Kang Chol Hwan and Shin Dong-Hyok Petition the U.N. for the Release of Their Family Members

While researching an unrelated post, I stumbled on this brief (opens in .pdf), filed just this week on behalf of Kang Cho-Hwan and Shin Dong-Hyok, and authored by international human rights lawyer Jared Genser. Kang, for those not familiar with him, is a survivor of Camp 15, author of “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” and now a correspondent for the widely circulated South Korean daily, the Chosun Ilbo. According to the brief, Kang’s sister and her 11-year old son disappeared last year, and are now believed to be back in Yodok, the camp where they grew up:

Kang Chol-hwan (“Mr. Kang”) believes his sister, Kang Mi-ho’s (“Ms. Kang”), was arrested by the National Security Agency (“NSA”) of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK” or “North Korea”) around May, 2011. Ms. Kang’s neighbors, Korean-Chinese smugglers, and the broker that had been delivering money to her, all report that she and her 11- year-old son, Kim Jeong-nam, (together “Petitioner 1″) simply disappeared around that time. We believe that Ms. Kang’s disappearance was a result of the broker informing North Korean authorities that Ms. Kang was receiving money from her brother. Her resulting detention was likely a result of the Government’s policy of guilt-by-association (as was her previous detention) with her brother, who is a well-known activist for North Korean human rights and was then in South Korea.

Shin, the subject of Blaine Harden’s “Escape from Camp 14,” petitions for the release of his father, although the brief acknowledges the likelihood that he’s no longer alive. I don’t know quite how Shin would know this, but he alleges that after his escape, his father was severely tortured, which left him with crippling injuries that would have made it even more difficult for him to survive in the camp.

The rest of the brief focuses on the lack of any cognizable basis for detaining most of the prisoners held in North Korea’s political prison camps, and the atrocities done to them there. The brief isn’t long, and because of the depth of Genser’s scholarship and writing on this topic, I’d recommend it as a good summarized reference about conditions in the camps. At the end of the brief, however, we see its demand:

On the basis of the evidence submitted, we respectfully request the Working Group communicate an urgent appeal to the Government of North Korea and proceed to issue an opinion on this case urging Petitioners’ release.

It’s really too bad that there aren’t any influential personalities at the U.N. who give a fig about the North Korean people. For that and other more institutional reasons, I’m dubious about the potential for the U.N. to take any effective action. Still, Genser’s brief will help bring needed attention to this issue and further embarrass the Chinese for sending refugees back to those camps. It takes a steady beat from many drums to change global opinion, and it takes even more than that to constrain the arbitrary policies of dictatorships. Genser’s work may also make a suitable first draft of a prosecutor’s brief one day. Hopefully, you’ll see more reporting about this in the mainstream press in the coming days.