It has been confirmed that NKnet researcher Kim Young Hwan is to receive the Order of Civil Merit, 5th Class from the South Korean government for his services to North Korean human rights.
Kim is to be recognized for publicizing the North Korean Human rights issue at home and abroad, promoting North Korean human rights investigation activities, giving support to North Korean defectors, building civil society in North Korea and contributing to the formation of public opinion on North Korean human rights.
Kim was arrested earlier this year in the process of conducting his human rights activities in China, and detained for 114 days by the Chinese Ministry of State Security. He alleges that he was tortured and beaten during the early days of his detention.
This is the fourth consecutive year that a North Korean human rights activist has received a human rights award. Kim follows in the footsteps of Han Ki Hong, the president of NKnet, Benjamin Yoon of Citizen’s Alliance for North Korean Human Rights and Ha Tae Kyung, the former president of Open Radio for North Korea.
Kim told Daily NK today, “I am receiving this award alongside every North Korean human rights activist in this land.”
He continued, “The most unbearably painful thing about working as a North Korean human rights activist is watching those people working inside North Korea for human rights and democracy getting punished and killed.”
