EXISTENCE OF SLAVE CAMPS IN NORTH KOREA: THE EU COULD NOT IGNORE IT. QUESTION OF OLIVIER DUPUIS TO THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels, 16 December 2002. Following the revelation of the existence in North Korea of slave camps, due to the publication of satellite images produced by the Far Eastern Economic Review, Olivier Dupuis, secretary general of the Transnational Radical Party and MEP tabled the followng question to the authorities competent for the foreign affairs of the EU.

Evidence of the existence on slave camps in North Korea

Question by Olivier Dupuis

"The existence of the slave-labour camps in North Korea, which have been long talked about, but never witnessed by non-northkorean, has now been brought to evidence on satellite images that the Far Eastern Economic Review had produced through a commercial provider of satellite imagery.

The images have been corroborated as of the Haengyong slave-labour camp, by a former prison guard, Mr Ahn Myong Chol, who defected in 1994 to South Korea.

South Korean and US intelligence agencies have long been rumoured to possess satellite pictures of the camps but the evidence they are supposed to possess has never been made public.

Does the Commission posses the same kind of satellite pictures, or is the Commission informed about any Member State possessing such evidences of the existence of slave-labour camp in North Korea ? Does the Commission have information about other slave-labour camps in North Korea that could be corroborated through satellite pictures ? When does the Commission intend to forward to the competent Committee of the European Parliament the satellite pictures or any other evidence of the existence of labour camps in North-Korea and what political initiatives is the Commission going to undertake vis-à-vis Pyongyang in order to have all the labour camps immediately closed down and their prisoners released without delay ?"