Category: Prison Camps

Kim Jong Il’s bodyguard now a human rights advocate

Posted on by
1

Lee Young Guk’s time as bodyguard came to an end in 1988. He had to leave – not because he didn’t do a good job, but because his cousin got the job of Kim Jong Il’s personal driver. It was prohibited for two members of the same family to work directly for the Kims.

For the first time in over a decade, Lee left Pyongyang, and was shocked by the poverty in the rest of North Korea. “I saw that basically nothing had changed in the outside world while I was gone,” Lee said. “People were still doing as badly as they were before: They were still going hungry or even starving.”

That’s when Lee first started doubting the regime. He used his professional past to get out of the country.. In 1994 Lee got a visa to China, from where he intended to flee to South Korea. His plan did not work, as he was sold out by a man who had promised to help him. He was returned to North Korea and sent to the Yodok camp: the infamous penal labor colony No. 15.

“Prisoners were treated like animals,” Lee said. “No – worse than animals.” Lee said he ate mice and snakes to survive; there was hardly any other food. “Every two weeks, many prisoners were selected and executed,” Lee said. “The rest of us had to watch, from maybe 10 meters away.”

Lee spent four years and seven months at the camp before he was released. When security forces tried to arrest him again, he managed to get away and flee across the river that marks the border with China.

[Deutsche Welle]

UN to notify North Korea’s Kim of probe for crimes against humanity?

Posted on by

A UN expert on human rights in North Korea has asked the United Nations to officially notify North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he may be investigated for crimes against humanity.

A landmark 2014 report on North Korean human rights, co-authored by Marzuki Darusman, concluded that North Korean security chiefs and possibly Kim himself should face justice for overseeing a system of Nazi-style atrocities.

In a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Darusman recommended that the Council arrange an official communication, sent directly to Kim and signed by Darusman or U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.

His report, dated Jan. 19 but published on Monday, also said three experts should be appointed to find the best legal path to hold North Korea to account and find “creative and practical” ways to establish the truth and ensure justice for victims. Darusman stressed the importance of using the International Criminal Court but said it was “able to handle only the uppermost leadership”.

Only the U.N. Security Council can involve the court, but North Korea’s sole ally, China, a veto-wielding member of the top U.N. body, has repeatedly rejected calls for the Security Council to tackle human rights in North Korea. However, China said on Friday it would back a U.N. resolution to make North Korea “pay the necessary price” for recent North Korean rocket launches, with the aim of bringing Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

[Reuters]

North Korean refugee makes second application for temporary asylum in Russia

Posted on by

A refugee who fled a labor camp in North Korea — and faces almost certain death if deported back — has applied for a second time for temporary asylum in Russia.

The 36-year-old, whose name is being withheld due to safety concerns, is unlikely to receive asylum but activists will continue to appeal until he receives some sort of status or can be moved to a third country, human rights campaigner Svetlana Gannushkina said.

He still faces the threat of being deported or kidnapped by North Korean intelligence, which has seized North Koreans in Russia before, she said. In total the refugee has so far had one request for temporary asylum and two requests for permanent asylum rejected.

Of 211 North Koreans who appealed to the Russian migration service between 2004 and 2014, only two received asylum, while 90 received temporary asylum for one year, according to Gannushkina’s Citizen Assistance group.

North Korea and Russia signed an agreement in November to deport each other’s undocumented citizens. Although Russia has said those at risk of persecution would not be returned under the treaty, the migration service has previously ruled that this man did not prove that his life would be under particular threat in North Korea.

A November decision to refuse him temporary asylum seen by RBC newspaper said a significant number of people face persecution there and his “fears of being shot are connected only with North Korea employing the same punishment against all defectors”.

A 2014 UN investigation found that forcibly repatriated North Koreans are commonly subjected to torture, detention, execution or sexual violence.

The man first fled North Korea during a famine in 1997 and spent 10 years in China before he was deported and sent to a labor camp. He managed to escape to China again and crossed into Russia in 2013, where he was arrested and only allowed to apply for asylum after a hunger strike.

