A/HRC/25/CRP.1
Distr.: Restricted
7 February 2014
English only
Human Rights Council
Twenty-fifth session
Agenda item 4
Human rights situations that require the Council's attention
Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on
human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea*
Summary
The present document contains the detailed findings of the
commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea. The Commission's principal findings and
recommendations are provided in document A/HRC/25/63.
[English only]
Contents
Paragraphs Page
I. Introduction 1–5 5
II. Mandate and methodology of the commission of inquiry 6-84 5
A. Origins of the mandate 6-12 5
B. Interpretation of the mandate 13-20 6
C. Non-cooperation by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea 21-
27 8
D. Methods of work 28-62 10
E. Legal framework and standard of proof for reported violations
63-78 15
F. Archiving and record-keeping of testimony 79-84 18
III. Historical and political context to human rights violations in
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea 85-162 19
A. Pre-colonial history 87-89 19
B. Japanese colonial occupation (1910 to 1945) 90-94 20
C. Division of the peninsula, the Korean War and its legacy 95-109
21
D. Imposition of the Supreme Leader (suryong) system 110-128 27
E. Consolidation of power under the Kim dynasty 129-157 34
F. External dynamics and the human rights situation 158-162 43
IV. Findings of the commission 163-1021 45
A. Violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion
163-264 45
B. Discrimination on the basis of State-assigned social class
(songbun),
gender and disability 265-354 74
C. Violations of the freedom of movement and residence, including
the
freedom to leave one's own country and the prohibition of
refoulement 355-492 99
D. Violations of the right to food and related aspects of the right
to life 493-692 144
E. Arbitrary detention, torture, executions, enforced disappearance
and political prison camps 693-845 208
F. Enforced disappearance of persons from other countries,
including through abduction 846-1021 270
V. Crimes against humanity 1022-1165 319
A. Definition of crimes against humanity under international law
1026-1032 320
B. Crimes against humanity in political prison camps 1033-1067 323
C. Crimes against humanity in the ordinary prison system 1068-1086
330
D. Crimes against humanity targeting religious believers and others
considered
to introduce subversive influences 1087-1097 333
E. Crimes against humanity targeting persons who try to flee the
country 1098-1114 335
F. Starvation 1115-1137 339
G. Crimes against humanity targeting persons from other countries,
in particular through international abductions 1138-1154 345
H. A case of political genocide? 1155-1159 350
I. Principal findings of the commission 1160-1165 351
VI. Ensuring accountability, in particular for crimes against
humanity 1166-1210 352
A. Institutional accountability 1167-1194 352
B. Individual criminal accountability 1195-1203 359
C. Responsibility of the international community 1204-1210 363
VII. Conclusions and recommendations 1211-1224 365
Acronyms
ACF Action contre la Faim (Action against Hunger)
CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women
CESCR Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child
DPRK Democratic People's Republic of Korea
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
HRNK Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
HRW Human Rights Watch
ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICNK International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity in
North Korea
ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
KBA Korean Bar Association
KCNA Korean Central News Agency of the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea
KINU Korea Institute for National Unification
KPA Korean People's Army
KWAFU Korean War Abductees' Family Union
KWARI Korean War Abductees' Research Institute
LFNKR Life Funds for North Korean Refugees
MPS Ministry of People's Security
MSF Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
NGO Non-governmental organization
NHRCK National Human Rights Commission of Korea
NKDB Database Center for North Korean Human Rights
NKHR Citizens' Alliance for North Korea Human Rights
PDS Public Distribution System
POW Prisoner of War
ROK Republic of Korea
SSD State Security Department
UNHCR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
USA United States of America
WFP World Food Programme
WHO World Health Organization
WGEID Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances
I. Introduction
1. On 21 March 2013, at its 22nd session, the United Nations
Human Rights Council established the Commission of Inquiry on
Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK). Human Rights Council Resolution 22/13 mandated the
body to investigate the systematic, widespread and grave
violations of human rights in the DPRK, with a view to
ensuring full accountability, in particular, for violations
that may amount to crimes against humanity.1
2. Among the violations to be investigated were those pertaining
to the right to food, those associated with prison camps,
torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrary detention,
discrimination, freedom of expression, the right to life,
freedom of movement, and enforced disappearances, including in
the form of abductions of nationals of other states.
