Category: Prison Camps

Shin Dong-hyuk’s escape from North Korean gulag

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As Shin Dong-hyuk crawled over his friend’s lifeless body, the 23-year-old North Korean could feel the electric current shooting through him. Luckily, for Shin, the two pairs of pants he was wearing, coupled with his friend’s corpse, shielded him for the most part from the deadly voltage pulsing through the barbed-wire fences.

Those fences had trapped him since his birth inside Camp 14, a North Korean prison on the Taedong River in the hills about 50 miles northeast of the capital city of Pyongyang. But on this frigid afternoon, Jan. 2, 2005, something happened at the camp that had never happened before — someone escaped.

Shin’s friend, Park Yong Chul, had made it to the fence first, pushing his upper body through the lowest two strands of electrified wire. The current, though, was so powerful that it glued Park to the fence, killing him within seconds.

As journalist Blaine Harden writes in “Escape From Camp 14,” the gripping account of Shin’s life in the forced labor camp, “The weight of his [Park’s] body pulled down the bottom strand of wire, pinning it against the snowy ground and creating a small gap in the fence.”

Shin crawled through that gap, but not before exposing both of his legs to the wire, incinerating his skin. In terrible pain, he ran down the mountain away from Camp 14, becoming the first known person to have been born in and lived his whole life in a North Korean prison camp, and then to escape.

By evening, after traveling a few miles, he had found a few ears of dried corn, some cotton shoes and a worn military uniform that would allow him to ditch his prisoner’s garb and avoid unwanted attention. Shin had no money but was trying to make his way 370 miles north, to the Chinese border, to freedom.

He was wary of running into police, but he was also thin and starving.

He blended perfectly into North Korea.

[Excerpt of Jewish Journal article, authored by Jared Sichel]

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View video clip of Shin Dong-hyuk

Auschwitz in North Korea

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Excerpts from a commentary on a cover story in Jewish Journal, by Rob Eshman:

auschwitz_north korea
Left: Children at Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II
Right: Children in an orphanage in North Korea during the 1997 famine.

On Jan. 27, we mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day in 1945 when the Soviet army entered the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in Poland and freed the 7,000 remaining prisoners. The rescue came too late. About 1.3 million Jewish men, women and children were deported to Auschwitz and its satellite camps between 1940 and 1945. An estimated 1.1 million of them were murdered.

Auschwitz revealed the human capacity for unimaginable evil. It continues to teach us the consequences of looking away, of choosing not to know, or of knowing — as the Allied leaders did, as the neighboring Poles did, as many American Jews did — but deciding not to act.

Tens of thousands, or, by some estimates, as many as 200,000 men, women and children today live and die inside North Korean prison camps. Some from birth. They are subject to torture, rape and inevitable death.

Is it a stretch to compare what the North Korean regime is doing to its own people to what the Nazis did to the Jews? I don’t think so.

In Auschwitz and the other camps, one could argue, the ultimate purpose was annihilation, not imprisonment. But, as an eyewitness to the horror told our reporter, there is good reason to believe the North Korean regime fully intends to ultimately exterminate its prisoners.

The definition of “holocaust” is destruction or slaughter on a mass scale. Replace the label “Jew” with “dissident” or “undesirable” — does that make it better?

“The camps are a gruesome and powerful tool at the heart of a vast network of repression,” Rajiv Narayan, Amnesty International’s North Korea researcher, told the PBS series Frontline. “People are sent to the political prison camps without charge, let alone a trial, many of them simply for knowing someone who has fallen out of favor. Conditions are dire. Torture is rampant; there are reports that women are raped, and we know that public execution is commonplace. Many of the prisoners die of malnutrition and overwork in dangerous conditions.”

So, let’s be clear: “Never Again!” is happening right now. Read full article

Kenneth Bae urges U.S. to help secure his release

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Kenneth Bae said in a statement Monday that he had committed a “serious crime” against North Korea, and that the nation does “not abuse human rights,” according to China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.

“I would like to plead with the U.S. government, press and my family to stop worsening my situation by making vile rumors against North Korea and releasing materials related to me, which are not based on the facts,” he said before video cameras.

“I want to be pardoned by the North as soon as possible and return to my beloved family. For that, I ask the U.S. government, press and my family to make more active efforts and pay more attention.”

Any statement made by Bae in captivity would be sanctioned by the North Korean government, whose widespread human rights abuses are known to the world. The country has a long history of exacting false “confessions.”

