# The Hidden Gulag Report by [[The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea]] Links: [[North Korean Prisons]] [[The_Hidden_Gulag.pdf]] (Selected excerpts) ## Intro Some, of course, will avoid reading it, fully knowing that if they do read it, they will have to change their tactics, or at least think differently about the political problems posed by North Korea. Certainly after absorbing such details, it will be more difficult for Americans or Europeans to sit down and negotiate, coldly, with their Korean coun- terparts and not mention human rights violations. South Koreans, when they know the details of life in the North, will also find it more difficult to argue in favor of appeasing the Northern regime. If these stories filter back to the North Korean police and adminis- trators, those officials too will find it more difficult to justify their own behavior, or to claim that they don’t know what is really happening in the country’s concentration camps. And if the full truth about the camps becomes known to the wider population, then whatever support remains for the state constructed by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il will begin, even more decisively, to ebb away. **Part One.** Part One of this report goes on to describe the second component of the North Korean gulag: a series of smaller penal-labor camps and penitentiary-like institutions called kyo- hwa-so. **Part Two.** Part Two of this report describes a series of detention facilities, administered by North Korean police forces, that are located in areas along the North Korea–China border and used to interrogate and punish North Koreans forcibly repatriated from China. When first repatriated from China, North Koreans are questioned in the police jails and detention facilities about why they went to China, what they did there, and when. More ominous questions follow, revolving around whether the individual being questioned had any contact with South Koreans while in China, which is deemed a political offense. (Many North Koreans do have contact with South Koreans there, as this part of north- east China, formerly known as Manchuria, is frequented by South Korean businessmen, students, tourists, missionaries, and refugee and humanitarian aid workers.) Fearing transfer to a kwan-li-so or kyo-hwa-so,3 or even execution, repatriated North Koreans typically deny having had any contact with South Koreans or exposure to South Korean radio stations, television programs, movies, or music while in China. But such denials often are not deemed credible by the North Korean police, who literally attempt to beat the truth out of the repatriated detainees. When the police are satisfied, the repatriates are transferred to the jip-kyul-so police detention centers or ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae labor-training camps. This report tells the stories of nine North Koreans forcibly repatri- ated from China, and the police interrogations, detentions, and mistreatments these Koreans were subjected to upon repatriation. ^733617 Two phenomena of extreme repression are associated with the treatments meted out to repatriated Koreans. First, the jip-kyul-so, despite the shortness of sentences served there, are characterized by very high levels of deaths in detention from inadequate food combined with excessively hard labor — most seriously affecting those detainees lacking nearby relatives to bring them extra food. (Many detainees, when they become too ema- ciated or sick to perform hard labor, are given sick-leave or release so that they can recover or die at home, reducing the number of deaths in detention.) Second, in at least three places of detention along the North Korea–China border cited by persons inter- viewed for this report, North Korean women who were pregnant when repatriated were subsequently subjected to forced abortions, or if the pregnancy was too advanced, were allowed to deliver their babies only to have them killed immediately after birth (based on the possibility that the Korean women had been impregnated by Han Chinese men). ^d745f7 **Part Three.** Most of the prisoners and detainees interviewed for this report were tortured, many horribly and repeatedly. Part Three of this report summarizes the methods of tor- ture endured or witnessed by the former prisoners and detainees interviewed. It also summarizes the testimony of eight former detainees who themselves witnessed or have firsthand knowledge of forced abortions and ethnic infanticide. **Part Four.