HRC Supports Defector’s Fight for a Passport

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has recommended quietly to the National Intelligence Service not to oppose the issuance of a passport to Kim Tok-hong, a North Korean defector, an official with the commission said yesterday.

Mr. Kim headed a state-run trading company in the North before he defected to the South in 1997, since when he has been an outspoken critic of the North’s regime.

In 2003, he was invited by the Hudson Institute to speak on North Korean human rights but could not go as the intelligence service wouldn’t allow him to leave the country. Mr. Kim filed a lawsuit in July against the Foreign Ministry but the court dismissed the case.

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