Category: Prison Camps

The Other Interview film

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Defector Park Ji-hyun has spoken of her year of hell in a North Korean labor camp, where starving prisoners ate rats to survive. She was forced to scrub and unblock toilets with her bare hands.

“You could say the whole of North Korea is one big prison,” Ms. Park said. “The people were all hungry. There weren’t even rats, snakes or wild plants left for them to eat.”

Humiliation was a ritual in the camp, which was situated within mountains in the Ranam district of the country. Ms. Park said: “If you got caught trying to wash your sanitary towel, you were ordered to wear it on your head, dripping blood and all, and beg for forgiveness.”

Work began at 4.30am and would continue until it was pitch dark – often as late as 9pm. The prisoners would finally eat – but before they could sleep they were forced to reflect on their performance and learn party principles and songs.

“We cleared the land with our bare hands,” said Ms. Park. “Four women had to pull an oxcart, two in the front and two in the back, carrying a ton of soil in the cart. We wouldn’t do this at a walking pace either. We had to run. We were worked harder than animals. Really, it was unspeakably bad.”

Ms. Park had fled North Korea with her son to escape starvation during the famine of the 1990s. She was sent to a labor camp after being caught as a defector in China. “A lot of people died between 1996 and 1998,” she said. “The train station platforms were full of dead bodies.”

After a year in the camp she was ailing so badly she was considered useless, prompting her release. Again she fled to China, where she was reunited with her son. Fearing for their safety, they attempted to get into Mongolia – and Ms. Park fell in love with a man who saved them at the border. The family now lives in Manchester, England.

Park Ji-hyun’s story of brutality is revealed in an Amnesty International film,  called The Other Interview. Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK Director, said: “This is the other film North Korea really doesn’t want you to see, and with good reason.

“People in North Korea are subjected to an existence beyond nightmares. The population is ruled by fear with a network of prison camps a constant specter for those who dare step out of line. Thousands of people in the camps are worked to death, starved to death, beaten to death. Some are sent there just for knowing someone who has fallen out of favor.

[Sky News]

 

Kim Jong-un claims struggle of North Koreans in poverty keeps him up at night

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The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, is claimed to worry so much about the welfare of his loyal subjects that he often “cannot sleep” while thinking of their suffering.

He said on Friday that his dutiful citizens “never enjoyed an abundant life”, according to the Korean Central News Agency. He claimed that the “most important task is to boost the living standards of North Koreans quickly” and that the way to provide them with an “affluent and happy life” was to develop livestock and fishery industries to solve chronic food shortages.

Despite claims made by Kim Jong-un that he is concerned for the well-being and happiness of North Koreans, the country still retains one of the worst human rights records in the world.

Around 200,000 political prisoners have been locked up in labor camps and 80 people were executed by the state for watching foreign films.

[The Independent]

UN official says North Korean human rights and cult of Kim can’t coexist

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A campaign within the United Nations to haul North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before an international court for crimes against humanity has touched off a defensive fury in Pyongyang, where it’s being treated like a diplomatic declaration of war , an aggressive act aimed not only at shutting down prison camps but also at removing Kim and dismantling his family’s three-generation cult of personality.

“It would be, I think, the first order of the day to get these 80,000 to 100,000 (prisoners) immediately released and these camps disbanded,” Marzuki Darusman, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But that can only happen if this cult leadership system is completely dismantled. And the only way to do that is if the Kim family is effectively displaced, is effectively removed from the scene, and a new leadership comes into place.”

Such blunt words from a high-ranking U.N. official are unusual, although common among American officials.

Darusman said the General Assembly  resolution, passed by in December, is more significant because it holds Kim responsible based on a 372-page report of findings presented last year by the U.N.-backed Commission of Inquiry that detailed arbitrary detention, torture, executions and political prison camps.

North Korea’s intense response has included threats of more nuclear tests, mass rallies across the country, a bitter smear campaign against defectors who cooperated in the U.N. report and repeated allegations that Washington orchestrated the whole thing in an attempt at speeding a regime change. Its state media last week railed yet again against the U.N. findings, saying “those who cooked up the ‘report’ are all bribed political swindlers and despicable human scum.” It called Darusman, the former attorney general of Indonesia, an “opportunist.”

In a rare flurry of talks, North Korean diplomats at the U.N. lobbied frenetically to get Kim’s culpability out of the resolution without success. The proposal is now on the agenda of the Security Council, which is expected this year to make a decision on whether the issue should be referred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

But here’s the reality check about the resolution: The likelihood of criminal proceedings against Kim is minuscule. It would likely be shot down by China or Russia, which have veto power on the Security Council. Also, while more than 120 countries support the International Criminal Court, the United States isn’t one of them, so it is somewhat awkward for Washington to push that option too hard.

