Former NBA star Dennis Rodman made his first trip to North Korea in February, where he sat next to the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, while watching a basketball exhibition in Pyongyang. Rodman is currently on his third trip to the country, where he is helping to train a team of North Korean basketball players for a January exhibition in the capital city.

 

This third trip prompted an open letter to Rodman from Shin Dong-hyuk, a human rights activist and the only person born in a North Korean labor camp known to have escaped to the West. In the witty and somber letter, Shin tells of conditions of the prison camps, reasons why people are sent to them, and the government’s official position regarding their existence. He implores Rodman to talk to Kim Jong Un and “help him understand that he has the power to close the camps and rebuild the country’s economy so everyone can afford to eat.” He ends the letter by asking Rodman to use his friendship with the dictator “to be a friend to the North Korean people.”