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The North Korean government is still keeping at least 600 political prisoners in their political concentration camps, a report by a civic group claimed Friday. The civic organization, the Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag, published its report on North Korean political prisoners and other missing people.
According to the report, Pyongyang's former ambassador to Libya, Kim Dae-hun, and his entire family are being kept at Yoduk Detention Camp. The report claimed that ¡°Kim¡¯s son, while the rest of the family were in Libya, had defected to the South¡± and that that was the reason for their detention. Whether their son really is in South Korea has become a topic of close attention.
The report also claimed that the former ambassador to Indonesia, Ri Won-jo, was recalled only two hours after he criticized the North Korean government in a discussion with one of his subordinates in Indonesia and was later sent to the concentration camp.
Kim Hyung-rak, who served as a pilot to Kim Il-sung¡¯s personal airplane, was also sent to Yoduk Camp in 1974 for supporting Kim Jong-il¡¯s brother Kim Pyung-il. Song, who had defected to the North in the 1970s, was also sent to the detention camp in the 1980s after showing discontent about the North's government.
The family and relatives of Lee Woong-pyung, who defected to South Korea in 1983 and died of cancer in 2002, are also confined in the concentration camp, the report claimed.
Kim Yoon-tae, chief of the organization's policy bureau, said the report was based on testimonies of North Korean defectors and public data.
(Kwon Kyung-bok, kkb@chosun.com )
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