Mr. Kim Hyung-Soo, a biophysicist from an elite cadre in North Korea, defected to South Korea in 2009. Though his wife was able to escape, his mother was arrested and died in a North Korean prison camp. As the United Nations General Assembly gets set to vote on a resolution condemning North Korea for gross human rights violations, join us as David Hawk, senior advisor at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, interviews Mr. Kim about the human rights situation in North Korea and his unique experience as a researcher at the “Long Life Health Institute” (Mansumugang Institute), an organization dedicated to preserving the longevity of the Kim family.
North Korean Human Rights Revisited:
Perspective of a Former North Korean Elite
Kim Hyung-Soo
North Korean defector and former researcher at the Long Life Health Institute (Mansumugang Institute)
In Conversation With David Hawk, Senior Adviser, Committee on Human Rights in North Korea
Admission is FREE with Registration. Please Click Here.
12:00 PM | Registration & Light Fare
12:30 PM | Discussion
If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.
About the Speakers
Kim Hyung-Soo is a North Korean defector and former researcher at the Long Life Health Institute (Mansumugang Institute) from 1990 to 1994, in charge of conducting extensive scientific research to maintain Kim Jongil’s health. He was subsequently a supervisor at the Worker’s Party of Korea from 1994 to 1995, but was imprisoned at the Pyongyang Hyungjesan area for reeducation. He worked at the Hyesan Hospital Beer Factory as the material advisor, before defecting to South Korea in 2009. Mr. Kim has since served as the Unification Education board member in Kyungki province, and has actively promoted North Korean human rights on social and mainstream media. He has appeared on Radio Free Asia’s Kim Family’s Hidden Secrets and Voice of Asia’s Observing the Economy. Mr. Kim is a graduate of Kim Il Sung University with B.A in Biology with honors in 1987.
*Mansumugang Health Institute is a public institution in which the workers are paid the highest salary in the country and essentially guaranteed the highest standard of living (equivalent to top 0.1%) in exchange for maintaining the confidentiality of the Kim family’s health condition. Only the elites, namely the graduates of Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang Medical University, and Kim Chaek University of Technology, are recruited, and employees are required to have no relatives in South Korea.
David Hawk (moderator) has engaged in the documentation and analysis of worst-case violations, the UN human rights system, human rights provisions in conflict resolution, non-governmental human rights advocacy, human rights organization and agency management, and human rights education and training. He is recognized as a leading expert on human rights in a number of countries, most notably Cambodia and North Korea. Hawk was the Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, during its formative stage in the 1970s. He also directed the UN human rights office during the mid-1990s when it was the largest field operation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In the early 1980s, Hawk did path-breaking original photographic and archival documentation of the human rights atrocities in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge rule, and researched and authored the first systematic and comprehensive documentation and analysis of the political prison camp system in North Korea. He has served on the Board of Directors of AIUSA and Human Rights Watch/Asia. His most recent publications include The Hidden Gulag and Pursuing Peace While Advancing Rights: The Untried Approach to North Korea. He attended Cornell, Columbia and Oxford Universities, and currently teaches at Hunter College, CUNY.