Imprisoned for 34 Years and Alive?

[imText1]Former N.K. spy and long-term prisoner in South Korea, who were repatriated back to Pyongyang, Oh Hyung Seok, 74-year old, died last Saturday.

Commemorating Oh, North Korean website ‘Uriminjokkiri’ argued, on Sunday, that Oh died ‘early’ because of decades of imprisonment, torture and other suppression in South Korea.

The argument is a complete nonsense.

Currently, political prisoners among the twelve concentration camps around North Korea are imprisoned without due process of law. For example, among the prisoners, a number of them were arrested and sent to the concentration camps because they abused the Dear Leader. Inside the Complete Confinement Area and the Revolutionized Area, even family members cannot talk to each other.

Receiving only a handful of corn per day, starved inmates eat mouse and roach amid hunger and death. No body knows when, where and how those inmates, who are deprived of citizenship, died. Some of the tragic stories of the political prisoners in North Korea are known to the international society, now.

And moreover, few North Korean residents now believe the state media’s report of South Korean government’s human rights violation since many former NK spies survived in South Korean prison for ‘too long’.

In March 1993, when 76-year old political prisoner Lee In Mo was repatriated back to Pyongyang from Seoul, North Korean people were confused by the fact that the man had spent 34 years in prison. And most of the long term prisoners who were sent back to Pyongyang since September 2000 were in their 70s and 80s. People wondered how well they had been fed and treated in South Korean prison.

Currently, repatriated long-term prisoners are 57 alive and 7 dead including Oh Hyung Seok.

In North Korean prison, inmates cannot be alive that long. North Korean people started assume that South Korean prisons are at least inhabitable.

‘Uriminjokkiri’ must realize that, no matter how ferociously it blames on South Korean government for not repatriating the rest of long-term prisoners, North Korean people acknowledge generosity and humanitarianism of the South Korean government, which even allows ex-North Korean spies back to their homes.