A domestic committee to promote democracy in North Korea held its inaugural ceremony in Seoul on Tuesday, bringing together some 20 groups for North Korean defectors.

At the ceremony, committee chair Hwang Jang-yop said that his organization aims to dismantle the communist country's concentration camps for political prisoners.

Hwang, who had been a high-ranking Pyongyang official before defecting in 1997, said that the committee will also seek to help North Korean defectors in China and support democratic forces in the North.

Former President Kim Young-sam and main opposition Grand National Party lawmaker Kim Ki-choon were among the some 400 people attending the ceremony.

The committee also disclosed satellite images of 17 buildings believed to be country houses for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.