N. Korea rights violation records submitted for UNESCO listing
By Kim Se-jeong
Yoon Yeo-sang, NKDB chief director
A Seoul-based civic group is seeking to have testimonies of human rights violations in North Korea and abuse cases at concentration camps registered with UNESCO.
The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) said Monday it will push its records for the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The NKDB compiles testimonies from North Korean defectors arriving in the South.
“Human rights violations in North Korea are the worst of their kind on Earth,” NKDB chief director Yoon Yeo-sang told The Korea Times, on the sidelines of the group’s conference to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its white paper publication.
“There is a lesson we humans can learn from this. We believe these records deserve to be part of the UNESCO world heritage.”
Yoon said the UNESCO Memory of the World Register has seven entries related to human rights violations, including state oppression and resistance in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, which were accepted to the register in 2007.
“The preliminary work is underway, with our staff in communication with UNESCO,” the director said, adding that he is looking forward to collaborating on the project.
A North Korean human rights activist for two decades, Yoon says South Koreans have a reason to pay special attention to the issue.
“Human rights violations are happening in an orchestrated manner to all people living in North Korea,” he said. “The United Nations report said it’s the worst case in the world. It is a concern for all mankind. For South Koreans, North Korea is our closest neighbor and many who suffer are family members and friends. This is why we should pay more attention.”
The North Korean regime is starving its people to death and depriving them of freedom of movement, expression and religion, among others, he said. Many fled the regime, especially after a devastating flood in the mid-1990s, and came to the South. The number of defectors to the South is estimated at 30,000.
The NKDB, established in 2003, has conducted more than 20,000 interviews with defectors about human rights violations there, and the number of records ― which includes documents, audio, and video ― exceeds 100,000.
Based on the interviews, the center publishes its white paper on North Korean human rights violations every year.
The NKDB’s trove of records was cited by a report on North Korea’s human rights violations commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council in 2014. The report urged the U.N. Security Council to take North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the International Criminal Court. Last year, the U.N. General Assembly also endorsed a resolution to condemn the regime.
With the North Korean Human Rights Act having taken effect Sept. 1, the center is facing changes.
Under the law, the government will make an archive of human rights violations in North Korea, which overlaps with what the NKDB has been doing. The government earlier told the NKDB that it would take over the group’s work, but recently said it would support the group to continue operating. Yoon said that in whatever form, he hopes the government and the group’s work can create synergy.
“We’re not here to compete. We have a huge amount of data, and we are willing to collaborate with the government so that we can keep the records complete and lasting.”