Trump does it again! He deserves a peace prize for just this! The talks with North Korea may be going better than expected as, at the request of our President, North Korea has allegedly released three U.S. prisoners who had been held there for years forced to work their labor camps.
Kim Dong-chul, Kim Sang-duk and Kim Hak-song are three U.S. citizens who were arrested in North Korea last year and accused of “hostile acts.”
Some experts suggested that the move was meant to facilitate upcoming talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“We heard it through our sources in North Korea late last month. We believe that Mr Trump can take them back on the day of the US-North Korea summit or he can send an envoy to take them back to the US before the summit,” said Choi Sung-ryong, who campaigns for the release of detainees in North Korea.
Kim has time and time again committed himself to denuclearization and not called for the withdraw of US forces from the peninsula, nor has he demanded the US stop military drills with South Korea in exchange for a freeze in his nuclear and missile testing.
“Detainees face deplorable conditions, sexual coercion and abuse, beatings and torture by guards, and forced labor in dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions,” a 2016 report by Human Rights Watch detailed.
“Those accused of serious political offenses are usually sent to political prison camps, known as kwanliso, operated by North Korea’s National Security Agency. These camps are characterized by systematic abuses, including meager rations that imperil health and can lead to starvation, virtually no medical care, lack of proper housing and clothes, regular mistreatment including sexual assault and torture by guards, and public executions,” the report continued.