An Myeong Chul, a former North Korean guard at Camp 22, spoke out this week against human rights abuses in North Korea at the Council for Human Rights in North Korea held this week in Toronto.

Mr. An remembers being told to practice Taekwondo on inmates as high-ranking officials visited the prison camp. He also claimed to witness “a lot of deaths” due to violence from camp authorities, starvation, or overwork.

Several prisoners succumbed to illness, An stated, as they were only fed the minimum amount of calories to carry out their given workload.  An goes on to describe the relationship between the guards and inmates as slave masters and slaves.

An escaped when his mother, sister, and brother were arrested after his father suggested top Communist leaders were to blame for the famine as opposed to local officials.