U.N. rules North Korea ‘arbitrarily’ detains Shin’s two daughters


Seoul on Tuesday reiterated demands that Pyongyang release the daughters of Shin Sook-ja, a South Korean who allegedly died last month after being imprisoned for more than 20 years in North Korea.

The Foreign Ministry said that a U.N. agency recently ruled that the North has “arbitrarily” confined Shin and her two daughters -- Oh Hye-won and Oh Kyu-won -- now 70, 36 and 33, respectively. The decision was made by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Geneva.

“The working group’s decision expresses a common view shared by the international community,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Cho Byung-jae said at a press briefing.

“We urge North Korea to immediately release the Ohs, pay appropriate indemnities and take corrective action.” 

Shin is believed to have had been locked in a political prison camp in the North following her famed husband Oh Kil-nam’s flight from the country in 1986. The couple defected to North Korea in 1985 from Germany, but Oh escaped a year later and returned to Seoul in 1992 after turning himself in to the South Korean Embassy in Germany.

On April 27, Pyongyang notified the U.N. organization that Shin had died from hepatitis, from which it said she had contracted in the 1980s. The communist regime also insisted that Shin’s daughters refuse to see their father, which Seoul officials and activists believe is false.

Oh’s daughters disowned their father and “asked not to be bothered anymore” because “he abandoned his family and drove their mother to her death,” Ri Jang-gon, the North’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N., said in a letter.

“If Shin had died, North Korea should provide details about when and where she died, and send her remains to South Korea,” said Ha Tae-kyung, a lawmaker-elect of the ruling Saenuri Party. He is a former rights activist and has been actively involved in North Korean issues.

Despite skepticism over its sincerity, the notification marks an unusual move for the wayward country. Civic groups and activists say the response itself has significance for their cause.

The seven-line letter came in response to the working group’s request on March 1 to verify the three women’s whereabouts, on behalf of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity in North Korea, or ICNK.

In November, the Seoul-based group also petitioned the multinational body for the release of the Oh family.

“There are many mountains to climb but I hope from now on everything will work out the way I want it,” Oh Kil-nam said at a news conference in Seoul on Tuesday.

“If she died, I want to receive her remains and meet my daughters (either here or) even in Germany,” said Oh, a 70-year-old retired economist.

Choi Song-ryong, head of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea, said at the event that Oh’s daughters are currently being held in Pyongyang, citing an unnamed informant.

Empowered by the U.N. decision, the South Korean government is expected to step up efforts to verify the claim of Shin’s death and get her daughters out of North Korea.

“We’ll strengthen efforts to verify her death and facilitate her daughters’ return, through the Red Cross channel between the South and the North and international cooperation,” an official at the Ministry of Unification said early this month.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)