Defector admits inaccuracies in best-selling book
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Defector Shin Dong-hyuk / Yonhap
North Korean defector Shin Dong-hyuk has admitted there is wrong information in his best-selling book “Escape from Camp 14.”
The defector, 32, told Blaine Harden, a former Washington Post journalist and publisher of the book, on Friday that he was 20 when he was tortured for escaping. In his original account, he said it happened when he was 13, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
Shin also admitted to the publisher that he was transferred to Camp 18 from Camp 14. In the book, he said all the events happened in Camp 14. He said in the book that he escaped from Camp 14 where he was born, and where he was seriously tortured until he escaped in 2005.
Harden published the book ― based on Shin’s life as a prison camp survivor ― in 2012 in an attempt to raise awareness of the reclusive regime’s human rights violations.
“We tell ourselves that it’s okay to not reveal every little detail, and that it might not matter if certain parts aren’t clarified,” Shin said on his Facebook page, “Nevertheless this particular past of mine that I so badly wanted to cover up can no longer be hidden, nor do I want it to be.”
He also said he might stop working as a human rights activist.
“At this point I may or may not be able to continue in my work and efforts in trying to eliminate the political prison camps and bring justice to the oppressed ― the same goes for my entire fight altogether against the North Korean regime.”
Since the book was published three years ago, Shin has focused on the North’s violation of human rights, testifying before the United Nations Commissions of Inquiry last year.