HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA - December 10 2002
Original document http://www.csw.org.uk/nkreport.asp
| Contents:
|
Page |
| Introduction and Research
Methods
|
1 |
| General
Repression and Society |
2 |
| Detention
Facilities and Prisons |
3 |
| Torture |
3 |
| Absence of Fair Trial |
3 |
|
Long Term Detention Facilities
|
3 |
| Families of Political Prisoners
|
5 |
| Exile |
5 |
| Human Experimentation (including Chemical
Experimentation) |
5 |
| Execution |
6 |
| Religious Freedom |
6 |
| Punishent of those who have left the Country
Illegally |
7 |
| Forced
Abortions and Infanticide |
7 |
| Situation
at the Border |
7 |
Introduction and Research
Methods
- CSW has conducted
interviews with around 50 North Koreans in 4 countries over the last two
years to ascertain the situation of human rights in North Korea.
- Interviews have been
carried out at the China border with North Korea, South East Asia, South
Korea and Japan.
- Those interviewed include
individuals who have been imprisoned and also those who have been
responsible for imprisonment and torture.
- Alongside these
interviews, CSW has worked with and talked to numerous individuals and
organisations working with North Koreans, as well as diplomatic staff
and those who have worked inside the country.
- CSW has also used medical
examination, psychiatric analysis and expert medical advice in analysing
evidence.
Without a doubt, the consistent evidence of egregious human
rights abuses presents a prima facie case against North Korea. In
the absence of co-operation by the North Korean regime in allowing
investigation, the natural conclusion is that North Korea is in very
serious violation of human rights obligations, requiring that the
situation be addressed in strong and urgent terms.
The
following comments form a general survey of the situation. There are
obviously local variations in practice and other variations depending on
personnel and circumstances. Nevertheless there are many similar accounts
from witnesses interviewed at different times and locations.
General Repression and
Society
Human rights are repressed at every level in North
Korea. Lack of the rule of law and arbitrary treatment create a culture of
repression and fear. The practice of torture and violations of the right
to life, physical integrity and due process appear to be frequent and
systematic.
Control of society is extensive and intrusive,
with constant projection of propaganda, close surveillance and very harsh
suppression of any action or statement deemed to indicate a lack of total
support for the regime. Thus freedom of expression and religion are
strictly controlled and even freedom of thought is repressed. Freedom of
movement, assembly and association are all strictly curtailed.
North Koreans do not generally see themselves as
suffering as harshly as one might expect in a society with such severe
repression of human rights. They generally consider themselves to be
living in a relatively civilized society. This attitude can be attributed
to the traditional, subservient nature of society, the all pervading
propaganda and brainwashing and the long-term isolation from outside
influence and information.
The
propaganda has successfully inculcated respect and appreciation for the
leaders. The sense that North Korea is always on alert against ‘the enemy'
also engenders a sense of nationalism that vitiates much of the unrest
that might otherwise find expression. With no alternative system
conceivable to them, North Koreans show remarkable support for the regime,
despite abuse, famine and poverty. Respect for Kim Il Sung remains high,
although there appears to be a degree of discontent regarding Kim Jong
Il's leadership. However, such concerns would rarely find any form of
expression as informants are prevalent throughout
society.
Those who are deemed to be less than entirely
supportive or loyal citizens are subject to swift and harsh penalties.
Those singled out for punishment include, amongst others, those seen to
have any sympathy or links with South Korea and those with religious
beliefs.
It is not possible to present a truly systematic
picture of punishment. Although clear trends emerge from the evidence
gathered, there are differences in treatment due to varying local
practices, individual relationships and responses. Nevertheless there are
specific penalties which are mentioned frequently. As such the following
details are given as generalisations. They are based on evidence from
victims and perpetrators of human rights abuses, but by necessity present
a simplistic impression of the situation.
North
Koreans live with the knowledge that if they are deemed to be unworthy
citizens or to be connected to someone who has in some way offended the
system, they will be taken from their homes, often at night and with their
whole family, and will disappear from society. North Koreans regularly
refer to this phenomenon and cite incidents of those they knew who were
taken away and never seen again. Witnesses believed that those involved
were either taken away to be held in long-term detention, such as in a
prison camp, or were killed.
Interrogation
The standard practice appears to be that those
suspected of ‘political crimes' (including minor actions which are
interpreted as showing insufficient respect) are detained and interrogated
by the State Security Agency. Some detainees describe being held at three
levels of the SSA system, namely, central government, province and
district or city levels.
