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The National Human Rights Commission will conduct a survey of 13,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea on human rights in the North. The survey is the NHRC¡¯s first project dealing with North Korea¡¯s human rights violations since it picked the issue as one of six key tasks for this year.
An NHRC official said the survey will focus on North Korean defectors who were caught by North Korean authorities while attempting to escape and will ask how they were treated after they were caught. Those in South Korea will be questioned first, but the commission will fly to China and interview North Korean refugees there if necessary. The NHRC official said that the method and date of the survey has not been finalized, but it will be ¡°part of the commission¡¯s efforts to improve human rights conditions in the North.¡±
North Korean defectors¡¯ groups like the Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag said defectors who are caught while attempting to escape are tortured. They asked the NHRC to investigate, pointing to the aftereffects victims suffer. The network estimates that 80 percent of the 13,000 defectors in South Korea were tortured while trying to escape the poverty-stricken North.
Since it was established in 2001, the NHRC has raised questions about the North Korean defectors¡¯ treatment in South Korea but has never investigated how they were treated at home, coming in for heavy criticism for its lukewarm attitude.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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