[imText1]“A soldier passing through a doorway scratched his Kim Il Sung badge, so in the middle of the night he secretly swapped his with another person’s. However, eventually the truth came out, so he attempted to hang himself in a bathroom but was rescued by others. Then he tried to shoot himself with a gun. After that he was summoned somewhere and nobody knows what happened to him.”
This absurd anecdote comes via Lee Young Kuk, who used to be an agent of Kim Jong Il’s escort bureau, but later was imprisoned in the Yoduk prison camp. In North Korea, when an image or badge of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il is smeared with ink or scratched, the offender is regarded as a political enemy.
The North Korean Human Rights Archives, part of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, has translated into Korean and published the report ‘North Korea: A Case to Answer, A Call to Act,’ originally published in English by Christian Solidarity Worldwide in 2007.
The report said it is meaningful to present the necessary measures and preparations to indict Kim Jong Il at the International Criminal Court, and it contains characteristics of North Korea’s human rights violations and countermeasures. In other words, it contains evidence to be used in bringing a future case against Kim Jong Il at the ICC.
In the report defectors vividly tell of the human rights violations they saw and suffered in North Korea. The testimonies and human rights situation clearly brought to light are unimaginable in a modern society.
Testimony of Lee Mi Suk, former prisoner of the South Sinuiju police, is particularly shocking. According to her testimony, a nurse of a military hospital near the prison suffocated to death a newborn baby of a pregnant woman arrested while crossing the border.
Nurses said, “The baby is Chinese and we don’t want Chinese babies,” according to Lee. They said that defection is a serious crime, and since the baby was born of a criminal it wasn’t worthy of any mercy.
Women who suffered forced abortions could not receive any treatment and were asked to work like other inmates. A female former inmate testified that she did not have her period for three years due to physical and psychological stress while in the prison camp.
Religious persecution is also very severe, and followers of Chodoism, Buddhism, Protestant and Catholic churches have almost all been eradicated. The reported quoted Thomas Belk’s 1999 ‘Juche: A Christian Study of North Korea’s State Religion,’ saying Christians were martyred by hanging on a burning cross and crushed by a steam roller.
Public execution is revealed to still exist. The report said inmates are forced to touch the bleeding body or throw stones at the body after public execution, and they are also killed by widespread and systematic torture, in addition to execution. Inmates are disabled, paralyzed or even killed by beating, sexual abuse, imprisonment and exposure to chemicals.
The report also revealed examples of deprivation of physical movement, torture, rape, persecution and disappearances, in addition to murder, extermination, enslavement, forced migration and arbitrary imprisonment.
They argued, “We must hold the offenders of international crime responsible for criminal activities. In reaching the conclusion that widespread and organized offenses have been committed, a certain group of people in North Korea must be held responsible.” They added, “We need to collect more information and evidence and review them.”
Kang Chol Hwan, former child inmate of Yodok political prison camp, commented at the end of the report.
“Normally, if you are starving, you can make your way somewhere else to find food. However, in North Korea, such escape is not allowed. The leadership forces you to stay and starve to death. North Korea is like a huge prison camp.”
▶To purchase the report, call 82-2-723-6045 (NKDB)