Torture
Interrogation routinely involves many forms of
brutal and horrific torture. Evidence obtained includes accounts of three
different types of water torture, severe beatings, sexual assault and
violation, as well as psychological and verbal abuse. Sleep deprivation is
a common tactic, which both victims and torturers have commented is
especially effective in interrogation. In some serious cases this is
induced through water torture where sleep is impossible without drowning.
Other cruel treatment includes suspending detainees by their wrists from
the ceiling or from bars, using blocks, guns, holsters, metal poles and
wooden pokers, as well as fists and boots, to inflict terrible pain and
injuries, and the insertion of objects into the body, including the
vagina.
Even outside the torture rooms, violence can be
fierce. Those in the cells who are deemed to be moving without permission
have been forced to put their hands through the bars of the door, where
the guard mercilessly beats or stamps on them until they are bleeding and
the skin is shredded. A prisoner detained for a minor offence described
the condition of one of his fellow inmates who had been placed in a
special punishment chamber. He described the man as looking completely
black where he still had skin, but that much of his skin on his face was
missing, and all he could see were his eyes. The man was still alive,
though barely clinging to his life.
After the interrogation and torture in the SSA
detention facilities a decision is made as to which form of punishment
will be imposed. No case was heard in which a person accused of a
political crime was released from detention after this process of
interrogation.
Absence of Fair Trial
In some cases a form of trial was implemented. In
other cases there was no such procedure, nor even an official charge.
Where trials were held they were simply rituals in which the defendant had
no effective rights to present his case, wholly lacking the ingredients of
a fair trial and due process.
Detention
After interrogation, and possible trial, political
prisoners who are not executed will be sent to a detention facility from
which they will probably never emerge, even in death. These secret prisons
are distinct from those used for non-political criminals and take a number
of forms, including tightly controlled, overcrowded prisons and detention
settlement camps, which are large areas surrounded by barbed wires and
watch towers.
The conditions in both the prisons and camps are
brutal, the cruelty only defined by the parameters of the creativity of
the guards. Conditions for all prisoners are inhuman, with severe
under-nourishment, appalling sanitary conditions and long hours of
gruelling labour. Prisoners are deformed as a result of the abuse,
malnutrition and hard and dangerous work. One guard described his first
sighting of prisoners in amazement that such creatures, who were all
disabled and deformed, could still move around and be working.
It is a notable characteristic of accounts about
the prisoners that they are not referred to as humans, but rather are
viewed as sub-human and beasts. The guards and torturers are trained not
to see the prisoners as humans and profess to no feelings of compassion or
identification with the prisoners, whom they view as enemies, unworthy of
life. The prisoners themselves describe how their initial impression is
that the other prisoners look like beasts and that they find that the only
way to survive is to forget that one is human and act like an animal
seeking survival.
Torturers are selected for their cruelty in tests
of increasing barbarity. Only those who will inflict the greatest pain on
their victims and show the least compassion will be selected. Those who
show any humanity or sympathy for a prisoner are liable to be demoted or
punished themselves. Sexual liaison between prisoners and guards is
strictly forbidden, as it would involve recognition of the woman as a
human. Alongside rape of women prisoners, guards do sometimes form
relations with female prisoners. If found out, the prisoner will be
brutally punished and the guard will also be penalised.
Prisons
Offenders who are not executed, but are deemed
guilty of serious political crimes are liable to be sent to a prison where
they will be held under strict control in overcrowded conditions and
forced to work gruelling hours in attached factories. They will not be
allowed contact with their family and cannot hope to ever emerge from the
camp, either dead or alive. According to information from one witness,
young children are also interned in such prisons, but are not allowed any
contact with their mothers, who, heartbreakingly, can see them but not
meet their needs for hunger and warmth.
Prisoners are violently mistreated and are subject
to daily verbal and physical abuse, cruelty and arbitrary treatment. Work
in the factories is gruelling, deforming and dangerous. The slightest
mistake can result in the harshest of punishments and prisoners often die
due to the violence, overwork, malnutrition and unsanitary conditions.
Prisoners deemed to have committed a serious offence may be sent to a
punishment chamber. These are little rooms, measuring around 2' x 2' x 3'.
Being sent to a punishment chamber is seen in some prisons as a death
sentence, as internment can be too much for a weakened prisoner to endure.
Even though they may survive the detention, they may be so weakened that
they cannot live for long afterwards. Others come out paralysed from the
waist down after being held in the chamber during winter. Prisoners are
not able to contest such punishments, and have no defence against the
arbitrary cruel treatment of the guards.
