North Korean Prison Camp escapee Shin Dong-hyuk, on whose life was written the best-selling book "Escape from Camp 14," has changed certain pivotal parts of his story, said book author Blaine Harden.
North Korean defector, Shin, who grabbed headlines by narrating the horrific incidents of his life in the North Korean prison camp, is an important witness before the United Nations and stands for human rights injustices in North Korea.
Harden, in a statement on his website, said that Shin gave his friends a different account of his life, which differed a lot from what he had narrated to him. When Harden contacted Shin and asked him about the discrepancies, he got to know that he was misled, CNN reported.
The book "Escape from Camp 14" was published in 2002, and has since then been translated into 27 languages.
"From a human rights perspective, he was still brutally tortured, but he moved things around," Hardengoo told the Post.
In the book "Escape from Camp 14" and in his testimony to the U.N. commission, Shin said that he was born in Camp 14, a high security prison, situated in the mountains of north Pyongyang. He had said that he was tortured in the most inhuman way till 2005, when he managed to escape, according to the Washington Post.
The now 32-year-old Shin has repeatedly said that he escaped to China with another inmate by climbing over a body of a man electrocuted on the fence surrounding the camp.
As per the new version narrated by Shin, his mother and brother were transferred to Camp 18, another prison across the river Taedong when he was barely six. He betrayed his mother and brother to the authorities when he got to know that they had planned to escape. He was also witness to their execution in camp 18. As per the book, all these happenings took place in Camp 14.
"When I agreed to share my experience for the book, I found it was too painful to think about some of the things that happened," Harden quoted Shin as saying. Shin told Harden that he changed a few details of the horrific experience as that hurt him a lot, and thought that it wouldn't really matter.
According to Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, it did not matter where the incident occurred.
"The critical points of the book remain true. This young man went through despicable torture. That is true, said Scarlatoiu, referring to Shin as a "political prison camp survivor".
Human rights activists too say that the discrepancy does not change the horrific truth of the prison camps in North Korea.
Meanwhile, Harden said even though he is convinced about the experience that Shin went through in the prison camps, he would like to make corrections in the book if given an opportunity.