Mounties in British Columbia are set to announce details of the seizure of what investigators are calling the largest and most sophisticated drug 'super lab' in Canada.
Dozens of North Korean defectors caught by secret police 'vanish', says rights group
More than 100 North Koreans have gone missing after being caught by secret police while trying to defect from the isolated country or even for trying to call relatives in South Korea, a Seoul-based human rights group said on Thursday.
The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) released a report detailing patterns of enforced disappearances through its study based on interviews with 62 North Korean escapees in South Korea.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have defected in the decades since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, with many of those caught or repatriated sent to prison camps or other detention facilities before being released.
The group identified 113 people in 66 disappearance cases, including the cases in an archive run with other international organizations, as well as maps depicting transfer routes.
Of the 113, 80 per cent, or 90, were arrested inside North Korea and the rest in China or Russia, with about 30 per cent disappearing since leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.
Almost 40 per cent of them went missing after being caught trying to flee the country, while 26 per cent took responsibility for another family member's crime. Nearly 9 per cent were accused of being in touch with those in South Korea or other countries.
More than 81 per cent vanished after being transferred to and detained by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the North's secret police known as "bowibu," according to the report.
An interviewee who defected to the South in 2018 from the Chinese border city of Hyesan said his friend was arrested by the MSS while trying to recover a Chinese mobile phone hidden in the mountains, and was now rumored to have died.
"Once (the MSS) finds call records with South Korea, they are considered serious offenses," the interviewee was quoted in the report as saying.
Kang Jeong-hyun, director of the project, said the report was intended to underscore enforced disappearances committed by the Kim regime as transnational crimes also involving China and Russia.
The report was published just days before the UN Human Rights Council is due to issue its five-yearly Universal Periodic Review on North Korea.
The United Nations estimates up to 200,000 people are held in a vast network of gulags run by the MSS, many of them for political reasons. A 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry report said the prisoners faced torture, rape, forced labor, starvation and other inhumane treatment.
Pyongyang has long denounced defectors as "human scum," and Kim has further tightened border controls over the past few years.
The North's Korea Association for Human Rights Studies this month rejected a UN report on its human rights violations including forced disappearances, calling them "fabrications" and a conspiracy by the West to escalate confrontation and tarnish the country’s image.
Beijing has denied there are any North Korean defectors in China, instead describing them as illegal economic migrants.
(Reporting by Hyonhee ShinEditing by Ed Davies and Lincoln Feast.)
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
The Quebec government has suspended applications for permanent residency from two immigration streams because it says it can no longer accommodate the rising number of newcomers.
BREAKING
A woman has been charged with dangerous driving causing death after a six-year-old boy was struck and killed by a school bus in Vaughan back in June, York Regional Police say.
Ford vehicles recalled in Canada over issues with brakes, steering
Several Ford vehicles have been recalled in Canada due to issues with braking systems, steering and child car seat tethers.
Over 400 alleged victims of ex-Harrods boss Al Fayed come forward
More than 400 alleged victims have so far contacted the legal team working on a case against the late Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed, who has been accused of sexual abuse and rape, lawyer Dean Armstrong said on Thursday.
A 19-year-old woman has been charged with murder after a baby was killed in a house fire in Toronto last week, police say.
The owners of the Whistle Stop Cafe is suing the Alberta government for imposing mandates on businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With condos not selling, Canada faces worsening home ownership crisis
Canada's home ownership crisis is likely to worsen over the next few years as proposed project sales languish at historically low levels, stalling the funding needed for construction, half a dozen economists and realtors told Reuters.
'Fundamental' political shift required to overcome $40 billion NATO spending gap: analyst
Canada will need a profound shift in political priorities if the country is to ramp up spending to meet its international security obligations.
Local Spotlight
A Halifax junk remover shares some of his company’s strangest discoveries.
When Leah arrived at work directing traffic around a construction site, she never expected to see a van painted in all sorts of bright colours, and covered in eclectic decorations, including a stuffed moose attached to its roof.
After 14 years of repairing and selling bicycles out of the garage of her home, a Guelph, Ont. woman’s efforts have ended – for now, at least.
Epcor says it has removed more than 20,000 goldfish from an Edmonton stormwater pond.
Witches and warlocks have been flocking to New Brunswick waterways this month, as a new Halloween tradition ripples across the province.
New Brunswicker Jillea Godin’s elaborate cosplay pieces attract thousands to her online accounts, as well as requests from celebrities for their own pieces.
A new resident at a Manitoba animal rescue has waddled her way into people's hearts.
Hundreds of people ran to the music of German composer and pianist Beethoven Wednesday night in a unique race in Halifax.
He is a familiar face to residents of a neighbourhood just west of Roncesvalles Avenue.