3. On 7 May 2013, the President of the Human Rights Council
announced the appointment of Michael Kirby of Australia and
Sonja Biserko of Serbia, who joined Marzuki Darusman of
Indonesia, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human
rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, to serve
as the members of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in
the DPRK. Mr Kirby was designated to serve as Chair. The
Commissioners, who served in a non-remunerated, independent,
expert capacity, took up their work the following month. The
Commission of Inquiry was supported by a Secretariat of nine
experienced human rights officials provided by the High
Commissioner for Human Rights. Once appointed, however, the
Secretariat worked independently of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights.
4. This report builds upon the oral updates which the Commission
of Inquiry provided in accordance with Resolution 22/13 to the
Human Rights Council in September 2013 and to the United
Nations General Assembly in October 2013.
5. The Commission implemented the mandate entrusted by the Member
States of the Human Rights Council bearing in mind the
Council's decision to transmit the reports of the Commission
to all relevant bodies of the United Nations and to the United
Nations Secretary-General for appropriate action.
II. Mandate and methodology of the commission of inquiry
A. Origins of the mandate
1. The adoption of Resolution 22/13 marked the first time that
the Human Rights Council had established a commission of
inquiry without a vote. It follows resolutions adopted in 2012
without a vote by the General Assembly and the Human Rights
Council that expressed deep concern about the persisting
deterioration in the human rights situation in the DPRK.2
2. Leading up to the adoption of Resolution 22/13, United Nations
human rights entities, including the Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea, a number of Member States, and several civil society
organizations, including human rights groups set up by persons
who had fled the DPRK, had called for the establishment of an
inquiry mechanism. The report of the Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the DPRK to the 22nd session of
the Human Rights Council, in particular, identified the need
for an international independent and impartial inquiry
mechanism with adequate resources to investigate and more
fully document the grave, systematic and widespread violations
of human rights in the DPRK.
3. In January 2013, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi
Pillay, called for a fully-fledged international inquiry into
serious crimes that, she said, had been taking place in the
DPRK for decades, and stressed that the concern about the
DPRK's possession of nuclear weapons should not overshadow the
deplorable human rights situation in North Korea.
4. The establishment of the Commission of Inquiry must also be
seen in light of the DPRK's limited cooperation with the
existing human rights mechanisms. The DPRK is a State Party to
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic and Social
Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Since 2009, the DPRK has
not submitted any state reports on the foregoing treaties,
although in 2004, the DPRK did take the positive step of
inviting a delegation of the Committee on the Rights of the
Child to visit the country.
5. The DPRK underwent its first cycle of the Universal Periodic
Review (UPR) in 2009 and will be subject to the second cycle
in 2014. While stating some generic commitments to human
rights obligations, the DPRK failed to accept any of the 167
recommendations made by the UPR Working Group in 2009.3
6. The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea has not had access to
the country since the inception of the mandate in 2004. The
DPRK has rejected the mandate, deeming it as a hostile act,
and refuses to cooperate with it. Since the mission of the
mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women,
its causes and consequences in 1995,4 not a single mandate
holder of the Human Rights Council has been invited, or
permitted, to visit the DPRK.
7. On the basis of resolutions by the General Assembly and the
Human Rights Council, the Secretary-General and the High
Commissioner for Human Rights have also issued periodic
reports detailing human rights violations and related impunity
in the DPRK. The DPRK has not provided substantive input to
these reports since it has rejected the underlying resolutions
of the General Assembly and Human Rights Council. Since 2003,
the DPRK Government has also rejected all offers of technical
assistance from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR).
B. Interpretation of the mandate
1. The mandate of the Commission of Inquiry is essentially found
in paragraph 5 of Resolution 22/13 that makes specific
reference to paragraph 31 of the 2013 report of the Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea.5 Reading the two paragraphs
together, the Commission determined that it had been mandated
to investigate the systematic, widespread and grave violations
of human rights in the DPRK including, in particular, the
following nine specific substantive areas:
* violations of the right to food,
* the full range of violations associated with prison camps,
* torture and inhuman treatment,
* arbitrary arrest and detention,
* discrimination, in particular in the systemic denial and
violation of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms,
* violations of the freedom of expression,
* violations of the right to life,
* violations of the freedom of individual movement, and
* enforced disappearances, including in the form of abductions of
nationals of other states.
1. These nine areas, which are interlinking and overlap,
therefore define the focus of the Commission's inquiry.
However, this list of nine is not exhaustive, and, where
appropriate, the Commission has also investigated violations
that are intrinsically linked to one of the nine areas.