Bae was arrested in November 2012 in Rason along North Korea’s northeastern coast. The devout Christian and father of three operated a China-based company specializing in tours of North Korea, according to his family and freekennow.com, a website friends set up to promote his release.

“Several years ago, Kenneth saw an opportunity that combined his entrepreneurial spirit with his personal convictions as a Christian,” the site said. “He believed in showing compassion to the North Korean people by contributing to their economy in the form of tourism.”

[CNN]

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North Korea press conference called by American missionary Kenneth Bae

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American missionary Kenneth Bae, who has been jailed in North Korea for more than a year, appeared before reporters Monday and appealed to the U.S. government to do its best to secure his release.

Wearing a gray cap and inmate’s uniform with the number 103 on his chest, Bae spoke in Korean during the brief appearance, which was attended by The Associated Press and a few other foreign media in Pyongyang. He made an apology and said he had committed anti-government acts.

Bae called the press conference held at his own request. He was under guard during the appearance. It is not unusual for prisoners in North Korea to say after their release that they spoke in similar situations under duress.

Bae, the longest-serving American detainee in North Korea in recent years, expressed hope that the U.S. government will do its best to win his release. He said he had not been treated badly in confinement. “I believe that my problem can be solved by close cooperation and agreement between the American government and the government of this country,” he said.

Bae was arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group and accused of crimes against the state before being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was moved to a hospital last summer in poor health.

Bae said a comment last month by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden had made his situation more difficult. “The vice president of United States said that I was detained here without any reason,” Bae said. “And even my younger sister recently told the press that I had not committed any crime and I know that the media reported it.

“I think these comments infuriated the people here enormously. And for this reason, I am in a difficult situation now. As a result, although I was in medical treatment in the hospital for five months until now, it seems I should return to prison. And moreover there is greater difficulty in discussions about my amnesty.”

North Korea freed an elderly American veteran of the Korean War, 85-year-old Merrill Newman, who had been held for weeks for alleged crimes during the 1950-53 conflict. North Korean state media said he was released because he apologized for his wrongdoing and that authorities also considered his age and medical condition.

“We shouldn’t take Kenneth Bae’s comments merely as his own,” said Kim Jin Moo, a North Korea expert at the South Korean state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. “The reason why North Korea had Kenneth Bae make this statement … is that they want Washington to reach out to them.”

[AP]

Continuing trend of less North Koreans fleeing their country

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More than 1 500 North Koreans fled to South Korea last year, maintaining a recent fall in the number of escapees that coincided with a clampdown by new leader Kim Jong-Un.

Five years ago the annual number of escapees was close to 3 000, but the number dropped sharply after Kim came to power in December 2011, following the death of his father Kim Jong-Il.

The number of North Koreans fleeing to the South, most of them via China slumped to 1 502 in 2012, while last year the figure was slightly higher at 1 516, Seoul’s unification ministry said.

Under Kim Jong-Un, the isolated state tightened border security and stepped up diplomatic campaigns to have refugees hiding in China repatriated.

The majority of refugees secretly cross the border to China before travelling to a neighboring Southeast Asian country, where they arrange to fly on to Seoul for resettlement.

China, the North’s sole major ally typically considers them illegal economic migrants and repatriates them despite criticisms from human rights groups. Many face severe punishment including, rights monitors say, torture and a term in a prison camp once they are sent back to the North.

[AFP]

Scaling up of North Korea’s repressive prison camps

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North Korea has showed no signs of scaling back its fearsome labor camp system, with torture, starvation, rape and death a fact of life for tens of thousands of inmates.

According to human rights group Amnesty International, satellite images purportedly show evidence of expansion, including the construction of new housing blocks and production facilities, at two of the isolated regime’s largest camps or “kwanliso” –15 and 16 — used to hold political prisoners.

Amnesty commissioned the images from DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite imagery vendor. In their release, Amnesty claims that up to 200,000 prisoners, including children, are being held “in horrific conditions in six sprawling political prison camps.”

The rights group says it has shared the evidence with the U.N. Commission of Inquiry investigating human rights abuses in North Korea.

Amnesty claims many prisoners are allegedly being held for nothing more than watching foreign soap operas or holding a particular religious belief, while others are incarcerated simply for having a family member deemed politically undesirable.

Pyongyang denies their existence, despite satellite images and testimony from witnesses.

A lineage of murderous North Korean purges

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Purging and killing suspected rivals or officers with wavering loyalty has been a trait of the Kim family dynasty along with unusual means of execution, which have included death by close range mortars.

