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The “Prison Tales” series is based on “The Reeducation Camp Stories” (the Zeitgeist, 2008) written by Lee Jun Ha, a defector now taking refuge in China who gave an account of his experiences over five years in the No. 22 Reeducation Camp in Hoiryeong.
Lee says, "I wrote them to share with the people of the world
the news about violations of human rights in North Korea’s reeducation
camps."
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33 year old Shin Young Hak was a tractor-driver at the house I was staying in. During the 80 days I was there, we became close friends. I felt like he was my brother. He still cares about me like a brother. One day, I asked Yong Ho's permission to go to town w..
[2009-12-04 09:07] |
| I continued on, staggering like a drunk. It was raining again. It rained the day I was sent to prison and the day I got released. It also rained the day I crossed the Tumen River. I rained whenever I went through something difficult or sad. What had I done to..
[2009-12-01 10:33] |
| So my very first step back into society had ended in my being robbed of two packs of cigarettes. And after that incident, I was constantly deprived of almost everything. Because I was an ex-convict, no one accepted me to work. Aware of my weakness, security servi..
[2009-11-27 17:19] |
| After serving five years in prison and finally getting released, I sincerely believed that I could improve my life as long as I wanted to. The sin of killing a person could not be completely washed away by five years in prison, but I thought I’d be given an opportu..
[2009-11-25 17:57] |
| I wasn’t born to high-ranking officials or rich people. I am an ordinary person, whose mother belongs to the working class, just like almost everyone else. There really is no difference between me and the next man, except that my mother’s devotion to her only son..
[2009-11-22 11:01] |
| In 1995, the infamous “March of Tribulation” started. In 1996 people in my hometown started starving to death. Kids couldn’t go to school. Instead, they had to work in fields, gather wood in the mountains or collect wild herbs and mushrooms. When more and more st..
[2009-11-19 00:32] |
| Five years was not enough to change my hometown. Familiar buildings, familiar people; it was the same. My house, which I could have found with my eyes closed, was unchanged too. Thinking of the dining table with its two fish-shaped patterns, the utensils I had us..
[2009-11-11 09:59] |
| It had started raining early in the morning. I had been awake all night, which of course made my eyes hurt. As soon as the bell rang, I headed for the Logging section, trying to calm myself down a little. “Hey, your eyes are red,” Ki Chul the caterer said in welco..
[2009-10-30 12:51] |
| With only 100 days left until I was due to get out, I started to get pretty anxious. That was the most difficult period of my four years and nine months inside. 100 days felt like a million years. My daily routine used to feel short, but during that period it was..
[2009-10-26 09:37] |
| In the teeth of a bitter wind, we went to Wongol to chop trees. After a while, the nearest security guard came looking for me. I made my way through the trees to meet him. There, I saw a tree which would have needed 3 people to carry it. “Jun Ha, make sure you get..
[2009-10-19 09:47] |
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