2. The mandate further indicates that the inquiry should pursue
three inter-linked objectives: (1) further investigating and
documenting human rights violations, (2) collecting and
documenting victim and perpetrator accounts, and (3) ensuring
accountability.
(a) Further investigation and documentation of human rights
violations: Resolution 22/13 asks the Commission to investigate the
systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the
DPRK. Likewise, paragraph 31 of the Special Rapporteur's report
mentioned above repeatedly refers to more detailed documentation of
such violations. The request for more detailed investigation, with
a view to ensuring accountability, suggested a stronger focus on
investigating how, and by whom, any violations have been found to
be planned, ordered and organized.
(b) Documentation of the accounts of victims and perpetrators: The
mandate, as elaborated by paragraph 31 of the Special Rapporteur's
report, asks the Commission for "the collection and documentation
of victims' testimonies and the accounts of survivors, witnesses
and perpetrators". The Commission implemented this aspect of the
mandate primarily by conducting public hearings of victims and
other witnesses and making their testimonies available on its
webpage. Additionally, accounts provided by victims and witnesses
who could not speak publicly for protection reasons are safeguarded
in a secure and confidential database.
(c) Ensuring full institutional and personal accountability: The
mandate makes it clear that the investigation should be carried out
"with a view to ensuring full accountability, in particular where
these violations may amount to crimes against humanity". Paragraph
31 of the Special Rapporteur's report adds that the "inquiry should
examine the issues of institutional and personal accountability for
[grave, systematic and widespread violations], in particular where
they amount to crimes against humanity".
1. Considering the extent, systematic nature and gravity of the
reported violations, the Commission also considered the
responsibility of the international community. It has directed
recommendations towards the international community as
requested by paragraph 5 of Resolution 22/13, read in
conjunction with Paragraph 31 of the Special Rapporteur's
report.
2. In accordance with paragraph 17 of Human Rights Council
Resolution 23/256 and in line with best practices on the
integration of gender in the exercise of mandates, the
Commission has devoted specific attention to gendered issues
and impacts of violations during the course of its
investigations, paying particular attention to violence
against women and children. Taking into account Human Rights
Council Resolution 23/25, the Commission therefore paid
specific attention to violence against women and girls and
included the gender dimension of other violations in its
report. Violence against women, in particular sexual violence,
proved to be difficult to document owing to the stigma and
shame that still attaches to the victims. The Commission takes
the view that its inquiry may have only partially captured the
extent of relevant violations.
3. Compared to the mandates given to other commissions of
inquiry,7 paragraph 5 of Resolution 22/13 does not limit the
temporal scope for the Commission's inquiry. The Commission
has focused on documenting violations that are reflective of
the human rights situation as it persists at present. Within
the limits of time, resources and available information at its
disposal, the Commission has also inquired into patterns of
human rights violations that may have commenced in the more
distant past, but are continuing and/or have serious
repercussions to this day. Historical events that predate the
establishment of the DPRK are described where they are crucial
to understanding the human rights violations in the DPRK and
their underlying political, cultural and economic causes.
4. As to its geographic scope, the Commission has interpreted its
mandate to include alleged violations perpetrated by the DPRK
against its nationals both within and outside the DPRK as well
as those violations that involve extraterritorial action
originating from the DPRK, such as the abductions of non-DPRK
nationals.
5. The Commission is of the view that violations committed
outside the DPRK that causally enable or facilitate subsequent
human rights violations in the DPRK, or are the immediate
consequence of human rights violations that take place in the
DPRK, are also within its mandate. In this respect, the
Commission also made findings regarding the extent to which
other states carry relevant responsibility.8
C. Non-cooperation by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
1. Resolution 22/13 urges the Government of the DPRK to cooperate
fully with the Commission's investigation, to permit the
Commission's members unrestricted access to visit the country
and to provide them with all information necessary to enable
them to fulfil their mandate. Immediately after its adoption,
the DPRK publicly stated that it would "totally reject and
disregard" the resolution, which it considered to be a
"product of political confrontation and conspiracy".9 In a
letter dated 10 May 2013, the DPRK directly conveyed to the
President of the Human Rights Council that it "totally and
categorically rejects the Commission of Inquiry". Regrettably,
this stance has remained unchanged, despite numerous efforts
by the Commission to engage the DPRK.
2. In a letter addressed to the Permanent Mission of the DPRK in
Geneva dated 18 June 2013, the Commission requested a meeting.
