear program, South Korea’s conservative government has been increasingly vocal in efforts to address the human rights issue.

Activists in South Korea, the U.S. and other nations are also stepping up their campaign to enhance public awareness on the matter especially following the North’s leadership change in December.

The conference on Tuesday, titled “Hidden Gulag,” is to shed light on the North’s political prisoner camp system and call for its “complete, verifiable and irreversible” dismantlement, according to the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK).

“This conference is part of our effort to build international momentum towards persuading the North Korean regime that the only way forward is admitting to human rights violations, and agreeing to take steps to find remedies, for example by allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the camps, or allowing the U.N. Special Rapporteur to conduct a fact-finding mission,” Greg Scarlatoiu, the executive director at the Washington-based HRNK, told Yonhap News Agency.

The treatment of political prisoners in the North is so brutal and the mortality rates are so high that they are often compared with the Soviet gulag and even the Nazi concentration camps, added Scarlatoiu.

He pointed out reports that 150,000 to 200,000 political prisoners remain held without charge or trial in brutal and harrowing conditions in the reclusive country.

The outside world gathers information on the North’s prison camps mainly through defectors’ testimonies. These facilities are also seen by satellite images.

More than 20 government officials, experts and former North Korean defectors will take part in the full-day forum, according to the HRNK.

Amb. Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech.

In a meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation last week in Seoul, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak stressed the North’s political prison camps are the worst place on the planet, said his office Cheong Wa Dae.

An informed diplomatic source in Washington advised media to take note of a recent trend that the international community is speaking up about the North Korean human rights issue long overshadowed by its nuclear problem.