For the first time, a deserter of origin from North Korea initiates legal actions against the Pyongyang regime. On Friday, July 11, Choi Min-Kyung filed a civil and criminal complaint against Kim Jong-un for sexual violence and the torture that he says he suffered during his detention, reports the BBC.
After desert, the North Korean army fled to China in 1997, Choi Min-Kyung was repatriated by force to North Korea nine years later. During his arrest in several prisons, he says he was a victim of sexual violence during interrogations, blows and acts of torture, for example, the obligation to sit in the evidence of painful positions for more than 15 hours a day.
This North Korean managed to flee from North Korea for the second time in 2012 to settle in the south. “I sincerely hope that this small step becomes the cornerstone of the restoration of freedom and human dignity, so no other North Korea innocent suffers under this brutal regime,” Choi Min-Kyung said Wednesday in a statement from the Database Database of the North Korean Human Rights (NKDB).
Pyongyang already sentenced by the South Courts
He also said that he intended to bring the matter Choi Min-Kyung before the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. The executive director of the NKDB song, Hanna, says that these procedures against North Korea are important because they refer to criminal accusations, while the previous judgments that took place in South Korea only focused on civil complaints.
In 2023, a Seoul court had sentenced North Korea to pay 50 million Wones (around 31,000 euros) to three South Koreans operated after being taken to prisoners during the Korean War.
Last year, Pyongyang was ordered to pay 100 million wones (around 62,000 euros) to five people who had abandoned Japan for North Korea in the sixties and eighties. Participating in a repatriation program, they had actually been arrested and forced to work.
These judgments remain largely symbolic and ignored by Pyongyang. However, they are useful for the plaintiffs, explains the song of the BBC Hanna. “We understood after years of work that victims seek recognition and not just financial compensation,” he summarizes.
Source: BFM TV
