Author says N. Korean defector ‘misled’ him on life story

UNITED NATIONS – A prominent North Korean defector who fled a prison camp and became the face of international efforts to hold the country accountable for widespread human rights abuses has changed important parts of his life story.

Author Blaine Harden said in a statement on his website that he has pressed Shin Dong-Hyuk to “explain why he had misled me” during interviews for Harden’s book on Shin, “Escape from Camp 14.”

North Korea tried to discredit Shin late last year as it fought a U.N. General Assembly resolution that backed the findings of a groundbreaking U.N. commission of inquiry into Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.

Shin was traveling and could not be reached for comment. He was expected to arrive in Seoul from the U.S. today, said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

“Every one of us have stories, or things we’d like to hide,” Shin said in an apology for the inaccuracies in recounting his past in his latest Facebook post, giving few details. He said he may or may not be able to continue his work of trying to eliminate North Korea’s political prison camps but urged others to keep fighting.

Shin’s story originally drew widespread attention because he said he had lived in a high-security political prison camp in North Korea from his birth until his escape through an electrified fence.

Harden’s statement said he passed along Shin’s new information to the Washington Post, his former employer. Its report over the weekend said Shin now says he was transferred around the age of 6 to a lighter-security prison camp with his mother and brother. It was there, not the harsher camp, where he informed authorities about an escape attempt by his mother and brother. For that, they were executed. He now says he was later transferred back to the harsher camp.

Said Scarlatoiu on Sunday: “Still, born and raised in a camp, he was subjected to forced labor, induced malnutrition and torture. He informed on his mother and brother, who were executed. He escaped from the camp, and lived to tell his story. None of that has changed.”

North Korea’s government denies the existence of the harsh political prison camps.