[The Guardian]

The detention of Otto Warmbier in North Korea

Posted on by

The detention of Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia economics major who had chosen to spend his New Year’s vacation in North Korea, comes at a particularly difficult, or opportune, time, depending on how you choose to interpret it. Just days after he was arrested, North Korea conducted what it said was its first H-bomb test.

According to Warmbier’s tour agent, Young Pioneer Tours, he was almost on his plane home when officials pulled him aside, took him into a special room at the Pyongyang airport and placed him under arrest for allegedly committing an as-yet-undisclosed hostile act against the state. North Korea says he is under investigation and acted with the “tacit connivance of the U.S. government and under its manipulation.”

Initial announcements by North Korea rarely say much about the actual crime, and linking it to the U.S. government in their first statement to the world through state-run media is highly uncommon. North Korea and the United States are still technically at war and have no diplomatic relations.

Warmbier is still under lock-and-key, possibly in the relative comfort of the Yanggakdo, a tourist hotel where his group had stayed that has previously been used to keep detainees until they are deported or more formal legal measures are taken.

Though not a tourist, one more American, missionary Kim Dong Chul, believed to be a naturalized citizen of Korean descent, is reportedly in North Korean custody along with a Canadian-Korean missionary who is serving a life sentence.

[AP]

American student in North Korean custody

Posted on by
9

Otto Frederick Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia economics student, was reportedly seized at Pyongyang airport before his scheduled flight to China on January 2. The Korean-language state broadcaster KCNA said Warmbier “aimed to destroy the country’s unity” and was being “manipulated by the U.S. government.”

Unconfirmed reports from a passenger suggested the American was dragged away by armed guards. The witness also told the U.K.’s Independent daily that Warmbier’s tour group “were up until four or five in the morning drinking vodka and having fun.”

According to Adam Cathcart, a North Korea specialist at the University of Leeds, in England, while the post-detention treatment of individuals is always political and used for domestic and international propaganda, “the arrests themselves are usually triggered by behavior that the North Korean authorities can classify as illegal.”

Most recently these include Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for proselytizing, and Matthew Todd Miller, a 25-year-old American whom the North Koreans accused of espionage. Both were subsequently released.

[TIME]

Naturalized US citizen arrested for spying in North Korea

Posted on by
9

A man who claims he is a naturalized American citizen, and who apparently has been detained since October in North Korea on spying charges, has asked the South Korean or US government to rescue him.

Kim Dong Chul, believed to be in his 60s, and who lived in Fairfax, Virginia, said he spied on behalf of ‘South Korean conservative elements’ and was arrested in October. ‘I was tasked with taking photos of military secrets and scandalous scenes,’ Kim told CNN in an interview.

CNN reports that North Korean officials said Kim was a U.S. citizen arrested on espionage charges. (Kim’s US passport is shown below.)

There have been no recent reports either from Pyongyang or Washington of any American having been detained.

Another North American still being held in North Korea is 60-year-old Canadian pastor, jailed for life with hard labor. Hyeon Soo Lim spends eight hours a day, six days a week digging holes in an orchard in a prison camp where he is the sole inmate.

Lim, who came to Canada from South Korea in 1986, is a clergyman known for his caring and compassion. “I wasn’t originally a laborer, so the labor was hard at first”, Lim said in Korean during a Newsweek interview.

While charges against Lim had lacked specifics, the pastor said he believes they stemmed from his continued criticism of the North’s three generations of leaders. “I admit I’ve violated this government’s authority, system and order”, Lim said in the interview.  “I hope I can go home someday”, Lim said. “I miss my family.”

[CNN; Metro (UK)]

North Korea prisoners forced to work at nuclear test sites?

Posted on by

Detainees at North Korea’s largest political prison camp could be deployed at Punggye-ri nuclear test site, but more monitoring is needed, a U.S. analyst said.

