Japan urged to put human rights on agenda for talks with North Korea

A visiting American human rights specialist has urged Japan to put North Korea's human rights record on its agenda for the upcoming normalization talks scheduled with the reclusive state.

"The Japanese government will be in a strong position," consultant David Hawk said at a symposium Tuesday organized by Japanese lawyers and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a nongovernmental organization. "It is expecting foreign aid to revive the North Korean economy, (which) will basically come from Japan."

Hawk, a former director of the Cambodia Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote the 2003 report, "The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps." The report, based on interviews with 35 former North Korean prisoners in exile in South Korea, describes the country's prison camps and their living conditions.