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Kim Jong-un orders new statues to strengthen family cult
Statue demands comes at the end of official three year mourning for death of Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-un orders every county to erect new statues of Kim family Photo: EPA/KCNA
By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
8:00AM GMT 09 Jan 2015
Every county in North Korea has been ordered to erect statues in honour of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in order to reinforce the cult of obedience and reverence for the Kim family.
According to a defector interviewed by The Korea Herald, the order came directly from Kim Jong-un, who recently formally assumed all the key titles in North Korea after the conclusion of a three-year official mourning period after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il.
With questions being raised over the real degree of his control over the Workers' Party, the military and the general public, the fledgling dictator is attempting to cement his power base.
"This appears to be part of the efforts to idolise the ruling Kim dynasty," said the defector, who recently managed to escape from North Korea but who has not been named.
Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo's Waseda University and an authority on North Korean affairs, says Kim Jong-un has been unable to stamp his authority on the state and "has not been able to win the respect of the people".
"The fact that he is ordering statues of his father and grandfather to be put up indicates that he is relying on their legacy for his own dignity and legitimacy," Mr Shigemura told The Telegraph.
Mr Kim also demanded extensive renovations to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace of the Sun, the massive and lavish mausoleum where his two predecessors lie in perpetual state after being embalmed.
One year after Mr Kim became head of state, satellite images discovered a propaganda slogan in his honour carved into a hillside in characters 65 feet high.
The message, in Ryanggang Province, read "Long Live General Kim Jong-un, the Shining Sun!"
Analysts say the order to erect more statues to the Kim family will be a heavy financial burden on an economy that is already struggling due to years of chronic mismanagement and international sanctions, although Mr Shigemura pointed out that the regime has no shortage of free labour.
North Korea's State-Run News Website Can Reportedly Give Your Computer A Virus
Rob Price
Jan. 13, 2015, 5:33 PM
Kim Jong Un uses a computerAFP/Stringer/Getty Images
North Korea's online activities have come under scrutiny after the FBI blamed the reclusive peninsula state for the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment late last year.
A security researcher has now accused North Korea of another act of cybercrime — loading the state-run news service's website with malware.
The malware was first discovered by a pseudonymous security researcher who goes by the name InfoSecOtter. Ars Technica says it has successfully replicated InfoSecOtter's findings.
Visiting the site alone shouldn't do anything. But problems could arise if you agree to install the "flash update."
The Korean Central News Agency's website contains a file that appears to be an Windows updater for an (outdated) version of Flash, a web plugin that's used for displaying video and interactive graphics online. But on closer examination it's revealed to contain known malware that would infect a user's computer if accidentally installed.
A screengrab of KCNA's English-language webpage.
From there, the illicit software could keep tabs on their activity and secretly report back to whoever created it. Ars Technica speculates that it's a "watering hole attack," targeted against those that might want "to keep tabs on" North Korea.
InfoSecOtter points out that we can't be sure that North Korea is responsible for the malicious code — but it's highly likely. "All we know for certain is that the KCNA website is serving it up," they write, "not its origins. But if that's the only viable externally facing website a country has, you'd think it would be noticed."
Obama's Response To The Sony Hack Says A Lot About US Cyber Policy
Reuters
By Aruna Viswanatha and Joseph Menn, Reuters
Jan. 14, 2015, 8:39 PM
U.S. President Barack Obama answers a question about the cyberattack on Sony Pictures after his end of the year press conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington December 19, 2014. REUTERS/Larry DowningThomson Reuters
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The unusually destructive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment is providing an early test of a new Obama administration policy to reveal more of what it knows or suspects about hacking campaigns.
President Barack Obama's decision last month to blame North Korea for the breach capped a year that saw the U.S. Justice Department file indictments against alleged Russian cybercriminals, as well as accuse five Chinese army officers of stealing trade secrets.
The increased finger pointing is part of a broad new U.S. plan for responding to cyberattacks, setting the stage for retaliation such as sanctions or trade complaints, according to current and former government officials.
"We need to improve our defences, but we also need to make clear the consequences," John Carlin, who heads the Justice Department's national security division, told Reuters.
Carlin, 41 but often mistaken for younger, has been at the centre of the policy shift. He worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the agency created a new cyber investigative task force, rising to be chief of staff to FBI Director Robert Mueller. Carlin was appointed assistant attorney general for national security last year, and has put cyberthreats at the top of his agenda.
The decision to blame North Korea was made easier by Pyongyang's pariah status and the seriousness of the attack - data was destroyed, not just stolen. Eight weeks after the breach, Sony Pictures' computer network still has not been fully restored.
Carlin said U.S. prosecutors are considering whether they can bring indictments related to the Sony attack. North Korea has denied orchestrating the breach.Kim Jong Un computer hackingKCNA
Former FBI cybercrime chief Shawn Henry said the recent comments by Obama and other U.S. officials on Sony are an attempt to define the "red lines" in cyberspace.
"The destruction of physical property is not acceptable, and the U.S. can take steps to demonstrate what the response is going to be," said Henry, now an executive at private security firm CrowdStrike.
Critics Of The New Tack
The U.S. government used to remain officially silent over similar cyberattacks, including one in August 2012 that damaged 30,000 computers at Saudi Arabia's national oil company and was widely believed to have been orchestrated by Iran.
U.S. officials say they have changed tack because of continuing, serious intrusions; improved ability to pinpoint those responsible; and a desire to educate the public and companies about the problem's seriousness.
The strategy is not without critics. Some security experts who looked at the evidence the FBI made public about the Sony hack said none of it proved North Korean involvement, prompting FBI Director James Comey last week to provide a forceful defence and supply new data pointing to Pyongyang.
Even if the claim turns out to be correct, the effects of the "name and shame" campaign remain unclear. Obama's public response so far has been to slap sanctions on North Korea that appear unlikely to have much effect on the insular country.
North Korean Lieutenant General Kim Yong-chol, who is believed to be the leader of the country's cyber warfare capabilities.
The U.S. strategy could also prompt other states to point the finger at Washington for hacks in their own countries.
"Doing indictments once a year - I don't see the point," said Jason Healey of the Atlantic Council, a former White House director of infrastructure protection. "Naming and shaming might work, but not as a one-off. We need a campaign."
The new policy has meant wresting some control of the issue from U.S. intelligence agencies, which are traditionally wary of revealing much about what they know or how they know it.