Living conditions in the prisons are barbaric with
prisoners fed on starvation rations. This constant hunger has been
described as worse than being beaten. Prisoners are kept in horrifically
unsanitary conditions, crammed into overcrowded cells where they may not
even be able to lie down straight. They are deprived of sleep and given
minimal clothing, even in the cold extremes of North Korea's mountain
regions.
Detention Settlement
Camps
Others are sent to detention settlement camps.
These are large areas, from which escape is virtually impossible.
Prisoners live in appalling inhumane conditions in groups of sheds which
are clustered together into what would equate to a village. The camps have
different levels of severity and there are often different sections within
the camps. For example, in one camp, prisoners will be separated from
their families, and in another section of the camp, or another camp,
prisoners will be able to live together with their family.
Certain areas are designated re-socialisation
areas, where a prisoner is still considered to have a chance of being
re-integrated into society. Those held in the other parts of the camp are
deemed to be unworthy of such re-integration. Those in the former class
are subject to re-education, whereas those held in the other categories of
prison and prison camp are regarded as being beyond reform.
Prisoners in the camps have to work long gruelling
hours, are fed with minimum rations and are subjected to terrible abuse
and arbitrary treatment. They have no rights (other than a poorly
protected right not to be arbitrarily killed unless they show
insubordination) and are at the mercy of the guards, who misuse and abuse
them at will. Sanitary conditions are appalling, with insufficient toilet
facilities, no provision for washing and no soap or laundry powder. A
prisoner will have one set of clothes and so if they are able to wash them
they will have to wear them while they dry, even in freezing conditions.
Female prisoners are not even given sanitary towels, so those who still
menstruate will just bleed while they work.
Although they are not watched over by the guards
as fully as those in the harshest prisons, detainees lives are fully
controlled and all their choices are at the whim of the guards. Although
families are allowed to live together in certain conditions, reproduction
among these groups is generally prevented, either directly or through
control of working hours. Freedom for a couple to marry might be given as
a very occasional reward to encourage prisoners to work very hard. Other
prisoners are denied this basic right. Even in the very rare event that
marriage is permitted, it is often the case that the couple are rarely
able to see each other because of the way their work schedule is
controlled.
Families of Political
Prisoners
The targeting of families is a particularly
insidious aspect of the system. In the majority of cases described,
prisoners' families were taken into custody at the same time as the
‘offender'. Thus children may grow up and spend all their lives in the
camps, never knowing life outside these harsh
conditions.
Exile
Another punishment for those deemed to be
inadequate citizens is exile to cold harsh mountainous areas where making
a living is harder than elsewhere in North Korea. Tactics of denial of
access to means of livelihood and withholding aid from such areas are used
by the regime to repress those judged to be opposition classes.
Human Experimentation
A number of accounts have been received describing
experimentation on political prisoners. It is believed that the Third
Bureau carries out human experiments and that they use political prisoners
for their activities.Witnesses who described chemical experimentation on
political prisoners talked about experimentation being carried out on
animals at first and then on humans. Eye-witness evidence was received
describing how seven political prisoners, including an elderly couple, a
man in his twenties and a couple and their two children, aged ten and
seven, were taken into gas chambers. The gas in the first chamber caused
extreme agony and that in the second chamber killed them. Even in the
midst of such horror and agony, the mother was still holding her youngest
child to her very tightly.
Execution
Even internment in prison is not the worst
punishment for those deemed guilty of political or other crimes. Execution
- either arbitrary or planned - is part of the functioning of the prisons
and camps, but is also used outside the camps.
North Koreans frequently refer to witnessing
executions. Psychological assessment of North Koreans reveals Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder and they describe nightmares where they see
executions re-enacted.
Descriptions of the executions often depict a
similar scene. Typically, eye-witnesses see victims, who have obviously
been tortured, dragged out in front of an assembled crowd. The victims are
prevented from speaking by a stone which has been thrust into their
mouths. In some cases a formal hearing / enactment takes place, where the
crime is read out and witnesses recount the event. There are no
opportunities for the ‘defendant' to speak. In reality it would appear
that these are not so much public hearings as public spectacles, and the
witnesses are not so much giving evidence as denouncing the victim in an
attempt to distance themselves from the crime in order to avoid their own
punishment.
Most accounts describe the victims being tied to a
pole with three strips or ropes or wires. There are often three marksmen
who each shoot three shots at the ropes, one at the head, one at the heart
and one at the stomach. A number of witnesses commented that the victim
would fall progressively forward at each shot as the ropes were broken,
until at the last shot he would fall to the ground.
Other forms of execution are used and the number
of marksmen and shots vary. Other forms of securing the prisoner have also
been described. One eyewitness related how victims were secured to
crucifix shaped structures with six strips, one around the chest, one
around the waist and two on the shoulders and wrists.
