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Released activist says he was abused in China

Kim Young-hwan says North Korean agents were involved in his detention
Released activist says he was abused in China
Prominent activist Kim Young-hwan speaks publicly of his detention in China
Published: July 26, 2012 08:39 AM GMT
Updated: July 26, 2012 02:04 PM GMT

Kim Young-hwan, a campaigner for human rights in North Korea, said yesterday he was physically abused by state security agents during nearly four months of detention in China. Speaking for the first time about his ordeal following his arrest on March 29 in northeastern China, Kim told a press conference in Seoul that his captors tried to force him to admit that he violated China’s state security laws. He refused to agree to their demands, he said, although he declined to give details of his time in detention, pending a formal complaint from the South Korean government. “I was treated harshly during the police investigation, though I cannot disclose how they abused me,” said Kim. The Committee for the Release of Kim Young Hwan claimed, however, that Kim was not allowed to sleep at night, was underfed and forced to do hard labor for 13 hours every day at a Chinese detention center in Dandong, the main border town with North Korea. Kim said that the North Korean authorities were directly involved in detaining him, along with three other human rights workers. The men were arrested in Dalian in northeastern China and then transferred to a facility on the border with North Korea. According to many campaigners, this was a clear sign that North Korean agents were participating in the investigation into their activities. Kim has refused to discuss what they were doing prior to their imprisonment. “It could hurt other human rights activities in China,” he said. Kim, formerly a supporter of the Communist regime in Pyongyang, famously made a secretive mission north of the demilitarized zone dividing the Korean peninsula aboard a submarine to hold a meeting with then leader Kim Il-sung in 1991. He subsequently renounced his support for North Korea’s Communist ideology of Juche, or self-reliance, in an about-face that has seen him campaign against the regime. He is currently working as a senior researcher at the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights, a Seoul-based group that supports defectors from the north. Related reports DPRK accused over activist arrests

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