North Korean former datainee tells his tory

The US-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea said it based its report on interviews with 60 former prisoners and guards. It includes satellite images of what are described as prison labor camps and penitentiaries.

The report says the camp system was initially modeled in the 1950s on the Soviet gulag to punish “wrong thinkers” and those belonging to the “wrong political class” or religious persuasion. It cites estimates from North Korean state security agency officials who defected to South Korea that the camp system holds between 150,000 and 200,000 people out of a total population of around 24 million. It urges North Korea to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access, and to dismantle the camps. The 200-page report described different kinds of detention facilities, including penal labor colonies where it says political detainees are imprisoned without judicial process for mostly lifetime sentences in mining, logging or agricultural enterprises.

Hidden Gulag: Second Edition is based on the testimony of sixty former North Korean prisoners and former guards, provided through interviews conducted for many hours, sometimes days. It contains hand drawings and 41 satellite photographic images of numerous North Korean prison labor camps and penitentiaries holding North Koreans for essentially political offenses. The locations have been confirmed by former prisoners in these facilities who have identified their former barracks and houses, work sites, execution grounds and other landmarks, in the camps. Initially modeled on the Soviet gulag in the 1950s, North Korea's gulag system has turned into a vast network of detention facilities intended to punish those perceived as being 'wrong thinkers,' 'wrong-doers' or with 'wrong associations' or belonging to the 'wrong political class' or religious persuasion. The report documents how whole families can be incarcerated, including children and grandparents, for the "political crimes" of other family members. It also documents how forced abortion is regularly practiced on women prisoners who illegally cross into China, become pregnant by Chinese men and are forcibly repatriated to North Korea and how infanticide is practiced when the pregnancy is advanced.