This was followed by another letter sent on 5 July 2013, in
which the Commission solicited the DPRK to extend cooperation
and support by facilitating access to the country. The
Permanent Mission of the DPRK in Geneva acknowledged the
receipt of the two letters to the Commission's Secretariat,
but explicitly repeated the rejection of the mandate of the
Commission.
3. The Commission reiterated its request to have access to the
territory of the DPRK in a letter sent on 16 July 2013 to Mr
Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader and First Secretary of the
Workers' Party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
This letter was unanswered.
4. The Commission also invited the authorities of the DPRK to
send a representative or representatives to scrutinize the
evidence and to make submissions during public hearings held
by the Commission in Seoul, London and Washington D.C. There
was no response to these invitations. The Commission is
unaware of whether the DPRK made arrangements for the public
hearings to be attended by a representative.
5. On 17 September 2013, during the interactive dialogue at the
Human Rights Council, the Chair of the Commission reaffirmed
that the Commission reached out in friendship to the DPRK and
remained available to visit and engage in a dialogue on any
terms that the authorities would consider appropriate. During
the interactive dialogue at the Third Committee of the General
Assembly on 29 October 2013, in the presence of the
representatives of the DPRK to the United Nations in New York,
the Chair again offered the opportunity of dialogue and
interaction without any preconditions. These offers have not
been followed up by the DPRK.
6. As late as 7 January 2014, the Commission provided written
assurances to the authorities of the DPRK of its resolve to
seek the advancement of the enjoyment of human rights by all
people in the DPRK through the discharge of its mandate in an
independent, impartial and transparent manner. The Commission
reiterated its continued commitment to ensuring that its work
be fully informed by the perspectives of the Government of the
DPRK. It also emphasized that getting access to the concerned
country and hearing the position of the authorities of the
DPRK would contribute to a better understanding of the human
rights situation inside the country. On this occasion, the
Commission also offered to the Permanent Mission in Geneva to
discuss the progress in the preparation of the report. All the
above approaches to the DPRK have been ignored.
7. Before publication, the Commission shared the findings of this
report, in their entirety, with the Government of the DPRK and
invited comments and factual corrections. A summary of the
most serious concerns, in particular those indicating the
commission of crimes against humanity, was also included in a
letter addressed to the Supreme Leader of the DPRK, Mr Kim
Jong-un.10 To the date of writing of this report, there has
been no response.
D. Methods of work
1. During its first meeting in the first week of July 2013, the
Commission determined its methodology and programme of work.
The Commission decided to pursue the investigation with a
maximum of transparency and with due process guarantees to the
DPRK, while also ensuring the protection of victims and
witnesses.
2. In carrying out its work, and in assessing the testimony
placed before it, the Commission was guided by the principles
of independence, impartiality, objectivity, transparency,
integrity and the principle of "do no harm", including in
relation to guarantees of confidentiality and the protection
of victims and witnesses. Best practices were applied with
regard to witness protection, outreach, rules of procedure,
report writing, international investigation standards, and
archiving.11
1. Public hearings
1. In the absence of access to witnesses and sites inside the
DPRK, the Commission decided to obtain first-hand testimony
through public hearings that observed transparency, due
process and the protection of victims and witnesses. Victims
and witnesses who had departed the DPRK, as well as experts,
testified in a transparent procedure that was open to the
media, other observers and members of the general public. More
than 80 witnesses and experts testified publicly and provided
information of great specificity, detail and relevance,
sometimes in ways that required a significant degree of
courage.
2. Public hearings were conducted in Seoul (20-24 August 2013),
Tokyo (29-30 August 2013), London (23 October 2013) and
Washington, D.C. (30-31 October 2013). The authorities of the
Republic of Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America
provided operational and substantive support for the conduct
of the public hearings, including by facilitating the
identification and hiring of a venue, assisting in the
provision of the services of professional interpreters and
providing video-recording and transcripts of the proceedings.
They also ensured the security of the hearings and facilitated
contact with the national and international press corps and
relevant civil society organizations and individuals.
3. The public hearings covered all areas of the mandate.
Witnesses were required to affirm that they were testifying
truthfully. The Commissioners ensured that witnesses limited
their testimony to issues relevant to the human rights
situation in the DPRK and avoided unrelated political or
derogatory statements. They also spoke about abuses that they
had suffered or witnessed in other countries, to the extent
that there was a direct causal link between such abuses and
the human rights situation in the DPRK.
