Featured in President Donald Trump's State of the Union Address, Ji Seong-ho, a defector from North Korea and outspoken critic of the Kim Jong-un government, says he was overwhelmed by the experience. (Jan. 31) AP
WASHINGTON — President Trump is expected to meet several defectors from North Korea on Friday at the Oval Office, in a move to highlight human rights abuses under Kim Jong Un's regime.
Among the anticipated guests: Ji Seong-ho, who Trump lauded at his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. Ji lost a leg and an arm while scavenging coal as a boy, and later fled to South Korea.
Trump used Ji's story to illustrate what he called the "depraved character of the North Korean regime" and the kind of threat it could pose to the United States and its allies if it obtains nuclear weapons. Friday's meeting was announced in the president's schedule.
Earlier Friday, Trump spoke with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to wish him a successful Winter Olympics, and to discuss the importance of improving the human rights situation in North Korea, according to the White House. Trump also "reinterated (sic) his commitment to addressing the trade imbalance between the two countries," according to the official readout of the conversation.
The Trump administration has been lobbying countries around the world — especially North Korea's top two trading partners China and Russia — to isolate the already reclusive country and curtail trade in order to pressure it to abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs. North Korea, which has increased the tempo of its weapons testing in the past two years, pledged to develop a nuclear weapon capable of striking the U.S. mainland to deter what it sees as an American threat.
Trump and Kim have traded unprecedented insults and threats of nuclear war if either country attacks the other.
The North Korean government led by Kim, the grandson of the country's founder, has a system of prisons where its holds an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners, no independent media and commits human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, torture, rape and forced abortions, according to a State Department report in January 2017.
According to the story Trump told Tuesday, Ji was run over by a passing train while trying to steal coal to trade for food. His damaged limbs were amputated without anesthesia, and he was tortured by North Korean authorities. He and his family members escaped, but his father was caught and tortured to death.
"Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most — the truth," Trump said in the speech.
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