A North Korean concentration camp escapee will receive an international human rights award for raising global awareness of atrocities taking place in the communist country, a news report said Tuesday.
The Voice of America (VOA) said the Switzerland-based non-governmental agency UN Watch decided to give the 2013 Moral Courage Award to Shin Dong-hyuk, who has been made famous by his biography "Escape from Camp 14."
The award ceremony will be held in Geneva's League of Nations Hall on June 5 with the defector scheduled to give a speech to U.N. officials, diplomats and civic group representatives. The date marks the 20th anniversary of the human rights group's creation.
According to the VOA, the organization's executive director, Hillel Neuer, said the defector deserves the recognition because he is a witness to the human rights abuses taking place in the North and has helped stir the conscience of all mankind to protect the fundamental human rights of the voiceless victims in the isolationist country.
Shin is the only known person to have escaped from North Korea's infamous concentration camps. He made his escape in 2005 when he was 24, and made his way to China and then to South Korea. (Yonhap News)
