[imText1]The government of North Korea held a public execution in Huiryeong early this year, following the previous ones this year in Musan and Chongjin.
According to the Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag (www.nkgulag.org), two people were executed publicly in Huiryeong Market, while a large crowd was gathered. The Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag reveals the names, profession, and charges against them. Since 1992 when public execution poster was revealed to the public, this is the first time personal information of the executed is to be known to the public.
The executed are Choi Jae Il, a worker at the 1.17 Factory and a man known to be from Bujun, South Hamkyung province. The Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag reported that they were sentenced to death, one for secretly selling American military number-tag necklace and the other for trafficking North Korean women into China.
The Free North Korea Radio (internet service, www.freenk.net) also broadcasted on the two men publicly executed in Huiryeong for trafficking.
Furthermore, the Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag also made known that as the result of the activities carried out by the Anti-Socialism Group inside North Korea, 27 families were expelled from their homes and two families out of them escaped to China. They also reported detailed descriptions of the escapees, “photographer Ahn,” who is also known as “the one who lives in Kangan-dong, Huiryeong City, planned to be expelled,” and that Yoon Bong Hee, an English teacher and another Korean lauguage teacher of NamMun Middle School were arrested while escaping to China and are currently under inspection in Province Security Department located in Chongjin City.
The government of North Korea held public executions frequently in the years from 1994 to 1998, but upon the international criticism against it, it stopped public executions around the border areas ever since. Until recently, many predicted that public execution is completely stopped in North Korea, and North Korea is likely to hold only “closed persecutions.”
The Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag noted, “the public execution newly held around the border area may be due to the flow of capitalist influence coming into the border region, by which the regime feels threatened.”
