Opinion | Release of prisoners in North Korea vital to peace plan, writes a one-time detainee
As a former inmate of a North Korean prison, Robert Park argues that a sweeping amnesty for tens of thousands of Pyongyang’s prisoners should be one of the goals at the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore
The June 12 summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un represents an unprecedented opportunity to advocate for untold numbers of men, women and children who are suffering incomparably – together with countless who have died, having committed no crime whatsoever – in North Korea’s incarceration system.
Tomas Ojea Quintana, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, has called for a general amnesty of political prisoners – including everyone arbitrarily detained – similar to an amnesty in Myanmar that brought about the release of thousands of detainees there.
A 2014 UN report said some 80,000 to 120,000 were being held in camps and subjected to “unspeakable” abuses – as Ojea Quintana reiterates neither the rule of law nor due process exist within the country.
I can only agree with Ojea Quintana that since “human rights and security and peace are interlinked”, the ultimate fate of tens of thousands of political prisoners must be discussed at the negotiations in Singapore.
“The country’s extensive penitentiary system and severe restrictions on all forms of free expression, movement and access to information continue to nurture fear of the state and leave people at the mercy of unaccountable public officials,” Ojea Quintana said before the UN Human Rights Council on March 12.