USA: North Korean refugees speak about human rights at a U.N. event in Washington

Record ID: 274453

  • Title: USA: North Korean refugees speak about human rights at a U.N. event in Washington
  • Date: 31st October 2013
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 30, 2013) (REUTERS) WIDESHOT OF THE KOREAN INTERPRETER, NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE JIN HYE JO, SENIOR FELLOW AT THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE SONJA BISERKO AND FORMER JUSTICE OF THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA MICHAEL KIRBY SITTING (SOUNDBITE) (Korean with English translation) JIN HYE JO, NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE, SAYING: "So, I had to tak
  • Embargoed: 15th November 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAT5BNFCYFDBM7DM49MC2K2TAL
  • Story Text: The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) held a public hearing on the human rights situation in North Korea Wednesday (October 30) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
    The hearing included witness testimony from two North Korean refugees who described brutality they endured were being detained.
    One of the refugees, Jin hye Jo, spoke of starvation, losing family members from hunger and trafficking and being brutally beaten while she were detained after trying to escape the country.
    "Sometimes they take their clothes off and on their clothes in their pocket, they put some metal wirings and they hit me around with that and then after that, my back is usually bruised and blackened, "Jin hye Jo said through an interpreter.
    Ms. X described also beatings she endured during her detainment.
    This is the final stage of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry to investigate the human rights situation in North Korea, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Giuseppe Calandruccio of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the investigation is not just about producing documents detailing the human rights situation in the area, but it is also the way to give to the United Nations "background information to decide what should be done to bring relief to the population of DPRK as far as the human rights are concerned."
    Communist North Korea is one of the world's most reclusive and repressive nations, accused of starving and torturing thousands of people in a network of prison camps while taking extraordinary steps to prevent its citizens from fleeing to South Korea or other nations.
    Marzuki Darusman, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation in North Korea, said that in the first nine months of this year 1,041 North Koreans arrived in South Korea, compared to 1,509 people for all of 2012 and 2,706 people in 2011.
    Darusman said the international law principle of non-refoulement - an obligation not to return asylum seekers or refugees to a place where their life or liberty would be at risk - clearly applies to North Koreans who have left without permission.
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