** The concluding section of this report, Part Four, makes various recommenda- tions to the DRPK, to China and South Korea, as North Korea’s closest neighbors, and to other U.N. Member States in the international community. In regards to the last, this report includes recommendations that all intergovernmental contact with North Korea should include discussion of improvements of human rights conditions. Further, it makes the case for incorporating human rights conditions in any comprehensive approach to the multiple crises that North Korea faces with nearby and other states — security-relat- ed, political-diplomatic, and humanitarian. ## The North Korean Gulag II: Kyo-hwa-so long-term prison-labor facilities In many aspects of day-to-day prison life, the kyo-hwa-so resemble the kwan-li-so described in the previous section of this report. ==The prisons are harsh “strict-regime” places (virtually no prisoner privileges) where prisoners are forced to do hard, often heavy, and often dangerous labor while being provided food rations insufficient to sus- tain even sedentary life (and where the provision of literally sub-subsistence food rations preceded the mid-1990s famine in North Korea). The combination of hard labor and below-subsistence-level food provisions results in rapid weight loss, industrial or mining work accidents, malnutrition-related diseases, and death. The largely doctor-less and medicine-less prison “hospitals” or “clinics” are essentially places where the sick and injured who can no longer work are sent to await death. Loss of life occurs at such high rates that many of the kyo-hwa-so are perceived by prisoners as death camps in that they expect to die before the completion of their sentences.== ### TESTIMONY: Kyo-hwa-so No. 1, Kaechon, South Pyong-an Province ==Prisoners were supposed to get rations of some 700 grams (25 ounces) per day consist- ing of corn, rice, and beans. Instead, the guards ate the rice and beans, leaving each pris- oner with only some 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of corn per meal, or a meager 300 grams (11 ounces) per day. Constant and severe hunger was the norm, and the dehumanizing environment led the prisoners to fight each other for scraps of food.== The whole group would be punished for the infraction of one of its members, a com- mon infraction being the failure to meet individual — or group — production quotas. ==The most common and immediate punishment was reduced food rations. Frequently the threat of reduced food rations drove the women prisoners to work through constant pain. In winter, hands and fingers numb from cold were prone to accidents from the sewing needles and scissors. Mindful of their production quotas, prisoners continued at their work-stations, doubly fearful that their dripping blood would soil the garments they were sewing. Repeated infractions led to transfer to the prison’s shoe factory. Even more severe punishment included prolonged solitary confinement in a cell too small to allow for a person to fully stand up or lie down inside, leading to loss of circulation and severe pain.== ==In the prison dormitories, eighty to ninety prisoners slept head-to-toe in cells roughly sixteen by twenty feet square. In winter, sleeping side by side kept the prisoners warm, but in summer, the dorms were dreadfully hot and foul smelling. The prisoners preferred to sleep, if they could, under their sewing machines in the factory, on floors dusty with cotton fiber.== ==The bodies of prisoners who died in detention were simply dumped in the mountains like dead animals, non-burial being culturally offensive to Koreans.== Prisoners were also offended by being cursed or kicked by persons younger than themselves, another cultur- al offense. Missing stitches, or soiling or spoiling garments, in the sewing factory com- monly resulted in kicks or slaps. Several years of below-subsistence-level food rations coupled with hard labor and brutal treatment apparently caused spinal columns and lig- aments to weaken. Numerous physical deformities followed, and many women prisoners developed “hunched backs.” == In addition to deaths from malnutrition-related diseases and the tiny “punishment cells,” there were public executions in front of the assembled prison population — usually of men who had broken under pressure and cursed or defied the guards, but also of women who had been overheard expressing complaints. The other prisoners were required to file by the executed corpses, a practice that caused some prisoners to lose composure, scream, and act out. Many of these prisoners were then punished with solitary confinement. The solitary-confinement cells would be filled following the public executions.