Intelligence officers initially wanted more proof of North Korea's involvement before going public, according to one person briefed on the matter. A step that helped build consensus was the creation of a team dedicated to pursuing rival theories - none of which panned out.
Steel Foundation
Joel Brenner, a former head of U.S. counterintelligence and then a top lawyer at the National Security Agency, said there is a growing view that cyberattacks should be prosecuted like any other type of crime. "We're putting less emphasis on the cyber characteristic and more emphasis on the fact that they are just criminal and that they shouldn't be treated differently."
Among the first people to recognise this trend was David Hickton, who became the top U.S. prosecutor in Pittsburgh in 2010 and set up a new cyber national security unit. Other prosecutors questioned whether the group would have any cases, but a breakfast meeting with the heads of U.S. Steel Corp and the United Steelworkers in 2010 provided an unexpected tip.
Complaints that information stolen through cyberattacks could prove deeply harmful spurred an investigation that led to the May 2014 indictment of five Chinese army officers, who were accused of spying on U.S. Steel, the union, and others.
A wanted poster for three of the five Chinese officials indicted by the US for hacking.
"We were really interested in doing more than just monitoring hacking, we were interested in preventing it, which might include prosecuting it," Hickton said.
It is unclear what the indictment accomplished, however. The Chinese officers are beyond the reach of U.S. law, and security companies say they have seen no reduction in Chinese hacking. Beijing withdrew from Sino-American talks on cybersecurity to protest the U.S. charges.
Still, the previous cases laid the foundation for the response to the Sony breach. In 2012, the Justice Department started training prosecutors in technology issues, and the FBI began giving them more in-depth information about cyberattacks.
Weeks before the Sony attack, Carlin restructured his division to create a top position specifically focused on cybersecurity, a change he said was critical in the Sony response.
Carlin said the new policy has sparked more conversations with companies about hacking incidents. He met last week in New York with security officers and lawyers from six banks and a hedge fund to discuss cybersecurity risks and defenses, following a similar gathering with general counsels from Fortune 100 companies.
"We need to do something to make it stop," Carlin said.
(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha in Washington and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Additional reporting by David Henry and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Warren Strobel and Tiffany Wu)
After Sony attack, hackers obliterate a Kim Jong Un video game
The US-based developer of 'Glorious Leader!' is considering abandoning the project.
Badges showing late North Korean leaders (L-R) Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and current leader Kim Jong Un for sale in the Chinese border town of Dandong on Dec.r 17, 2013. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
SEOUL, South Korea — Last month’s Sony hack was a national debacle, nearly canceling "The Interview" and denying moviegoers a fruitful two hours of butthole and gay jokes.
But the uproar ended with a victory for free speech — at least if you think The Interview deserves such lofty status. Moviegoers were treated to an endless deluge of ha-ha humor, like a missile up Seth Rogen’s butt, taboo sex with a North Korean soldier, and complaints from James Franco about his “stink dick,” unknowingly in the presence of a prim female CIA bureaucrat (egads!).
Upon seeing the flick, we wonder if the hackers weren’t just attempting to protect us from this sophomoric fare (apologies to sophomores everywhere).
The pandemonium has subsided, but hackers have now managed to decimate a lesser-known piece of satire: a video game starring Kim Jong Un, "Glorious Leader!"
According to the game’s plot, the Marshal has been in training for years to eradicate the American capitalist swine. Battling your way through in a host of retro-pixelated cities, including Pyongyang, the game lets you kill invading paratroopers and blow up tanks. A bonus level even concludes at Sony Pictures headquarters, where Seth Rogen throws his hands in the air just before being obliterated with a rocket launcher.
And, of course, no video game about Kim Jong Un would be complete without his drunken sidekick Dennis Rodman, whose cameo includes an assault rifle and green hair. Battling the evil forces of American imperialism, Kim Jong Un even rides a North Korean Pegasus known as the Chollima, a patriotic symbol common in propaganda.
This game, which was delayed several times, stood a chance of being a hit. Which means that unlike The Interview, this time we can confidently condemn hackers sympathetic to the Kim regime — whoever they are — for messing with a potentially admirable cultural work.
“As many of you know, over the holidays we were victims of a hack inspired by the attack on Sony,” said a statement on the game’s KickStarter page last Thursday. “The hackers destroyed data pertaining to Glorious Leader! and other projects we had in development and locked us out of our own computers and website.”
“Between the hacking and other threats, we think it is time to reevaluate our commitment to Glorious Leader!”
The studio stopped short of naming North Korea as a possible culprit. In a separate statement, it said that it has “NO reason” to believe the attack was done by anyone affiliated with North Korea, calling it a “hoax perpetrated by amateurs.”
Jeff Miller, the Atlanta-based CEO of Moneyhorse, which was behind Glorious Leader!, did not respond to a request for comment.
North Korea or not, a number of North Korea analysts and commentators are jittery about becoming the next target, fearing a rise in the sophistication of hacking capabilities.
Websites dealing with North Korea have long been accustomed to mysterious denial of service attacks, and ratcheted up their precautions long before the Sony episode. Cyberattacks like these “directly concern me,” said Chad O’Carroll, the founder of NKNews, a news website on North Korea.
“We've been victim of numerous debilitating attacks, usually mirroring major news events involving North Korea, since the site's inception,” he said. The hackers, it appears, are “increasingly” able to lock users out of their own computer systems and remotely delete data, he said.
Let it be known: Nobody is truly safe from this cyber warfare, even for the most harmless of satires or criticisms.
A new report has revealed that 90 percent of North Korea’s exports were bound for China in 2013, an indication of Pyongyang’s increased economic dependence on its closest neighbor and ally.
That’s nearly seven times the figure from a decade ago, when 50 percent of its exports were sent to Beijing.
According to a report released Wednesday by the Beijing branch of the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), North Korea’s total exports to China in 2013 totaled $2.9 billion, compared to $400 million in 2003.
Annually, China has been North Korea’s biggest export partner, with the exception of 1995, when Japan took that spot.
Beijing’s investments in Pyongyang also increased drastically, from $1.12 million in 2003 to $86.2 million 10 years later. This is a third of the amount China invested in South Korea, some 291.2 billion won ($269 million) in 2013.
But considering the size of the North Korean economy, Beijing’s scope of the investment is sizeable.
In 2013, inter-Korea trade decreased by 42 percent to $1.2 billion compared to the previous year. However, North Korea’s total imports to China comprise only 0.15 percent of the total market.
