A North Korean defector, who has been a vocal critic of Pyongyang's human rights record, has vowed to continue speak up about the issue even though the communist regime released a video of his father in an apparent attempt to silence him.

Shin Dong-hyuk, who was born in a North Korean political prison camp and became a vocal critic of the North's human rights violations since fleeing the totalitarian nation, made the pledge in an article contributed to the Washington Post.

Last month, the North's propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, released a video showing his father still alive in the North. The video was produced to discredit what Shin has said about his experiences in the prison camp and apparently to silence him by suggesting his father could be hurt.

Shin said he was shocked to see his father in the video because he thought he had already died. He also said that the video showed that his father's "torture continues at the hands of his North Korean jailers, who are forcing him to lie."

"For all my guilt about my father's continuing torment, I will not be silenced. Injustice cannot cover up justice. I have an obligation to those still in the camps, as does everyone in the outside world," he said in the article.

Shin said he found a "measure of victory and vindication" when the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution that calls for the referral of North Korea to the International Criminal Court for human rights violations.

Shin acknowledged that the chances of the North's actual referral to the court are slim because China is expected to veto any such move at the U.N. Security Council. Nevertheless, the resolution was a "stinging and historic humiliation for North Korea," he said. (Yonhap)