== Predictably, the prison conditions and labor system resulted in high rates of industrial work accidents and epidemics of paratyphoid (dehydration resulting from severe and prolonged diarrhea). The small number of women who came into the prison pregnant were forced to have injection-induced abortions. ### WITNESS: JI Hae Nam, Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 JI Hae Nam was born in 1949 in Namun-ri, Hamhung City, South Hamgyong Province. At one point, she worked as a Korean Workers’ Party propaganda cadre, visiting factories to explain party policy and exhort factory workers, sometimes through patriotic work songs, to meet their production quo- tas. But after the 13th Party Congress in 1989, her faith in the Party began to waver. A decade of hardship began shortly thereafter. At the time, a North Korean TV show mocking former South Korean President PARK Chun Hee featured one of Park’s concubines singing an apparently popular South Korean pop song, “Don’t Cry for Me, Hongdo” (or, Younger Sister). Ji was taken with the song and its melody and memorized it. On a lunar calen- dar holiday coinciding with Christmas day, December 25, 1992, Ji and four other women had an evening song party in Hamjun-kun, South Hamgyong Province, at which Ji taught the song to the other women. Overheard by neighbors, reported to the authori- ties, and arrested for singing a South Korean song, Ji was taken first to the In-min-bo- an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) jail in Hamjun-kun for fifteen days, and then to the In-min-bo-an-seong police jail in Myungchun-kun in North Hamgyong Province. During her pre-trial detention, she was beaten and sexually abused by a detention-facility guard. Mortified at her mistreatment by the young guard, who has in his early twenties, Ji tried to commit suicide by swallowing pieces of cement. The other four women at the song party were sentenced to eight months of forced labor. During the investigation of Ji’s role as the song leader, the charge of stealing food rations, technically falsifying documents to get more food rations than she should have, was added to the charge of disrupting the socialist order — “Article fifty-something,” she recalls. She was sentenced to three years of rehabilitation-through-labor at the woman’s prison Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 at Kaechon, South Pyong-an Province. After serving two years and two months of her three-year sentence, in September 1995, Ji, along with fifty other “light crime” prisoners, was released on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese occupation. She returned to Hamjun-kun but, as an ex-convict, felt that doors were closed to her. As the economy deteriorated, she was unable to make ends meet as a peddler and resorted to selling her blood at transfusion centers. Hungry and disillusioned about her future prospects, she fled to China in September 1998, but she was almost immediately caught by a trafficker and sold to a physically deformed Chinese man who locked her up as a “sex toy” for seven months before she was able to escape. She then made her way to Weihai, where she worked in a restaurant and saved what little money she could. She eventually teamed up with six other North Koreans in China and stole a boat to try to get to South Korea by sea, but the engine broke down. The boat filled with water on rough seas and had to be towed back to shore by Chinese fishermen. Shortly thereafter, Ji and her fel- low Korean escapees stole another boat and again set out to sea, but this boat was inter- cepted by the authorities and the amateur sailors turned over to Chinese border guards. Taken to the Tandong detention center in China, Ji was forcibly repatriated to North Korea and sent to the bo-wi-bu (National Security Agency) police ka-mok (jail) in Sinuiju, where there were twenty-five women and thirty men — all tal-bukza (“escaped North persons”). While in this bo-wi-bu jail, she was beaten with broom sticks, forced to kneel for hours at a time, and made to do the “stand-up-sit-down” exercise to the point of collapse, usually after thirty to forty minutes. Some of the younger women were kept in solitary confinement and sexually abused, Ji reports. After a month, she was sent to the Sinuiju jip-kyul-so (detention center), but a week later, on December 25, 1999, she was released as part of a larger pardon for persons repatriated from China. Fearing she would be constantly watched and possibly re-arrested, Ji made her way to Musan, and in January 2000, crossed the frozen Tumen River back into China. This time her luck had turned. She found work in a company managed by a South Korean. Then she met a South Korean pastor who assisted a group of North Korean refugees, including Ji, in making their