[AP]

UN panel on North Korea stands by rights abuses report

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The head of the UN commission that produced a damning report on North Korean rights abuses has dismissed Pyongyang’s claim that doubts about the credibility of a prominent witness made the panel’s findings “invalid”.

“The partial retraction of Shin Dong-hyuk of the testimony he gave to the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea is not significant for the report, conclusions or recommendations of the commission,” said retired Australian judge Michael Kirby.

Mr Shin, a well-known defector and Pyongyang critic, admitted this week that elements of his best-selling gulag survivor book Escape from Camp 14 were inaccurate, although he stressed that the crucial details of his suffering and torture still stood.

For his part, Mr Kirby noted that Mr Shin was only one of 300 witnesses interviewed by his commission, whose overall findings were based on a mass of “overwhelming” corroborative evidence.

The commission’s conclusion that North Korea was committing human rights violations “without parallel in the contemporary world” was the basis of a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last month. It urged the Security Council to consider referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court.

For activists within the North Korean defector community, Mr Shin’s admissions of inaccuracies in his survivor story are a genuine blow, given his high profile.

In his statement, Mr Kirby was protective of the 32-year-old defector. “Mr Shin bears, on his body, the evidence of torture and suffering. At this stage he needs help and support, not hounding,” he said.

[AFP]

North Korean prison camp survivor admits inaccuracies

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Shin Dong-hyuk’s horrific descriptions of his time in a North Korean prison camp became a best-selling book translated into 27 languages, made him a key witness before the United Nations and grabbed headlines around the world.

Now the publisher of the book and its author say has revealed that parts of the story he told weren’t true. Blaine Harden, author of the book “Escape from Camp 14,” said in a statement on his website over the weekend that Shin had changed “key parts of his story.”

“On Friday, Jan. 16, I learned that Shin Dong-hyuk, the North Korean prison camp survivor who is the subject of ‘Escape from Camp 14,’ had told friends an account of his life that differed substantially from my book,” Harden said. “I contacted Shin, pressing him to detail the changes and explain why he had misled me.”

Shin had previously said that he had lived his entire life in Camp 14 before escaping in 2005. He now says he escaped from Camp 18 twice before — in 1999 and 2001, wrote Harden in his statement.

Shin now says he was 20 years old when he was tortured as a punishment for escaping, wrote Harden. His original account indicated that he was tortured when he was 13.

Shin had described in the book that his finger was chopped off by an angry guard after he dropped a sewing machine in Camp 14. Now, Shin told Harden that his finger was mangled as a guard pulled out his fingernails as punishment for escaping.

“When I agreed to share my experience for the book, I found it was too painful to think about some of the things that happened,” Shin told Harden.

Human rights activists argue that changes in Shin’s account do not ultimately affect his testimony, saying they still believe he was tortured and that his story highlights the horror of prison camps.

[CNN]

Defector speaks of North Korea horrors

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When Yeon-Mi Park was 9 years old, she and everyone in her North Korean village were forced to watch in horror the execution of a woman for the crime of watching illegal DVDs, she says. The victim was the mother of one of her friends.

Park was born in Hyesan, the daughter of a government official, whose job provided the family with relative stability and protection. Then came the famine, and to survive her father set up a small illegal trading business smuggling goods into China, says Park.

“In 2004 my whole world came crashing down. My father, my hero, got arrested for his illegal trading business.” He was sent to a hard-labor camp, and the family was marked. “We had no real future anymore.”

So, Park said, she and her mother decided to sneak over the border into China, where a trader spotted them. In exchange for not giving them away, he demanded sex with Park, then just 13. “My mom offered to be raped in order to protect me,” she said simply.

Later, after her father had rejoined them in China but died of lung cancer, Park and her mother met up with a group heading to Mongolia.

“We walked and crawled across the Gobi desert, evading Chinese police, kidnappers and wild animals. We followed the compass, but it broke, so we followed the stars to freedom . . . we wanted to live as human beings,” she said.

[AFP]

North Korean defector: I could not trust anyone

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A North Korean defector has spoken out about how he escaped from the world’s most secretive state with his infant son strapped to his back and a cyanide pill in his mouth. Choi Joong-Ha left North Korea with his wife Yun-Ah-Jung and one-year-old son Joon Choi in 2004. He had been conditioned into such a state of paranoia that he did not tell his wife about the escape.

