[imText1]It is the first time that North Korean human rights organizations demand real names of certain people who were announced to be openly punished to death, and urge for the North Korean government to stop the public execution, as well as decide to appeal to international society to save their lives.
Five defector organizations for North Korean human rights including FreeNK, Democracy Network against North Korean Gulag issued a joint statement on 4th of April and urged to stop the public execution of Shon Jong Nam, a North Korean.
In the statement, they revealed that, “The North Korean government noticed the public execution of Shon Jong Nam fasten a crime of a ‘spy of South Korea’ and ‘ethnic betrayer’”. Also they stated that, “We decided to try to save his life with all means by informing international society of the fact.”
They asserted that, “For a while, his acquaintances had tried to save him who was imprisoned in the National Security Agency by bribing the staffs of the Agency. Yet it was useless because the decision was already made.” Also, they said “Now he is about to die from severe torture, who is confined in an underground cell of the National Security Agency”.
According to a staff in Democracy Network against North Korean Gulag, Shon Jong Nam was born in Pyongyang and once worked at the Escort Bureau in the Ministry of Public Security which corresponds to the Presidential Security Service of the Blue House in South Korea. In 1997, he and his younger brother defected, yet while his brother was successful to do it but he was arrested. Afterwards, he had been imprisoned for 3 years and freed from the prison with his relatives’ help who is in high places of North Korea. And then he was expelled to Chongjin where he had worked at a ‘Rocket development center’ until the death notice.
The organizations claim that Shon Jong Nam used to meet his brother separated in China and tell the reality of North Korea on the phone. That is the ‘ethnic betraying’ crime that the North Korean government alleged. The date of his execution is the middle of April.
They strongly criticized that, “The North Korean government alleged Shon Jong Nam to be an ‘ethnic betrayer’ plainly because of meeting his family member living in South Korea. This shows the Kim Jong Il regime’s brutality which considers human life as less than that of flies.
They emphasized that, “We will inform international society of his urgent situation and try to save his life with world conscious forces”. They added that, “If the North Korean government executes a death sentence of him without consideration of international pressure, then we will take a proper action.”
The staff concerned announced that, “We are distributing the English version statement to UN Human Rights Commission and international human rights organizations. Plus, we will try to extract the statement of the White House.”