By contrast, trade between North Korea and China increased by 10 percent that year compared to the previous year, coming in at $6.5 billion.
Pyongyang’s shut down in 2013 of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a symbol of joint economic cooperation between the two Koreas, also played a large part in the decrease of trade between the two countries.
Over 10 years, North Korea’s investment in China grew to $2.68 million, a 12.6 percent increase. This was mostly small-scale investments such as restaurants.
By comparison, China’s investment in Seoul increased by nearly 75 percent over the decade from $150 million to $270 million.
Seoul’s exports to China comprised 26.1 percent of its total exports, compared to 18.1 percent a decade ago.
“Comparing the scale of economic and human exchanges between China and North and South Korea, the South’s size is much bigger, but North Korea’s dependence on China is much greater,” said Choi Yong-min, who heads KITA’s Beijing branch.
Armed Chinese civilians patrol border with North Korea
Surveillance cameras and emergency hotline also in place following murders by North Korean deserters who have crossed border into China
A Chinese border guard patrols on a bridge over the Tumen river leading to North Korea in China's Jilin province Photo: PETER PARKS/AFP
By Robert Foyle Hunwick, Beijing
2:09PM GMT 16 Jan 2015
Surveillance cameras, armed civilian patrols and an emergency hotline are among security measures being hurriedly introduced in Yanbian, a Chinese prefecture bordering North Korea, following a spate of murders by rogue soldiers from across the border.
An unnamed North Korean base, located within eyesight across the frozen Tumen river, may be responsible for as many as 20 killings, one official told the Beijing News. Military newspaper China Defence News, which reported the developments, described the situation as "complicated."
With the country's persistent food insecurity affecting rations, patrolling the porous, 880-mile northern border is usually considered a plum job by North Korean military personnel, thanks to contraband goods and bribes offered by smugglers in and out of China.
But the situation appears to have worsened following Kim Jong-un's dramatic purge of senior officials, including his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who had spearheaded commercial ties with China.
Relations between the two nominal allies have remained testy since Jang's execution, even as North Korea's continued nuclear ambitions have increased tensions in the region.
Analysts say Beijing has reduced some cross-border trade and aid shipments as a sign of displeasure, while President Xi Jinping's state visit to South Korea was seen as a deliberate snub to its northern ally.
The response to the border incursions suggests a leadership with dwindling faith in its counterparts in Pyongyang.
"It's difficult to rely on just one party in maintaining effective control," China Defence News explained diplomatically.
In one high-profile incident last month, a deserter shot and bludgeoned two elderly couples to death in "an apparent robbery," South Korea's Yonhap agency reported, before being captured or shot.
The incident prompted an official complaint from China, while details were leaked to media despite an alleged agreement to cover-up the killings.
Many of Yanbian's younger villagers have already migrated in search of work, while others have fled the deadly raids. They leave behind an older, ethnically Korean population, easily preyed upon by desperate guards seeking food and money.
In September, three family members were beaten to death for 500 yuan by a North Korean civilian who was later caught at the border, a relative told Bloomberg, adding he was given 3,000 yuan in compensation.
In 2013, another defector robbed and killed a couple.
China's Global Times interviewed one restaurateur in the port city of Dandong who disturbed an armed man pilfering in the middle of the night.
"He sped away by boat, taking some bits of meat with him," the man said.
Citizen Militias Will Be Used To Patrol The Chinese Border With North Korea
Reuters Sui-Lee Wee and Megha Rajagopalan, Reuters
Jan. 16, 2015, 5:27 PM
Associated Press
BEIJING (Reuters) — China is sending civilian militias to help secure the border it shares with North Korea, state media said, in the wake of two reported killings of Chinese citizens by North Koreans that could strain ties between Pyongyang and its sole major ally.
The China Defence News said on Wednesday the government had established a civilian-military defense system in the Yanbian prefecture of Jilin province. Yanbian shares a border of about 500 km (310 miles) with North Korea.
"China and North Korea are both keeping guard on the border," the newspaper said. "The situation is more complicated and relying on just one party would make it difficult to achieve effective control."
The government has also "guided the establishment of militia patrols" to guard border villages. Every 10 neighboring households would have their own border security group and there would be 24-hour video surveillance, the newspaper said.
Last week, China said it had lodged a protest with North Korea after media reported that a North Korean army deserter had killed four people during a robbery in the Chinese border city of Helong late last month.
State media has raised questions about the China-North Korea relationship, saying that the Chinese government "should not be too accommodating".
The issue of border security has become "very serious", said Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert at China's Central Party School.
"The fact that North Koreans are running over the border to China shows that North Korea's regulation of the border is seriously problematic," he said. "They have neglected it."
While it is too early to determine if there will be a longterm impact on diplomatic ties, the situation raised tension near the border, he added.
"For those Chinese citizens living near the border, there is widespread anxiety right now, the impact of the situation is very serious," he said. "To say that this will have no impact on relations with North Korea just doesn't match with reality."
China is North Korea's most important diplomatic and economic ally, although three nuclear tests, several rounds of saber-rattling and violence on the China-North Korea border have tested Beijing's support.
The 520 km-long Tumen River that divides China and North Korea is a popular route used by defectors fleeing the secretive North.
Publisher wants facts about Shin Dong Hyuk after retraction of facts
Date January 19, 2015 - 6:59PM
North Korean defector Shin Dong-Hyuk. Photo: Ken Irwin
The publisher of an authorised best-seller about North Korean defector and human rights activist Shin Dong-hyuk, who has retracted substantial parts of his story, says it's anxious for an "accurate understanding" of the facts.
Penguin Books says it is consulting with former Washington Post reporter Blaine Harden, whose Escape from Camp 14 came out in 2012.
Viking, a Penguin imprint, "has been apprised that there were some inaccuracies in the story (that) Shin Dong-hyuk, the subject of the book, told the author," Penguin's publicity director Louise Braverman said.
"We are working with the author on an accurate understanding of the facts."
Harden's book spent several weeks on The New York Times best-seller lists, and, according to Braverman, has been published in 27 languages. More than 200,000 copies are in print in the US alone.
According to Harden, Shin has acknowledged to him that he changed some key details and had apologised.
"In light of my conversation with Shin, I am working with my publisher to gather more information and amend the book," Harden wrote on his web site.
Prominent North Korean defector Shin Dong Hyuk recants
Date January 19, 2015 - 7:01PM
Choe Sang-Hun
His tale of survival has been questioned by the North Korean government, human rights advocates and former North Korean political prisoners.