In 1995, soon after taking power from his father, Kim Jong-il ordered the “purge of the Sixth Army Corps,” in which more than 20 officers accused of attempting to stage a coup were killed, according to South Korean news sources.

Kim Jong-il’s greatest purge occurred in 2001, during the so-called “march to progress” in which 1 million people were killed.  Hundreds of senior officials were removed from office and, with their families, sent to reeducation camps, while dozens others were executed, according to Chosun Ilbo citing South Korean intelligence reports.

As late as 2010, Kim Jong-il had ordered the purge of 100 senior officials, killing dozens of them, the last great purge of his regime.

Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim il-Sung, the founder of Communist North Korea, so tightly controlled news coming out of the country that there is “comparatively little independent information about the regime’s purges, executions, and concentration and forced labor camps,” according to University of Hawaii historian RJ Rummel. Rummel estimates, that as many as 3.5 million people could have been murdered by the country’s first supreme leader from 1948 to the early 1990s.

[ABC]

Satellite images show North Korean gulag prisons growing

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Hundreds of thousands of people, including children, are detained in political prison camps and other detention facilities in North Korea. Many have not committed any crime whatsoever but are merely family members of those deemed guilty. They are detained as a form of collective punishment known officially in North Korea as “guilt-by-association”.

Amnesty International has shared the latest evidence with the UN Commission of Inquiry investigating human rights abuses in North Korea. The report is entitled “North Korea: Continued Investment in the Infrastructure of Repression”.

Researcher Rajiv Narayan, said:

  • “Under its new leader Kim Jong-un, North Korea is violating every conceivable human right.
  • “[Political prison] camps are a gruesome and powerful tool at the heart of a vast network of repression.
  • “People are sent to the political prison camps without charge, let alone a trial, many of them simply for knowing someone who has fallen out of favor.”

North Korea’s vast infrastructure of repression was exposed in satellite images taken in May showing the development of two of the country’s largest political prison camps. In a comprehensive mapping of camps, known as kwanliso, ’15’ and ’16’, Amnesty International found new housing blocks, an expansion of work facilities and tight security with perimeter fences and guard towers clearly visible.

Significant economic activity – such as mining, logging and agriculture – is  clearly visible in the satellite images and there is an expansion of an industrial area within kwanliso 16. Forced hard labor is common in North Korea’s political prison camps which hold an estimated 130,000 prisoners.

Kim Young-soon, a former detainee in Camp 15 between 1980 and 1989, described a public execution she witnessed of two detainees who were caught attempting to escape. She explained how they were first “half beaten to death” and then:  “They were brought to a stage after they were badly beaten. The prisoners were tied to wooden stakes and shot three times in their head, chest and feet.”

[Daily Mail]

Rape and murder of female inmates in North Korean political prison camp

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A former security guard at the largest political prison camp in North Korea has spoken out for the first time about the rape and murder of female inmates at the facility.

Mr Lee, a former security official at Camp 16 in the 1980s and 1990s, revealed the horror of daily life for prisoners at the site near Hwaseong in North Hamgyong province, which is approximately 215 square miles. He broke his silence to tell Amnesty International about the methods used to execute prisoners incarcerated in the Soviet-style, hidden ‘gulags’.

According to Mr Lee, women were killed after being brutally raped. “After a night of ‘servicing’ the officials, the women had to die because the secret could not get out. This happens at most of the political prison camps,” he said.

He also told how detainees were forced to dig their own graves and were then killed with hammer blows to their necks.

Mr Lee witnessed prison officers strangling detainees and then beating them to death with wooden sticks at the camp.

[Daily Mail]

Challenging North Korean human rights policy

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There is no more vexing issue than the challenge of how to support the improvement of human rights in North Korea, a country that has consistently ranked at the bottom of international indices rating human freedom around the world.

The U.S. Congress passed the North Korea Human Rights Act almost a decade ago, the United Nations has appointed a rapporteur to examine the human rights situation inside North Korea for almost as long, and the Korean Institute for National Unification has published an ever-growing annual white paper on North Korean human rights since 1996.

This year the UN Human Rights Council appointed a Commission of Inquiry that has held public hearings in Seoul, Tokyo, London, and Washington, DC; the commission will report back to the UN Human Rights Council with its assessment and recommendations by spring of next year.

But the stream of North Korean refugee testimony to unspeakable atrocities and evidence of systemic abuses inside North Korea continues to grow.

[Council on Foreign Relations]