Joong-Ha told his wife they were going to visit his brother who lived near the Chinese border. When they reached the Tumen River that separates the two countries he revealed the real reason they had come. “My wife was not pleased and she didn’t want to go. If the authority catches you trying to escape, you will be shot or sent to a camp.”

For 12 years Joong-Ha had been in the North Korean army and would, therefore, have been subjected to the most severe punishment if he had been caught trying to leave. Because of this he waded across the river with his son strapped to his back and a cyanide pill in his mouth. “I would have been arrested, tortured and put in a camp or shot there and then. If the authorities saw us trying to cross it would be better to die in the river.”

The trip across the river took a day and when Joong-Ha and his family got into China they had to strip off their clothes and dispose of anything that might identify them as North Korean. He said: “Just because we had got to China it didn’t mean we were safe. Every day we were fearful of being caught and being deported.

“We were lucky that my wife had family near the border and she and my son could stay with them. They helped us a lot.”

After four years working as a labourer, Joong-Ha managed to save enough money to pay a broker to take him and his family to the UK.

[Full story]

Satellite monitoring North Korean political prisons

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The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and Longmont, Colorado commercial imagery intelligence company AllSource Analysis (ASA) announced a strategic partnership to use satellite imaging and analysis to monitor and report on North Korea’s notorious political prison system.

“Up to 120,000 citizens are being held without due process in horrific, inhumane conditions for political reasons, and an estimated half-million people have died in these camps,” HRNK Executive Director Greg Scarlatoiu said from the group’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. “The collaboration with ASA will allow us to monitor, review and report on North Korea’s vast system of unlawful imprisonment. Our collaboration will employ technology used for the first time to address such an enormous human tragedy.”

The new collaboration will focus on data collection using time-lapse tracking of current and historical images, combined with on-the-ground surveillance and testimonials from former prisoners, guards and other human sources to track developments and bring as much transparency as possible to the situation.

Having this application of satellite imagery, collection and analysis represents a game-changing approach to international humanitarian efforts in North Korea and other hot spots around the world.

Most satellite imaging analysis of North Korea has focused on weapons and military infrastructure,” said AllSource Chief Analytics Officer Joe Bermudez, an internationally recognized expert on North Korea. “We’re honored to provide the technology to take humanitarian monitoring and analysis to a new level.”

[Longmont Times-Call]

UN Security Council members push to put North Korea rights on agenda

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A U.N. Commission of Inquiry report in February detailed abuses in North Korea that it said were comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, and a U.N. committee last month urged the Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging crimes against humanity.

China, likely supported by Russia, would probably veto any referral to the international court based in The Hague, diplomats say, but it cannot block having the rights situation added to the council agenda.

Ten of the Security Council’s 15 members – Australia, Chile, France, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, South Korea, Rwanda, Britain and the United States – signed a letter drafted by Australia asking for the council to be briefed by U.N. officials on the human rights situation in North Korea.

“We are particularly concerned by the scale and gravity of human rights violations detailed in the comprehensive report” by the Commission of Inquiry, said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

Majority support is needed to add a new item to the U.N. Security Council agenda and such a move cannot be blocked by any of the five veto-wielding powers – the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China, diplomats said.

Once an issue is on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council it can be discussed by the body at any time.

[Reuters]

Meet North Korean refugee Jee Heon-a

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A United Nations inquiry held in Seoul, chaired by former Australian High Court Justice Michael Kirby, produced a massive, 400-page report detailing North Korean atrocities. Kirby explained to Reuters that the report was compiled from testimony given by former inmates and North Korean exiles at hearings in Seoul and Tokyo.

Pyongyang furiously denounced the report as a “fraud” and a tactic of “the frantic human rights racket” and labeled the witnesses who had come forth as “human scum.” But all the testimony, given in public, is now on the public record, on the UN website, for all to see.

For example,  the story of Jee Heon-a, who was arrested during the government-induced famine in 1999 for the crime of collecting grass to eat!

Together with a younger girl who was caught with her, Jee Heon-a’s punishment was to be forced to eat clods of grass covered in soil. The other girl was immediately gripped by diarrhea, she said: “Suddenly she couldn’t get up or turn over. She died with her eyes open because she didn’t have the strength to close them.”

Jee also told of how she witnessed a mother giving birth in a prison camp and being forced by guards to drown her own baby in a bucket of water.

Jee eventually managed to flee to South Korea.

[Sydney Morning Herald]