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It has put on display photos, graphics, and personal effects, and held a remembrance for the 3 million souls who have starved to death in North Korea since the 1990s.

The International Coalition for North Korean Human Rights and other NGOs organized the opening event of the North Korea Holocaust Exhibition, which was held at the National Assembly, on Tuesday morning. Here, Defense Forum Institute president Suzanne Scholte (second from left), former North Korean Workers Party secretary Hwang Jang-yeop, Grand National Party (GNP) chairwoman Park Geun-hye, and GNP Rep. Kim Moon-soo attend the event./Yonhap

Grand National Party Rep. Kim Mun-soo, the International Coalition for North Korean Human Rights held an open seminar entitled, “Non-Governmental Groups’ Activities to Help North Korean Defectors in China,” as part of the North Korea Holocaust Exhibition at a meeting room of the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Several panelists participated in the seminar to vividly complain about the violation of human rights in North Korea. Attendants included Japanese refugee activist Takayuki Noguchi, who was imprisoned by the Chinese government while helping North Korean defectors in December last year; Jang Gil-su, who entered the Chinese office of the U.N Human Rights High Commissioner in 2001; and Lee Gui-ok, who entered the Japanese consul in Shenyang, China, in 2002. Jang Gil-su said because he was a North Korean escapee, he could not openly reveal who he was and was chased by Chinese police every day. Lee Gui-ok testified about prostitution and female defectors, saying North Korean women sold their body for money and swallowed self-respect after arriving in China.

Former North Korean refugee Jang Gil-su gives a detailed explanation about a photograph of a North Korean family escaping from their home country. He attended the North Korea Holocaust Exhibition that was held at the National Assembly. The exhibition will be held in major cities around the world as well.

Mun, who was a common businessman, has given his all for North Korean human rights since 1996, when he visited China on a trade trip.

"I met defectors for the first time in Yenji. I asked them about North Korea, and I was quite surprised to hear them say only that they were starving to death. I couldn't just ignore these defectors I met, so I brought them to Korea with my company's money. That was my first link North Korea."

From that point on, he resolved to spend the rest of his life giving his all for North Korean human rights. In 1999, he helped Jang Gil-su and his family. He played a hidden role in taking care of Jang and his family in China for three years, and helped him and his family got into the U.N. representative's office in Beijing, when they became first defectors awarded refugee status. Jang's pictures of the situation in North Korea that he drew in China have been shown the world over.

"Not so long ago, a ruling party lawmaker called those assisting North Korean defectors to come to the South 'brokers' or 'wicked traders,' but I can't understand how someone who has never gone to China and met defectors directly -- a person completely ignorant of how cruelly their human rights are being violated -- could possible say something like that." He said, "North Korea is a place where mankind is obliterated. It is crueler in some ways than the Nazi concentration camps, so I chose to call this exhibition the 'North Korean Holocaust.'"

"That our citizens can be this silent in the face of Kim Jong-il's outrages is simply shameful. Now, we can no longer delay informing people of the wretched situation in North Korea. Does it make sense that the rest of the world should show concern for North Korean human rights while only we look on?"

(Gang Cheol-hwan nkch@chosun.com )