The crimes were often simple efforts to secure
food, such as stealing a cow or exchanging public property to obtain food.
Religious
Freedom
Religious
freedom is harshly repressed in North Korea. North Koreans systematically
report that being a Christian in the country is viewed as a very serious
crime. Kim Il Sung has been exalted and is revered as a god to be followed
with unswerving obedience. Faith in a greater power is ruthlessly
repressed and the word for God has been banned in North Korea. Many North
Koreans become Christians when they leave the country and they
consistently refer to the remarkable parallels between how they were
required to worship the leaders and how they worship God.
Believers
are not free to fellowship. Surveillance and informing is so widespread
that meeting together would be fraught with danger. Even parents often do
not allow their children to know of their faith, as teachers ask the
children questions to make them unwittingly inform on their parents. All
those who lived outside Pyongyang said they had never seen a church or
even a Bible before leaving the country. Although there are three churches
in the capital, many accounts indicate that these exist as show churches.
A number of
North Koreans described cases where those believed to be Christians, and
their families, had disappeared. Although North Korea had a strong
Christian presence in the past, most Christians fled when it was still
possible or have since been martyred. It is known that there are
Christians in the prison camps. A number of accounts state that they are
treated particularly harshly in the camps. Even the prisoners ostracise
the Christians since, due to propaganda, they consider them to be
psychologically impaired. One prisoner described a special village of
Christians' families within a camp. Others describe witnessing Christians
being ordered to recant their faith and being publicly or arbitrarily
executed.
Punishment of those who have left the Country
Illegally
Execution has been particularly commonly referred
to as the punishment for those North Koreans who return from China having
had contact with Christians or with South Koreans. A number of
eyewitnesses have described such executions, with several of these
incidents taking place in Musan and Onsong.
Others who leave the country illegally and then
return are subject to interrogation and punishment. It appears that
returnees who are caught are liable to be interrogated by the State
Security Agency to see whether they fall into one of the categories of
particularly serious offenders. Men and women are stripped and women are
made to squat and stretch repeatedly in order to show that they do not
have money hidden in their vagina. Those detained typically describe being
held in a crowded cell where they are not allowed to move without
permission. Those who are found to be moving are subject to harsh beatings
and punishment. Guards will at times refuse permission to go to the
toilet. Excrement is checked to see whether the detainee has swallowed
money.
Forced Abortions and Infanticide
Women who have become pregnant in China are
especially targeted in detention. According to a number of reports from
those detained with such women, all women found to be pregnant by a
Chinese man are taken for forced abortion. North Korean officials say that
they do not want any ‘Chinks' and make derogatory and insulting comments
about sleeping with Chinese men. (Many women have no choice as they are
picked up by men posing as helpers when they reach China. They are then
taken to a house where, unknown to them, they are sold as brides, after
which they often endure horrific sexual and physical abuse, even being
locked up and rented out as the man's property.) Witnesses spoke of women
detained with them who were pregnant being taken away and coming back
without their baby, complaining of the heartbreak, pain and abuse of
having a forced abortion. One witness described how she personally saw a
prisoner giving birth to a baby and the nurses cutting the umbilical cord
and then smothering the baby with a wet towel.
The Situation at the Border
Despite its obligations as a party to the 1951 UN
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, China
consistently refuses to acknowledge the existence of refugees from North
Korea and refuses the UNHCR access to the border area to make an
independent assessment. The evidence from those escaping North Korea and
those who have endured punishment as a result clearly indicates that the
1951 convention provides protection to North Koreans. Nevertheless, China
continues its blanket policy of refusing asylum applications and
repatriating all North Koreans, in violation of its obligations, including
those under article 33 which protects against
refoulement.
North Koreans endure terrible fear and abuse in
China as a result of having to live in hiding from the authorities.
Treatment of those caught and held in China prior to repatriation can be
very cruel. Eyewitness accounts describe North Koreans being
attached to each other with wire passed through their wrists or
noses before repatriation.
The situation at the Chinese border with North
Korea is very tense at present. There has been a severe clampdown and
large numbers of North Koreans have been repatriated. Those helping North
Koreans by providing shelter or assistance in leaving the country have
also been targeted, with a number of foreign missionaries being detained
and subjected to harsh treatment in China. There have been many reports,
especially in July this year, of the Chinese authorities offering bounties
for information on the whereabouts of North Koreans in hiding in China and
the activists who are sheltering or helping them. The sums offered were
given as £45 for information on refugees and ten times that amount, £450,
for tips on missionaries or activists who have assisted them.
10th December
2002
jsmddh.com