Questions to answer: North Korean defector Shin Dong Hyuk has amended his account of his life in the repressive country. Photo: Ken Irwin
He was the poster boy for human rights atrocities in North Korea; a soft-spoken survivor of the North's cruel gulags who eventually met such dignitaries as John Kerry in his campaign to focus attention on the North's abuses.
His harrowing tales of life in a prison camp - including being forced to watch his mother and brother being executed - stunned even those steeped in defectors' stories and made him a star witness for an unprecedented United Nations' investigation of abuses by the North's rulers.
Now, that survivor, Shin Dong Hyuk, is retracting central facts of his life story, memorialised in a 2012 book, Escape from Camp 14 by a former Washington Post reporter that has been published in 27 languages.
Shin, who gives his age as 32, now says that the key fact that set him apart from other defectors - that he and his family had been incarcerated at a prison that no one expected to leave alive - was only partly true, and that he actually served most of his time in the less brutal Camp 18. He also said that the torture he endured as a teenager instead happened years later and was meted out for very different reasons.
Shin's confession has raised fears among other prison camp survivors and South Korean human rights activists that it could stall an already difficult campaign by the United States and other nations to get the Security Council to push for an investigation at the International Criminal Court. Other camp survivors also testified before the UN investigators, recounting being tortured and starved, but activists worry that Shin's recanting will help China and other North Korea supporters fight against opening a court case.
In a twist, Shin's story began to unravel because of his fame - and his success in helping push for the UN inquiry. Increasingly angry over the push for accountability at the United Nations, North Korea posted a nearly 10-minute video in October, called "Lie and Truth," exposing what it called Shin's many lies. The video was laced with propaganda for the brutal police state, but it also included an interview with his father who was recognised by another defector, a woman who had served time at Camp 18.
She and other defectors then began to talk quietly with a handful of South Korean reporters about their suspicions that Shin and his family had never served time at the harsher camp in what is known as a "total-control zone." As questions mounted, Shin came under increasing pressure to defend his story.
On Friday, he confessed to the author of Escape from Camp 14, Blaine Harden, and confirmed his retractions Sunday in an interview with The New York Times.
"I am sorry to a lot of people," Shin said by telephone from the United States, where he recently married a Korean-American woman. "I knew I could hide it no longer, but I dithered because friends feared the damage my coming out might do to the movement for North Korean human rights."
A post on his Facebook page urged his supporters to fight on to expose North Korea's treatment of its people.
"For my family, for the suffering political prisoners, for the suffering North Korean people, each of you still have a voice and an ability to fight for us and against this evil regime," the post says, adding that he may no longer be able to carry on his own campaign.
It is difficult to overestimate the influence Shin has had in the long effort to bring international attention to rights abuses in the North. Activists have long contended that the United States and others mainly ignored the abuses and focused instead on the external threat posed by the North's growing nuclear arsenal.
In December 2012, Shin, together with another gulag survivor, took part in a meeting with then-UN human rights chief Navi Pillay in her Geneva office, according to Rupert Colville, who had served as her spokesman. Pillay cited the survivors' accounts the next month when she publicly urged stronger international action against North Korea and the creation of an international inquiry into human rights conditions.
After the commission issued its scathing report, Shin appeared with Kerry at an unusual event on the sidelines of the General Assembly in which Kerry, too, added his voice to efforts to draw attention to human rights in North Korea.
Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said Sunday that Shin's change of heart did not diminish the findings of the yearlong U.N. inquiry, which relied on the testimony of 80 witnesses and more than 240 confidential interviews with victims and other witnesses who would not speak publicly for fear of reprisals.
"The commission report is air tight with or without Shin," Adams said.
In a phone interview, Michael Kirby, the Australian judge who led the UN investigation, noted that the "commission deals with very serious abuses of human rights that go back over 70 years."
In his revised account, Shin stuck to many of the key details he gave to the UN Commission of Inquiry.
Shin's story, which he repeated many times in recent years, was remarkable. He said he was born and grew up at Camp 14 - a sprawling cluster of villages in mountains north of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, surviving hunger and torture until he miraculously escaped in 2005, at 22, by crawling over the body of a dead friend electrocuted by a fence surrounding the camp.
He was the first North Korean who claimed to have escaped from a prison camp in the North. More than a dozen other camp survivors have escaped to South Korea, but all had been freed after serving terms in prisons that are used for re-education as well as punishment.
Among his more gruesome tales, Shin had said sadistic prison guards dangled him over a fire when they suspected him of plotting to escape with his family and chopped off a fingertip when he dropped a sewing machine. He now says the guards actually hurt him because he had escaped from Camp 18 and been caught.
The Washington Post first reported Shin's revisions.
On Sunday, Harden declined to be interviewed, but in a statement to The New York Times he said that Shin said he had not realised that changing the details of his story for the book would be a problem.
"I didn't want to tell exactly what happened in order not to relive these painful moments," the statement quoted Shin as saying.
It is difficult to verify the accounts of North Korean defectors because the country is so isolated. In an email Sunday, Harden said, he had stressed in his book that Shin could be an unreliable narrator of his life.
When asked if copies of the book would be pulled from stores, a spokeswoman for Penguin Books, said that "we are working with the author on an accurate understanding of the facts."
Shin's latest account has raised its own questions. He now says he escaped Camp 18 twice, in 1999 and 2001, was caught both times, and eventually handed to the infamous Camp 14.
"He is still lying," said a North Korean defector who said he was in Camp 18, speaking on condition of anonymity because he has family in the North. "You just cannot escape a North Korean prison camp twice, as he said he did, and is still alive and manages to escape a third time, this time from the total-control zone."
During a phone interview Sunday, Shin cited "great mental stress" while declining to explain how he escaped so many times from heavily guarded camps.
Another former inmate, Chung Kwang Il, said he could not understand why Shin lied.
"Without saying he was from Camp 18, he had remarkable stories to tell, a good witness to North Korean human rights abuse," he said. "I guess he somehow thought he needed a more dramatic story to attract attention."
North Korea takes 'sparsely decorated stall' to tourism fair
North Korea has sent a representative to a Swiss travel fair in an attempt to attract more tourists - despite an ongoing ban on visitors due to Ebola fears
The biggest pull for Westerners is the chance to catch a glimpse behind the last remaining Iron Curtain state Photo: GETTY
By Reuters
4:07PM GMT 16 Jan 2015
North Korea, a hereditary dictatorship under international pressure over its nuclear weapons programme and human rights record, has sent a representative to a travel fair in Switzerland in an attempt to attract visitors.
