North Korea calls for human rights campaign to be dropped

SEOUL North Korea has seized upon recent admissions by Shin Dong-hyuk, the prison camp escapee who now says parts of his harrowing tale were inaccurate, to pillory the international movement to condemn the totalitarian states human rights abuses.

Kim Jong Uns regime is seeking to capitalize on the admission and dismiss all human rights efforts against it. But human rights advocates say that Shin is just one of hundreds of defectors from North Korea who have together painted a collective picture of brutal treatment at the hands of the regime.

Now that Shin had changed his story, all data on North Koreas human rights and related reports must be nullified, and plots on human rights must be stopped, said Uriminzokkiri, a Web site with close ties to the North Korean regime that often acts as a mouthpiece for it.

Anti-republic human rights liars should feel embarrassed and repent their crimes, the Web site said Tuesday in article entitled Lies and plots are bound to be revealed.

Shin became internationally renowned for his tale of life and escape from Camp 14, a brutal total control political prison in the mountains north of Pyongyang. His story was the subject of Escape from Camp 14, a best-selling book by former Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden, and Shin was a star witness at the U.N. commission of inquiry into North Koreas human rights abuses.

The commissions report with its details of torture, infanticide, executions and brainwashing became the impetus for an international campaign to indict North Koreas leaders for crimes against humanity.

But last Friday, Shin admitted to Harden that he had changed the times and places of some events in his telling of the story, although he insisted the worst parts such as the torture, for which he bears the scars remained true.

North Korea has been alarmed at the mounting campaign against it and particularly at the prospect of Kim Jong Un, the states third-generation leader, being personally named in any referral to the International Criminal Court. It had launched its own counter-campaign, publishing its own human rights report and releasing videos calling Shin a liar.

With Tuesdays statement on Uriminzokkiri, it has stepped up those efforts.

Calling Shin human garbage, the Web site said that it wasnt parts of his story that were wrong, but that all of it was lies and based on fabrication.

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North Korea calls for human rights campaign to be dropped