4. The Commission invited the authorities of the DPRK to attend
and, by leave, to ask questions and make representations at
the public hearings in Seoul, London and Washington D.C., but
received no reply. Instead, the official news agency of DPRK
publicly accused the Commission of slander and claimed that
witness testimony was fabricated.12 The Commission repeatedly
invited the DPRK to adduce proof of its claims, but received
no reply. It also put these claims to witnesses so that they
could respond in their own words. Video recordings and
transcripts from all public hearings are available on the
Commission's website.13The Commission has encouraged members
of the public to study the recordings and transcripts in order
to form their own opinions of the reliability and consistency
of the witness testimony.
2. Confidential interviews
1. Many victims and witnesses who fled the DPRK were prepared to
share relevant information, but would not do so publicly as
they feared reprisals against family members who still remain
in the DPRK. Persons who previously served in an official
capacity in the DPRK were often particularly reluctant to be
seen to cooperate publicly with the Commission. Some experts
on the situation in the DPRK also preferred to be interviewed
confidentially in order to preserve space for their direct
engagement with the DPRK.
2. The Commission and its Secretariat conducted over 240
confidential interviews with individual witnesses. These
interviews were conducted during visits to Seoul, Tokyo,
Bangkok, London, and Washington, D.C. and through
videoconferences and telephone calls.
3. Excerpts from these interviews are included in the report. In
many instances, information on the exact place and time of
violations and other details that might identify the witness
has been withheld due to protection concerns.
3. Call for submissions and review of other written materials
1. In July 2013, the Commission addressed a call for written
submissions to all United Nations Member States and relevant
stakeholders. All interested states, persons or organizations
were invited to share relevant information and documentation,
which could be of assistance to the Commission in the
discharge of its mandate. As of 3 November 2013, the deadline
for sharing information and material with the Commission, 80
such submissions were recorded. Exceptionally, a small number
of submissions received after the deadline were admitted.
Additionally, a very large volume of correspondence was
received by the Commission and the Commission's members.
2. The Commission obtained and reviewed a wealth of other reports
and written materials prepared by the United Nations, non-
governmental organizations, governments, research institutes
and academics. While the findings in this report rely
primarily on first-hand testimony from victims and witnesses,
the written record has provided invaluable context and a
source of corroboration. Many reports and documents were
tendered by witnesses at the public hearings. They were all
recorded as exhibits and are part of the record of those
hearings.
4. Engagement with other states
1. The Commission visited the Republic of Korea from 19 to 27
August 2013. In addition to the public hearing held in Seoul,
the Commission met the Prime Minister of the Republic of
Korea, government officials from various ministries, local and
international non-governmental and civil society
organizations, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea
and the Korea Institute for National Unification.
2. The Commission visited Japan from 27 August to 1 September
2013. In addition to the public hearing held in Tokyo, the
Commission met the Prime Minister of Japan, government
officials from various ministries, and local and international
non-governmental and civil society organizations.
3. The Commission visited Thailand from 18 to 20 September 2013.
During this visit, the Commission met officials of the Royal
Thai Government including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the
National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, representatives
of international agencies, and local and international non-
governmental and civil society organizations. The
Commissioners conducted a confidential interview with the
family of a suspected case of international abduction by the
DPRK.
4. The Commission visited the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland from 23 to 25 October 2013. In addition to
public hearing held in London, the Commission met the Minister
of State responsible for the Far East and South East Asia of
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, various government
officials, non-governmental and civil society organizations.
5. The Commission visited the United States of America from 28
October to 1 November 2013. In addition to the public hearing
held in Washington D.C., the Commission met officials of the
United States Department of State, the chairperson and members
of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of
Representatives, various government officials, experts, and
non-governmental and civil society organizations.
6. Visits of the Commission to the respective countries were
preceded by the deployment of the members of the Commission's
Secretariat to make preparations for the public hearings, meet
with relevant partners and conduct confidential interviews in
different locations in the country in the course of the
Commission's work. The Secretariat staff made an additional
visit to Seoul at the end of October 2013 for three weeks to
conduct additional confidential interviews and to carry out
other follow-up action to the public hearings held in August
2013.
7. From its first working meeting in July 2013, the Commission
sought access to the territory of the People's Republic of
China to conduct relevant inquiries and to consult with the
authorities about the implementation of its mandate.
Specifically, the Commission asked for access to the areas of
the country bordering the DPRK, in order to obtain first-hand
information about the situation of persons who fled the DPRK.
