It may seem absurd, but the hypothetical was the best way Mr Park, 46, could help the dozens of UTS law students in front of him grasp the extent of human rights abuses in the isolated and impoverished country.

Speaking at a lecture as part of the North Korean Human Rights Week, Mr Park said that in his 20s he had obtained contraband video tapes with South Korean TV shows and shared them with friends.They ended up being imprisoned and publicly executed.

In his attempt to escape the totalitarian state, he was interrogated and tortured. The guards knocked out his teeth to prevent him from biting off his tongue, as countless prisoners have done, and committing suicide.

"We're all human and we should be equal and free. I'm here to beg you and tell you in a strong voice that these atrocities are still happening under Kim Jong-un's regime," Mr Park, now a church minister in South Korea, said.

Mr Park is one of two defectors who will speak at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday, urging the government to sustain its condemnations of the brutal communist regime.

In attendance will be federal MP Craig Laundy, who in February moved a motion condemning the violations.

At the week's opening ceremony on Monday, former High Court judge Michael Kirby, who led a UN inquiry that heard first-hand accounts of "torture, rape, forced abortions and forced infanticide, extermination and murder", said he was working hard to make sure the findings of the report would not be forgotten

Also speaking at the UTS lecture was Myung-chul Ahn, a former prison camp guard in North Korea who is now the executive director of non-profit NK Watch in Seoul, South Korea.

For years, brainwashed, he believed that North Korea was a country of paradise. When his father, a member of the ruling Workers' Party, killed himself after being caught complaining about the country's rationing system, and his mother and siblings were imprisoned for the offence, he decided to flee.

He was also shocked when one of his friends killed prisoners, falsely claiming they had tried to escape, so that he could enter a prestigious university.

"Ninety per cent of the prisoners don't know what they've done wrong. One prisoner told me that guards took his whole family because of a crime by a distant relative. It is the family that has to pay for the sin," Mr Ahn, 41, said.

"North Korea is an issue for everyone, as part of the international community. So what can we do? Please continue to have interest and raise awareness."

Mr Ahn is fighting to see North Korea be judged by the International Court of Justice, its funds in international bank accounts frozen, and humanitarian aid better monitored so that it reaches the millions starving.

Tae-Hyun Kim, a Korean-Australian pastor and president of the North Korean Human Rights Advancement Association in Australia, said: "I hope Australia can play a leading role in advocating for the human rights of the North Korean people who live in some of the worst conditions on the planet."

The awareness week runs from August 17 to 21. Events include talks, movie screenings and piano concerts.