North Korea defense expert Joseph Bermudez said in a report issued jointly by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in Washington, D.C., and AllSource Analysis, that closer scrutiny is needed to determine whether or not prisoners are being forced to work at North Korea’s nuclear test site.

The defense analyst said North Korea’s military capability has been diminishing, owing to “obsolescence of equipment, difficulty in training, and lowering of standards for soldiers following the overall decline in nutritional status of the population.”

[UPI]

News about imprisoned Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim

Posted on by

Canadian diplomats were allowed to meet a Canadian pastor soon after he was sentenced to life in prison in North Korea last week and found him in good spirits and health, a church spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Hyeon Soo Lim, held by North Korea since February, was sentenced to hard labor for life for subversion on Wednesday, a ruling Canada called “unduly harsh.”

Lim, a Canadian citizen, had been doing humanitarian work in North Korea since 1997 and had visited the isolated country more than 100 times, according to his Toronto church, the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church.

He cried when Canadian diplomats relayed his son’s message that “we’re all proud of you,” church spokeswoman Lisa Pak said.

Pak said after an emotional prayer meeting for Lim, which drew more than 1,000 churchgoers, that two consular officials from Canada’s embassy in Seoul and a translator met Lim on Friday. She also confirmed he had received medication for an unspecified health condition.

The church began a petition at the prayer meeting asking U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is arranging a potential visit to North Korea, to seek Lim’s release.

[Reuters]

UN says China’s repatriation of North Korean defectors must end

Posted on by

The United Nations Committee Against Torture has called for an immediate end to the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors in China.

The U.N. body said it is most concerned China is classifying North Korean defectors as illegal economic migrants, because this then justifies repatriation to North Korea where persecution, torture, as well as long detentions await returnees.

“Defectors face torture, arbitrary detention, rape, forced labor,” said George Tugushi, the Committee’s vice chairman, adding North Korean women who are impregnated by Chinese men are forced to undergo abortions upon repatriation. The committee said more than 100 cases of systemic torture and ill treatment have been filed with the U.N., and added the repatriation of North Korean victims of human trafficking must end without delay.

In a separate statement, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees called for access to North Korean defectors in China, so as to determine their status as refugees. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry previously has said China has forcibly returned tens of thousands of North Korean nationals who were most likely subjected to punishment upon their return.

In November, 10 North Korean defectors were taken into Chinese custody after being sent back from Vietnam, where it is likely they were seeking asylum at a South Korean embassy.

China has not responded to past queries regarding its decision to repatriate defectors.

[UPI]

North Korea sentences Canadian pastor to life sentence

Posted on by
3

North Korea’s Supreme Court sentenced a Canadian pastor to life in prison with hard labor for what it called crimes against the state. Hyeon Soo Lim, who pastors the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, was given the sentence after a 90-minute trial. He had been in detention since February.

Lim entered and left the court in handcuffs flanked by two public security officers in uniform. The handcuffs were removed in court during the trial. He kept his head bowed most of the time and answered questions in a subdued tone.

The crimes he was charged with included harming the dignity of the supreme leadership, trying to use religion to destroy the North Korean system, disseminating negative propaganda about the North to the overseas Koreans, and helping U.S. and the South Korean authorities lure and abduct North Korean citizens, along with aiding their programs to assist defectors from the North.

State prosecutors sought the death penalty. Lim’s lawyer asked the court to take into account the fact that Lim is a fellow Korean and that he had frankly confessed to everything the prosecution had brought up. Lim pleaded to be given a chance and said if the court gave him a chance he would not do anything bad again.

Lim’s relatives and colleagues have said he traveled on Jan. 31 as part of a regular humanitarian mission to North Korea where he supports a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage. Lim, who is in his early 60s, has made more than 100 trips to North Korea since 1997.

North Korea has very strict rules against any missionary or religious activities that it sees as threatening the supremacy of its ruling regime. Merely leaving a Bible in a public place can lead to arrest and possibly severe punishment.