Mountaineering, landmarks and the country's beaches are part of the sales pitch by the North Korea tourism representative, Ri Yong Bom. But the biggest pull for Westerners is the chance to catch a glimpse behind the last remaining Iron Curtain state.
"Mostly, they are interested to see our system, how it works, how the people are living and what the present situation is," Berlin-based Ri told Reuters in North Korea's sparsely decorated stall at the four-day event in Berne, the Swiss capital.
The country does not publish tourist numbers, but travel agencies have estimated as many as 6,000 Westerners visit the country each year. The vast majority of tourists to North Korea are from neighbouring China, North Korea's main ally.
North Korea has attended Berlin's ITB tourism trade fair for several years, but Globetrotter Group Chief Executive Andre Luethi, who first had the idea for North Korea to come to Berne, said this was the first time it had attended a consumer-facing event. If the Berne fair is a success, Ri hopes to make presentations in other Swiss cities.
Tourism has been an increasing source of revenue for the impoverished state, particularly as its arms trade gets pinched under United Nations sanctions imposed for its missile and nuclear tests.
But prospective tourists may have to wait a while for a visit to North Korea. The country currently has a ban on foreign tourists due to concern over the deadly Ebola virus. Tour industry sources expect it will be lifted within the next few months.
In addition, various countries advise their citizens against going to North Korea. The United States Department of State, for example, "strongly recommends against all travel by U.S. citizens to North Korea," according to the State Department. Canada "advises against all travel to North Korea." The UK Foreign Office, however, does not advise Britons to steer clear.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has an association with Switzerland. He studied in the Swiss capital Berne under an assumed name and is believed to have gone on school ski trips in the Alps.
Kim has sought to expand the country's tourism industry, personally directing the construction of a ski resort. North Korea approached several Swiss companies to provide chair lifts and cable cars, but the Swiss government added luxury sporting equipment to its list of goods banned under U.N. sanctions.
The United States has expanded sanctions against North Korea after blaming Pyongyang for a hacking attack on Sony Corp, and Ri said some tourists have been put off visiting the country amid the controversy.
Some have taken issue with North Korea's presence at the fair, and the Swiss section of Amnesty International organised a small demonstration outside the exhibition hall to ensure that potential tourists are aware of the criticisms against North Korea.
"Inside they're showing the highlights for tourists," Amnesty International spokeswoman Alexandra Karle said. "We want to show how it really looks there."
North Korean 'Camp 14' gulag survivor admits parts of story untrue
Shin Dong-Hyuk, believed to be the only person born in a North Korean prison camp ever to have escaped, whose life was recounted in the book "Escape from Camp 14", has apologised after admitting parts of his story are untrue
Shin Dong-Hyuk admits parts of his story were untrue. Photo: REUTERS
By AFP
10:41AM GMT 18 Jan 2015
A North Korean gulag survivor whose torture and daring escape was detailed in a bestselling book has admitted that parts of his story are untrue, and said on Sunday he may end his campaign against human rights abuses.
Shin Dong-Hyuk, believed to be the only person born in a North Korean prison camp ever to have escaped, apologised on his Facebook page on Sunday, saying he had "forever wanted to conceal and hide part of my past".
Shin was born and spent the first 23 years of his life in a prison camp where, he recounted in the harrowing "Escape from Camp 14", he was tortured and subjected to forced labour before escaping in 2005.
Ever since Shin, now 32, has campaigned prominently to highlight rights abuses in the isolated North, testifying before a UN commission last year.
But Shin recently changed some of the details in his story, Blaine Harden, the book's author, said on his website.
"On Friday Jan. 16, I learned that Shin ... had told friends an account of his life that differed substantially from my book," said Harden.
"I contacted Shin, pressing him to detail the changes and explain why he had misled me," Harden said.
Shin told Harden that some of the ordeals had been "too painful" for him to revisit and he had "altered some details" that he had thought would not matter, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Shin said he was "very sorry" in his Facebook posting.
"I ... forever wanted to conceal and hide part of my past. We tell ourselves that it's OK to not reveal every little detail, and that it might not matter if certain parts aren't clarified," he said.
"To those who have supported me, trusted me and believed in me all this time, I am so very grateful and at the same time so very sorry to each and every single one of you," he said.
Shin did not elaborate in the post on which part of his past had been fabricated.
In Harden's book, Shin says he was brutally burned and tortured when aged 13, after a failed attempt to escape the camp.
But, according to the Washington Post report, Shin now admits the event took place when he was 20.
Shin also said in the book he saw his mother and brother executed after he betrayed them, telling authorities in Camp 14 of their plan to escape in hopes of getting food as reward.
But the report said Shin told Harden the executions actually took place when he and his family were in a different camp.
Lee Young-Hwan, a Seoul-based rights expert, described the changes as "minor inaccuracies" and said many refugees who suffered abuse show "selective memory" due to mental trauma or an instinct for self-preservation that takes root during their years of ordeal.
"The trauma sometimes lead them to say only things that can work in their favour, or have jumbled memories about the most painful experiences," said Lee, adviser to Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights.
"There may be minor inaccuracies in Shin's story, but his whole life and the nightmare he went through should still stand as evidence of history," Lee told AFP.
On Facebook, Shin said he "may not be able to continue" his years-long campaign against the North's regime, but urged his supporters to fight on.
"The world still needs to know of the horrendous and unspeakable horrors that are taking place," he said.
"These will be my final words and this will likely be my final post," he added, concluding: "Thank You".
Shin has been one of the most well-known campaigners against rights abuses committed in the North, where the Kim family rules its impoverished populace with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult.
The North has sought to discredit Shin as a fabulist and criminal, and aired last October a TV interview with his father who called Shin a "liar" and denied the family was even in a labour camp.
Shin argued his father must have been coerced into denouncing him, saying he felt "suicidal" with guilt over the punishment his remaining family may have faced after his escape.
