On the 23rd, a North Korean human rights conference entitled “North Korean Human Rights: A Lost Cause?,” was held at Princeton University. This conference was hosted by Princeton students’ organization, “Princeton for North Korean Human Rights (PNKHR).”

 

The conference hosted renowned North Korean defector Shin Dong Hyuk as a panel speaker. Shin spoke about the extreme human rights abuses in political prison camps in North Korea. Almost 200 students from universities in the United States attended the conference and listened to defector’s and experts’ testimonies on North Korean human rights. After the lectures, many students asked questions about how people are tortured and brainwashed in North Korea, how the international society’s interest can change North Korea, and more. In particular, one student asked how actively South Korea reacts in response to human rights, and this question reminded us about South Korea’s passive reaction on North Korean human rights.

 

Throughout the conference, many American students were shocked by the reality North Koreans live in, and various students’ human rights organizations in universities in America agreed to make this issue a priority.