Shin Dong-hyuk (born Shin In Geun, 19 November 1982 or 1980[2]) is a North Korean-born human rights activist. He claims to be the only prisoner to have successfully escaped from a "total-control zone" grade internment camp in North Korea. His biography, Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey From North Korea to Freedom in the West, was written with the assistance of former Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden.
Shin has given talks to audiences around the world about his life in North Korea's Camp 14 to raise awareness of the situation in North Korean internment and concentration camps and North Korea. Shin has been described as the world's "single strongest voice" on the atrocities inside North Korean camps by a member of the United Nations' first commission of inquiry into human rights abuses of North Korea. However, many experts on North Korean politics[3][4][5] and fellow defectors,[6] have expressed scepticism for Shin's stories of life in North Korea.[7]
In January 2015, he recanted many aspects of his story of life in North Korea after a video was released showing Shin's father alive, despite Shin having previously claimed he was dead.[7][8][9] He also admitted that he lied about being in Camp 14 for his whole life until he escaped in his early 20's, saying that he was actually transferred to a different prison when he was aged 6.[10]
