N. Korean defector receives int'l rights award

Shin Dong-hyuk, a North Korean concentration camp escapee, received the 2013 Moral Courage Award offered by the Geneva-based NGO, UN Watch, for his efforts to raise global awareness of human rights abuses taking place in the communist state.

Shin is the only person in the world who escaped from a North Korean prison camp where he was born. He escaped from the camp in 2005 when he was 24 years old.

Russian political activist Garry Kasparov, a former international chess grandmaster, was also named by the NGO to receive its Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award.

By Keat Min Woo

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com