way to South Korea. The group went from Weihai to Beijing to Kunming in southern China. Caught by the Chinese police near the Vietnam border, they successfully passed themselves off as Korean-Chinese and walked overnight over a mountain path into Vietnam. By train, by motorbike, and on foot they made their way down through Southeast Asia and on to Seoul, where they obtained asylum. During her interview for this report, which lasted all afternoon in a human rights NGO office in Seoul, Ji spoke in rapid anger as she described the conditions of Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 at Kaechon. She laughed as she recounted her misadventures on the high seas in stolen, leaky boats that had almost no chance of actually crossing the West Sea (also called the Yellow Sea) to South Korea. And she fought back tears as she referred to the sexual harassments and violations she endured in custody and as a trafficked person. For the last question of the interview, the researcher asked Ji if she ever again sang the song, “Don’t Cry for Me, Hongdo.” Straightaway she replied, “Yes, and now without fear.” ## Part 3: Torture ### I: Torture Summary - Former Detainee #1 was beaten unconscious for hunger-related rule infractions in 1997 at the Nongpo jip-kyul-so (detention center) in Chongjin City. He also report- ed that detainees there were beaten with shovels if they did not work fast enough. - Former Detainee #3 reported the use of an undersized punishment box at the Danchun prison camp in which camp rule-breakers were held for fifteen days, unable to stand-up or lie down. He also reported that beatings of the prisoners by guards were common. - LEE Young Kuk reported that he was subjected to motionless-kneeling and water torture and facial and shin beatings with rifle butts at the Kuk-ga-bo-wi-bu inter- rogation/detention facility in Pyongyang in 1994, leaving permanent damage in one ear, double vision in one eye, and his shins still bruised and discolored as of late 2002. - KANG Chol Hwan reported the existence of separate punishment cells within Kwan-li-so No. 15 Yodok, from which few prisoners returned alive. - Former Prisoner #6 reported that prisoners were beaten to death by prison work- unit leaders at Danchun Kyo-hwa-so No. 77 in North Hamgyong Province in the late 1980s. - AHN Myong Chol, a former guard, reported that all three of the kwan-li-so at which he worked had isolated detention facilities in which many prisoners died from mistreatment, and that at Kwan-li-so No. 22 there were so many deaths by beatings from guards that the guards were told to be less violent. - Former Detainee #8 reported that male prisoners were beaten by guards at the Chongjin jip-kyul-so in mid-2000. - Former Detainee #9 reported that detainees at the Onsong ro-dong-dan-ryeon- dae (labor-training camp) were compelled to beat each other. - KIM Sung Min reported that in 1997 at the Onsong bo-wi-bu (National Security Agency) detention center, his fingers were broken and he was kicked and beaten on the head and face until his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth bled. - RHYU Young Il saw, in 1997, that out of six persons in an adjacent cell in the bo-wi-bu interrogation facility where he was detained in Pyongyang, two were carried out on stretchers, two could walk only with the assistance of guards, and two could walk out by themselves. Detainees who moved while they were supposed to be sitting motionless and silent for long periods were handcuffed from the upper bars of their cells with their feet off the floor. Detainees who talked when they were supposed to be sitting motionless and silent were compelled to slap and hit each other. - Former Prisoner #12 reported that at Hoeryong kyo-hwa-so in the early to mid- dle 1990s, minor rule-breakers were beaten by their cellmates on the orders of the guards, and major rule-breakers were placed in a 1.5-meter-square (16.5-feet- square) punishment cell for a week or more. - LEE Min Bok reported being beaten “many times” on his fingernails and the back of his hands with a metal rod during interrogation at the Hyesan detention center in 1990. He also reported that at the Hyesan In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) detention facility, where he was subsequently held, prisoners were compelled to beat each other. Lee witnessed one prisoner, KIM Jae Chul, beaten to death. - Former Detainee #15 reported that he was beaten with chairs and sticks at both the Hoeryong and Onsong In-min-bo-an-seong jails in early 2002. - LEE Soon Ok reported that she experienced beatings, strappings, and ater tor- ture leading to loss of consciousness, and was held outside in