US spy agency 'failed to warn Sony Pictures of North Korea hacking plans'
US knew Pyongyang was behind the Sony hack because it had hacked into North Korea's cyberwar unit since 2010, but failed to understand the severity of the threat, says report
North Korea had publicly threatened Sony if it released the comedy film "The Interview" about a CIA plot to assassinate leader Kim Jong-Un Photo: AP
By Andrew Marszal and AFP
1:53PM GMT 19 Jan 2015
The United States knew North Korea was behind the Sony Pictures hack because its own hackers had penetrated the secretive nation's computer systems four years ago, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The claims that the National Security Agency (NSA) had "penetrated directly" into the North's systems via Chinese networks in 2010 raised the question of why the US spy agency had not warned Sony in advance of the costly attack.
Citing former US officials and a newly released NSA document, the New York Times reported that hidden US software provided an "early warning radar" for North Korean activities, and provided the evidence that persuaded President Barack Obama that Pyongyang was behind the Sony hack.
US investigators concluded that North Korean hackers spent two months mapping Sony's computer systems in preparation for what became the biggest cyberattack in US corporate history.
But according to one US official cited by the newspaper, the intelligence agencies "couldn't really understand the severity" of the attack that was coming.
While North Korea's conventional military hardware is largely outdated and unsophisticated, its cyberwarfare capabilities have long been considered a significant threat.
North Korea denies any involvement in the hacking of Sony Pictures, although it had publicly threatened Sony if it released the comedy film "The Interview" about a CIA plot to assassinate leader Kim Jong-Un.
Primarily aimed at gathering information on the reclusive nation's nuclear program, the NSA's clandestine operation switched focus to the growing threat posed by North Korea's hacking capabilities following a destructive cyberattack on South Korean banks in 2013.
South Korean intelligence believes North Korea runs an elite cyberwarfare unit with at least 6,000 personnel, trained in secret government and military programs.
A number of experts suggest the North's cybercapacity is heavily reliant on China, in terms of both training and the necessary software and hardware.
They say telecommunications giant China Unicom provides and maintains all internet links with the North, and some estimate that thousands of North Korean hackers operate on Chinese soil.
According to South Korea's National Intelligence Service, more than 75,000 hacking attempts were made against South Korean government agencies between 2010 and September 2014 - many of them believed to be from Pyongyang.
The New York Times interviewed a former North Korean army programmer who said the North began training computer "warriors" in earnest in 1996, despatching many to undergo two years' training in China and Russia.
Hidden US software provided an 'early warning radar' that Pyongyang was behind the Sony hack, according to the New York Times.
US President Barack Obama in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Dec. 19, 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/AFP/Getty Images)
The United States secretly penetrated North Korea's computer systems four years ago — a breach that allowed Washington to insist Pyongyang was to blame for the recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures, the New York Times reported Monday.
Citing former US officials and a newly released National Security Agency (NSA) document, the Times detailed how the US spy agency in 2010 "penetrated directly" into the North's systems via Chinese networks and connections in Malaysia favored by North Korean hackers.
Primarily aimed at gathering information on the reclusive nation's nuclear program, the NSA's clandestine operation switched focus to the growing threat posed by North Korea's hacking capabilities following a destructive cyberattack on South Korean banks in 2013.
Hidden US software provided an "early warning radar" for North Korean activities, and provided the evidence that persuaded President Barack Obama that Pyongyang was behind the Sony hack, the Times said, citing an anonymous official familiar with the NSA mission.
US investigators concluded that North Korean hackers spent two months mapping Sony's computer systems in preparation for what became the biggest cyberattack in US corporate history.
North Korea denies any involvement, although it had publicly threatened Sony if it released the comedy film "The Interview" about a CIA plot to assassinate leader Kim Jong-Un.
Given that threat and the reported level of US penetration, the Times report raised the question of why the NSA was unable to warn Sony in advance.
According to one US official cited by the newspaper, the intelligence agencies "couldn't really understand the severity" of the attack that was coming.
While North Korea's conventional military hardware is largely outdated and unsophisticated, its cyberwarfare capabilities have long been considered a significant threat.
South Korean intelligence believes North Korea runs an elite cyberwarfare unit with at least 6,000 personnel, trained in secret government and military programs.
A number of experts suggest the North's cybercapacity is heavily reliant on China, in terms of both training and the necessary software and hardware.
They say telecommunications giant China Unicom provides and maintains all Internet links with the North, and some estimate that thousands of North Korean hackers operate on Chinese soil.
According to South Korea's National Intelligence Service, more than 75,000 hacking attempts were made against South Korean government agencies between 2010 and September 2014 -- many of them believed to be from Pyongyang.
The Times interviewed a former North Korean army programmer who said the North began training computer "warriors" in earnest in 1996, despatching many to undergo two years' training in China and Russia.
North Korea is citing Shin Dong-hyuk's (above) recent book scandal, in which he admitted some untruths, to undermine the UN's findings on human rights in the socialist country. Photo: AP
North Korea argued today that the admission of inaccuracies in the memoir of a high-profile gulag survivor rendered any existing or future UN resolution on Pyongyang’s human rights record “invalid”.
Defector Shin Dong-Hyuk acknowledged this week that some elements of his story as told in the best-selling book Escape from Camp 14 were inaccurate, although he stressed that the crucial details of his suffering and torture still stood.
But a spokesman for North Korea’s Association for Human Rights Studies, said his admissions “self-exposed” the flimsy foundations of efforts by the United States and other “hostile forces” in seeking to censure Pyongyang for its rights record.
In a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency, the spokesman noted that Shin was among those defectors who had testified last year before a UN Commission of Inquiry that concluded North Korea was committing human rights violations “without parallel in the contemporary world”.
The commission’s report formed the basis of a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last month that urged the Security Council to consider referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The North Korean spokesman said Shin’s recent retractions proved that the commission’s report was “a false document cooked up on the basis of false testimonies made by human scum”.
“So, needless to say, all the resolutions on human rights forcibly adopted against [North Korea] on the basis of such false documents are invalid,” he added.
The Security Council held its first-ever discussion on the North’s rights record in December, but any referral to the ICC would almost certainly be vetoed by permanent members China and Russia.
The North has repeatedly sought to discredit Shin as a fabulist and criminal, and last October aired a TV interview with his father who called Shin a “liar” and denied the family was even in a labour camp.
Shin said his father must have been coerced into denouncing him.
North Korean rights advocates have expressed disappointment with Shin but stress that the huge volume of corroborative testimony of systemic rights abuses in North Korea remains unchallenged.
Michael Kirby, the retired Australian judge who headed the UN Commission of Inquiry, said Shin’s partial retractions were “substantially immaterial” to the panel’s findings or recommendations.
