A group of North Korean defectors filed a criminal defamation complaint against South Korea’s minister of unification on Monday after he said that North Korean human rights abuses should be better verified.

Earlier this month, unification minister Lee In-young stated that “there’s something lacking about the process of examining and verifying” records on North Korean human rights issues. Lee also said that the relevant stakeholders should check whether these records “reflect reality or are just a one-sided story.”

Now, four North Korean defectors are accusing Lee of “defending the ministry that persecutes North Korean human rights activists” and “taking sides