North Korean defector vows no silence in the WP op-ed

“For all my guilt about my father’s continuing torment, I will not be silenced. Injustice cannot cover up justice.”

North Korean dissident Shin Dong-hyuk, 33, who escaped from a prison camp in North Korea, expressed his willingness to reveal the miserable human rights conditions, despite the regime’s threats, in an op-ed of the Washington Post, saying, “I have an obligation to those still in the camps, as does everyone in the outside world.”

Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website, criticized him as a “liar,” a “rapist,” and a “thief,” using his 70-year-old father last month.

Shin criticized the Kim Jong Un regime in the op-ed, saying, “Camp 14 still operates, as do other political labor camps that imprison up to 120,000 people. Camp guards continue to punish children and their parents, working them to death as slaves and snitches in a world without love.”

Regarding North Korea’s using his father on the propaganda site, he said, “I learned that the North Korean regime has been torturing my father who I thought died in order to force him to tell a lie.” He added, “As I watch my father, I really want to visit North Korea. But it should be an open visit including a probe into camp 14.”