freezing January weather at the Chongjin In-min-bo-an-seong pre-trial detention center in 1986. Her account of beatings and brutalities in the early to middle 1990s at Kaechon women’s prison, Kyo-hwa-so No. 1, (in her prison memoirs) are too numerous to detail here. - JI Hae Nam confirmed the existence of miniature punishment cells at Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 and reported that beatings and kicking of women prisoners were a daily occurrence in the mid-1990s. She also reported beatings, during interrogation or for prison regulation infractions, in late 1999 at the Sinuiju bo-wi-bu jail, where she was required to kneel motionless, hit with broomsticks, and required to do stand-up/sit-down repetitions to the point of collapse, in her case in thirty to forty minutes. - KIM Yong reported that he was beaten at the bo-wi-bu police jail at Maram and was subjected to water torture and hung by his wrists in the bo-wi-bu police jail at Moonsu in 1993. - KIM Tae Jin reported that he was beaten, deprived of sleep, and made to kneel motionless for many hours at the bo-wi-bu police detention/interrogation facility in Chongjin in late 1998/early 1999. - YOU Chun Sik reported that he was kicked, beaten, and subjected to daylong motionless-sitting torture at the bo-wi-bu police jail in Sinuiju in 2000. He described the motionless-sitting as being more painful than the beatings. - Former Detainee #21 reported that she was beaten unconscious in mid-1999 at the In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) ku-ryu-jang (detention/interroga- tion facility) at Onsong, where detainees were beaten so badly that they confessed to doing things they had not done. Women were hit on their fingertips. She wit- nessed one very ill woman who was compelled to do stand-up/sit-down repeti- tions until she died. - Former Detainee #22 reported that he was beaten with chairs at Onsong bo-wi- bu (State Security Agency) police jail in late 2001, and beaten even worse at the Chongjin In-min-bo-an-seong detention center in early 2002. - Former Detainee #24 reported that there were beatings at the bo-wi-bu police jail in Sinuiju in January 2000. - Former Detainee #25 reported that one woman, a former schoolteacher who had been caught in Mongolia and repatriated to China and North Korea, was beaten nearly to death at the Onsong In-min-bo-an-seong detention center in November 1999, and then taken away either to die or, if she recovered, for transfer to Kyo- hwa-so No. 22. - Former Detainee #26 was made to kneel motionless at the Onsong bo-wi-bu police jail in June 2000 and was made to sit motionless for six days at the Hoeryong bo-wi-bu police jail in July 2001. - Former Detainee #28 reported that prisoners were beaten to death at the Kyo- hwa-so No. 12 at Jeonger-ri in North Hamgyong Province in 1999. #### II. Ethnic Infanticide Summary There are sporadic reports of forced abortions and baby killings at the kwan-li-so, where, except for a very few privileged couples, the prisoners were not allowed to have sex or children. There are also sporadic reports of forced abortion and baby killings at the kwan-li-so, where sex between prisoners is prohibited. And there are sporadic reports of killings of pregnant women who were raped or coerced into sex by prison guards. However, this report focuses on the forced abortions and baby killings directed against and inflicted on women forcibly repatriated from China, because of the ethnic and policy components of those atrocities. - CHOI Yong Hwa assisted in the delivery of babies, three of whom were promptly killed, at the Sinuiju do-jip-kyul-so (provincial detention center) in mid-2000. - Former Detainee #8 witnessed six forced abortions at Chongjin do-jip-kyul-so in mid-2000. - Former Detainee #9 witnessed ten forced abortions at Onsong ro-dong-dan- ryeon-dae (labor-training camp) in mid-2000. - YOU Chun Sik reported that four pregnant women at the bo-wi-bu (National Security Agency) police station in Sinuiju were subjected to forced abortions in mid-2000. - Former Detainee #21 reported two baby killings at the Onsong In-min-bo-an- seong (People’s Safety Agency) police station in late 1999. - Former Detainee #24 helped deliver seven babies who were killed at the Backto- ri, South Sinuiju In-min-bo-an-seong police detention center in January 2000. - Former Detainee #25 witnessed four babies killed at Nongpo In-min-bo-an-seong police detention center in Chongjin in late 1999, and another six pregnant women subjected to forced abortion. - Former Detainee #26 witnessed three forced abortions and seven babies killed at the Nongpo jip-kyul-so (detention center), Chongjin City, in May 2000.