Stressing that Shin was only one of 300 witnesses interviewed by the commission, Kirby said the panel’s conclusions were based on a mass of “overwhelming” evidence.
“The dispute over Mr Shin’s evidence appears to relate to the exact detention camp from which he escaped,” Kirby said.
“In the big picture of gross abuses of human rights of the entire population of North Korea over more than 65 years, his experience -- although very important to him and his family - is not critical to the inquiry,” he added.
For activists within the North Korean defector community, however, Shin’s admissions are a genuine blow, especially given his high profile.
North Korea’s inaccessibility makes it hard to verify individual defector accounts of their lives in the reclusive state, placing a lot of weight on their personal credibility.
Shin was something of an activist poster-boy, giving speeches around the world, penning editorials and picking up awards.
The US-based Human Rights Watch described him as the world’s “single strongest voice on atrocities taking place in North Korea”.
Shin has acknowledged that the damage his retractions have done meant he “may not be able to continue” his activist work.
Shin Dong-hyuk’s story drew widespread attention because he said he had lived in a high-security political prison camp in North Korea from his birth until his escape through an electrified fence. Photo: AFP
A prominent North Korean defector who fled a prison camp has apologised for changing important parts of his life story, stirring controversy amid efforts to hold the socialist country accountable for widespread human rights abuses.
Shin Dong-hyuk’s story drew widespread attention because he said he had lived in a high-security political prison camp in North Korea from his birth until his escape through an electrified fence.
Human rights groups say the UN inquiry was based on interviews with scores of North Korean defectors. “Its findings are still valid,” said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch.
The organisation last year gave Shin an award for extraordinary activism and said he is “regarded as the single strongest voice on atrocities taking place in North Korea”.
Shin describes himself on Facebook as “the only known person born in a North Korean prison camp that escaped and survived to tell the tale”.
But doubts about the story solidified when Blaine Harden, the author who helped tell Shin’s story in the book Escape from Camp 14, said on his website that the defector had to “explain why he had misled me”.
Shin, in his latest Facebook post, seemingly apologised for the inaccuracies in recounting his past. “Every one of us have stories, or things we’d like to hide,” he said.
He said he may or may not be able to continue his work of trying to eliminate North Korea’s political prison camps but urged others to keep fighting. “These will be my final words and this will likely be my final post,” Shin said.
Shin was travelling and could not be reached for comment. He was expected to arrive in Seoul from the US on Monday afternoon, said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
Harden has described Shin as a reluctant narrator, and a sometimes unreliable one.
“In writing this book, I have sometimes struggled to trust him,” Harden wrote in the introduction to his book. “He misled me in our first interview about his role in the death of his mother, and he continued to do so in more than a dozen interviews. When he changed his story, I became worried about what else he might have made up.”
Harden’s statement says he passed along Shin’s new information to The Washington Post, his former employer. Its report over the weekend said Shin now says he was transferred around the age of six to a lighter-security prison camp with his mother and brother.
It was there, not the harsher camp, where he informed authorities about an escape attempt by his mother and brother. For that, they were executed.
Shin now says he was later transferred back to the harsher camp.
Shin didn’t realise that changing dates and places of major events would be important, Harden’s statement says.
But commentators said the discrepancies should not detract from the reality of North Korea’s rights record, including running notorious labour camps where inmates die of starvation, exhaustion or the cold.
“The fundamental building blocks of his story have remained the same, although I am fully aware of the differences between [the two camps],” Scarlatoiu, of the Committee for Human Rights, said.
“Still, born and raised in a camp, he was subjected to forced labour, induced malnutrition and torture. He informed on his mother and brother, who were executed. He escaped from the camp, and lived to tell his story. None of that has changed.”
North Korea tried to discredit Shin late last year as it fought a UN General Assembly resolution that backed the findings of a groundbreaking UN commission of inquiry into Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.
Shin’s earlier account helped drive the international effort to hold North Korea accountable. He and another defector met with then-UN human rights chief Navi Pillay just days before she called for the commission of inquiry in early 2013.
“Their personal stories were extremely harrowing,” Pillay said at the time.
North Korea’s government denies the existence of the harsh political prison camps, and human rights groups and others rely on both information from defectors and satellite images for information.
The North Korean government did not allow the UN commission of inquiry to visit the country for its work.
A spokesman for North Korea’s mission to the United Nations had no immediate comment.
The commission of inquiry’s report, released early last year, detailed abuses including mass starvation and forced abortions, and it recommended that North Korea’s human rights situation be referred to the International Criminal Court. The commission of inquiry also sent a letter to leader Kim Jong-un warning him that he could be held accountable.
That alarmed North Korean authorities, and its diplomats circulated a DVD called Lie and Truth: Who is Shin Dong-Hyuk? in an attempt to discredit him by using footage of his own father speaking out against him and saying the family had never lived in a “so-called political prisoner camp”.
But Shin said the DVD merely proved that his father was still alive.
Propaganda leaflets balloon-launched into North Korea from South, but no 'Interview'
North Korea threatens one South Korean activist involved in balloon launches he will "pay for his crimes in blood' if copies of Hollywood film 'The Interview' are included
South Korean activists and North Korean defectors release balloons due to float north carrying sacks of propaganda leaflets in this file picture from July 2014. Photo: AP
South Korean activists balloon-launched anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea and threatened on Tuesday to follow them with copies of Hollywood comedy The Interview,” despite the North’s dire threats of retaliation.
The North has warned at least one activist that he would “pay for his crimes in blood” if copies of the movie about a CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made it across the border.
Activist Park Sang-hak told local media that his group, Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), had launched balloons with 100,000 leaflets on Monday night in an unpublicised operation near the border town of Paju.
Copies of The Interview were “intentionally” excluded from the leaflet packages, Park said, but added his group still had plans to send USB files and DVDs of the film at a later date.
Screenshot shows Sony Pictures' controversial film, 'The Interview' available for rental on YouTube Movies. Photo: AP
Park told Yonhap news agency he might reconsider if North Korea agrees to the South’s proposal for high-level talks on a possible reunion for families divided by the 1950-53 Korean war.
The US-based Human Rights Foundation, which supports the FFNK activities, said further balloon launches would be carried out this week, despite the “bullying” threats from Pyongyang.
The foundation also said it intended to put 100,000 copies of The Interview along with a variety of other media, into North Korea, but did not offer a specific timeframe.
North Korea, which refers to the activists as “human scum”, has long condemned the balloon launches and in recent months has stepped up its demands for Seoul to ban the practice entirely.
