Interviews with Shin Dong-hyuk

While I was in the political prison camp, I did not know about the dictatorship. No one told me about it, so I never knew anything about the Kim regime.

[The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, otherwise known as North Korea, was founded by Kim Il Sung (1912 – 1994) in 1948. After his death, he was revered as a god and constitutionally enshrined as the country’s “Eternal President.” Kim Il Sung was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Il (1941 – 2011). Upon his death in 2011, Kim Jong Il was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un (1983).]

However, after escaping the prison camp and after resettling in South Korea, I began to learn and study on my own about what was going on in North Korea.

I came to the realization that this was an unbelievable situation that was happening. It is a completely evil and terrible situation happening in North Korea.

So now, I am trying to be more involved and let the world know about what is going on, and to alleviate the suffering of the North Korean people.

Shin Dong Hyuk is the only known person to be born in a North Korean gulag and escape to freedom. In North Korea, whole families are incarcerated for the offenses of a single family member. As many as 130,000 men, women and children are imprisoned in North Korea’s vast system of gulags.

Shin was born in 1982 in Camp 14, the product of a “reward marriage” between two prisoners. He lived with his mother until the age of 12, though they never formed a true familial bond. Shin received a basic education before being pressed into the camp’s labor force. During this time, he witnessed fellow children being beaten, executed and killed in work-related accidents.

In 1996, prison officials brought Shin to a separate detention facility where he was tortured. He had no idea why this was happening to him. Finally, the guards explained that his mother and brother had attempted to escape and they wanted more information. After being held in an underground cell for seven months, Shin was forced to attend the public execution of his mother and brother.

In 2005, Shin and another prisoner were assigned to work on a mountain. Driven by hunger, the two decided to escape over the electrified fence enclosing the camp. Shin’s leg was caught in the fence and scarred, but he managed to get through; the other prisoner was electrocuted and died. From there, Shin managed to cross the border into China where he worked as a laborer for several years until connecting with a journalist who brought him to the South Korean Embassy. From there, Shin escaped China.

Shin’s incredible story has been shared with the world in the book, Escape from Camp 14, by American journalist Blaine Harden. Since escaping, Shin has become a leading voice on North Korean human rights and the country’s gulag system, including providing testimony at the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).