North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un (centre). Pyongyang refers to the balloon launchers as 'human scum'.
In October last year, North Korea border guards attempted to shoot down some balloons, triggering a brief exchange of heavy machine gun fire between the two sides.
South Korea insists the activists have a democratic right to release the balloons, but has appealed for restraint to avoid excessive provocation of the North and endangering local residents near the launch sites.
Any effort to include The Interview DVDs in the regular leaflet packages is likely to trigger a furious reaction from Pyongyang, which had labelled the film “a wanton act of terror” before its release.
North Korea has denied US accusations it was behind a devastating cyberattack on the studio behind the film, Sony Pictures.
A 17-year-old who says he is a street child from North Korea is seeking refugee status in Sweden, maintaining he walked across a frozen river into China and traversed two continents in cars, the trans-Siberian railway and the back of a truck.
But he offers no evidence to back his claims about the 7,000km journey and Swedish authorities suspect he may be Chinese.
The teenager, who uses the pseudonym Han Song to avoid reprisals by North Korean agents, fears Sweden will deport him to China because he has no documents.
“I can’t speak Chinese,” Han said in telephone conversations from Stockholm. "But it’s hard for me to prove anything," he said, speaking in Korean with a strong North Korean accent.
Hundreds of people in isolated North Korea make a getaway from its persecution and poverty each year. The vast majority slip across the border into China and then make their way to South Korea, although some end up in other countries.
Access to North Korea is severely limited and it is impossible to verify the accounts of most of those who escape. One of the most prominent refugees, whose flight from a brutal prison camp was the subject of the bestselling book “Escape From Camp 14”, has changed key parts of his story and apologised this week for misleading people.
Han, the teenager, says he was born in Songbuk County, a rural and sparsely populated corner of North Korea that juts into China, the border marked by the Tumen River.
When he was seven, his mother died of a stomach ailment. His father was later imprisoned for criticising former leader Kim Jong-il, according to Han.
“I ran away from the village after that, and roamed around as a ‘kotjebi’,” he said.
Kotjebi is a word used in North Korea to describe homeless, orphaned children.
Like most kotjebi, Han said he had to beg for food, usually in groups with other homeless children who loitered on the fringes of markets, foraging for scraps.
Then a wealthy trader, a former army colleague of his father, came to his help.
“He was warm hearted, caring and helpful. He was quite rich around his neighbourhood because he was selling many daily commodities smuggled from China,” Han said.
With his help, Han said he made a deal with an ethnic Korean in China, a broker who helped North Koreans seek refuge in a third country.
On a frosty March night in 2013, Han said he walked across the frozen Tumen river. A car on the other side took him to a safe house where he and a small group of other refugees hid for a few days before the broker took Han and some others towards Russia.
“The broker was always with me because I didn’t know how to go about any of this (on my own),” Han said. “They made a fake document for me, I don’t know if it was a fake passport or not.”
In the Russian Far East, Han said the broker took him and his fellow refugees to a train on the trans-Siberian route. In a week-long journey through Russia, Han said he lay low in the cabin, eating bread provided by the broker.
The group split up at the Russia-Finland border and Han said he was hidden in the back of a truck, in a space between large boxes, and driven to Sweden.
“I didn’t even know where Sweden was. The broker helped me get here,” he said. Three weeks after he first left the North Korean borderlands, Han turned himself in to the Red Cross in Stockholm and asked for refugee status.
Like many of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Sweden each year, Han underwent a series of interviews to ascertain his nationality.
The Swedish Migration Board said Sprakab, a company it uses to conduct language tests and other methods to vet asylum seekers, could not conclusively point to Han’s background.
Fredrik Beijer, director of legal affairs at the board, said Han has to prove he is from North Korea, and as he has not been able to, the working hypothesis is that he is from China.
Han has been asked to fill out applications seeking Chinese travel documents. If China does not confirm he is a Chinese citizen, and neither Han nor the Swedish authorities are able to prove his identity after a period of four years, he will probably be allowed to stay in Sweden on humanitarian grounds.
Han’s supporters have started an online campaign to prevent his deportation, and have raised over 14,000 signatures on the petition.
Han’s lawyer said the South Korean embassy in Stockholm did not find Han’s fingerprints on file, indicating Han was not likely to be a “double-defector” - a North Korean refugee in South Korea who has fled to a third country.
Citizen’s Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), a Seoul-based NGO, has also taken up Han’s case and said the Swedish government “should err on the side of ensuring the boy’s safety and refrain from deporting him to China”.
“If Sweden refuses to protect him, NKHR urges the South Korean government to seek the boy’s deportation to South Korea,” it said
Michael Kirby says the partial retraction of Shin Dong-hyuk's testimony is not significant for the UN commission's report, conclusions or recommendations. Photo: Reuters
The head of the UN commission that produced a damning report on North Korean rights abuses has dismissed Pyongyang's claim that doubts about the credibility of a prominent witness made the panel's findings "invalid."
"The partial retraction of Shin Dong-hyuk of the testimony he gave to the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea is not significant for the report, conclusions or recommendations of the commission," said retired Australian judge Michael Kirby yesterday.
Shin, a well-known defector and Pyongyang critic, admitted this week that elements of his best-selling gulag survivor book Escape from Camp 14 were inaccurate, although he stressed the crucial details of his suffering and torture still stood.
For his part, Kirby noted Shin was only one of 300 witnesses interviewed by his commission, whose overall findings were based on a mass of "overwhelming" corroborative evidence. "In the big picture of gross abuses of human rights of the entire population of North Korea over more than 65 years, his experience - although very important to him and his family - is not critical to the inquiry," he added.
But a spokesman for North Korea's Association for Human Rights Studies said Shin's admissions "self-exposed" the flimsy foundations of efforts to censure Pyongyang for its rights record.
In a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency, the spokesman noted Shin was one of the best-known defectors who testified to Kirby's panel.
The commission's conclusion that North Korea was committing human rights violations "without parallel in the contemporary world" was the basis of a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last month.
It urged the Security Council to consider referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The North Korean spokesman said Shin's recent retractions proved the commission's report was "a false document cooked up on the basis of false testimonies made by human scum".
"So, needless to say, all the resolutions on human rights forcibly adopted against (North Korea) on the basis of such false documents are invalid," he added.
The Security Council held its first discussion on the North's rights record in December, but any referral to the ICC would almost certainly be vetoed by permanent members China and Russia.