Additionally, the Commission asked to meet Chinese experts on
the DPRK to inform its investigations. After a series of
informal meetings with diplomats of the Permanent Mission of
the People's Republic of China to the United Nations Office in
Geneva, the Commission transmitted a formal request to the
Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China on 7
November 2013 for an invitation to visit China. In the letter,
the Commission requested agreement to a visit to Beijing in
order to meet relevant officials and experts and to the
Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in order to interview
DPRK nationals in holding centres and other places of
detention as well as representatives of churches and other
organizations who are involved in caring for DPRK nationals in
China. The letter highlighted the alleged trafficking of women
from the DPRK to China and the status of children of North
Korean mothers and Chinese fathers as issues of prime concern
for the Commission in China. On 20 November 2013, the
Permanent Mission informed the Secretariat that, given China's
position on country-specific mandates, especially on the
Korean peninsula, it would not be possible to extend an
invitation to the Commission. In a follow-up letter, the
Commission requested the Permanent Mission of the People's
Republic of China in Geneva to provide information on the
status of DPRK citizens and their children in China, forced
repatriations to and related cooperation with the DPRK, human
trafficking, and other issues of concern to the mandate of the
Commission. On 30 December 2013, the Commission received a
reply to its letter. An additional letter was received on 26
January 2013. The correspondence is annexed to the report of
the Commission.14
8. Sections of the report that touch on the responsibility of
other states, responsibility for their nationals and/or
matters directly related to other states have been shared with
the Governments concerned to permit factual corrections.
Information received in response, within the stipulated
deadlines, has been carefully reviewed by the Commission and
integrated to the extent appropriate, in particular where
facts were inaccurately expressed.
5. Cooperation of United Nations entities and other organizations
1. Resolution 22/13 encourages the United Nations, including its
specialized agencies, regional intergovernmental
organizations, mandate holders, interested institutions and
independent experts and non-governmental organizations, to
develop regular dialogue and cooperation with the Commission
in the fulfilment of its mandate.
2. The Commission has engaged with a number of United Nations
entities and humanitarian actors outside the United Nations
system to obtain relevant information. A small number of
United Nations entities were wary of cooperating openly with
the Commission for fear of negative repercussions on their
operations in the DPRK. Some provided relevant information,
while others did not. This report only attributes information
to specific organizations where such information is reflected
in their public reports. The citation of a public report is
not necessarily an indication that an organization has
cooperated with the Commission.
3. The Commission extends its gratitude to the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights. Apart from its dedicated
Secretariat, the Commission also received advice and support
from OHCHR's standing function to support commissions of
inquiry, fact-finding missions and other human rights
investigative missions. Such support and assistance was
afforded with proper respect to the independence and integrity
of the Commission, its members and its Secretariat. The
Commission also interacted with, and received relevant
information from, a number of mandate holders under the
Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council and human
rights Treaty Bodies.
4. The Commission benefitted from the invaluable support of a
number of non-governmental organizations that thoroughly
document human rights violations in the DPRK. These
organizations sometimes suffer from inadequate financial
resources. Nevertheless, they went to great lengths to ensure
that the Commission could gain the trust of victims and
witnesses who had departed the DPRK.
6. Protection of witnesses and other investigative challenges
1. The Commission paid particular attention to the protection of
victims and witnesses. The initial protection assessment
carried out by the Commission indicated that the authorities
of the DPRK routinely subject persons who speak out about the
human rights situation in the DPRK to summary executions,
enforced disappearances and other acts of violence. Grave
reprisals have also been extended to the family members of
such persons. The Commission took into account the policy of
the People's Republic of China to forcibly repatriate persons
who depart the DPRK as well as known cases in which such
persons were abducted by DPRK authorities and forced to return
to the DPRK.
2. Bearing this context in mind, the Commission sought to
exercise judgement, caution and sensitivity in all
interactions with victims and witnesses. Constant assessments
were made about the need to establish contact with persons who
may be placed at risk as a result of that contact. Contacts
were not attempted if the Commission determined that it would
not be able to ensure the safety of a cooperating person, if
the risk of harm was assessed to be too high or if the
Commission did not have sufficient information to make an
informed determination on the level of risk. In particular,
the Commission did not pursue offers to have direct contact
through mobile telephones with witnesses still residing in the
DPRK.
3. In relation to the public hearings, protection concerns were
carefully assessed on a case-by-case basis, taking into
account all relevant circumstances. In principle, the
Commission only heard publicly from victims and witnesses who
had no close family left in the DPRK or were judged not to be
at risk in the People's Republic of China. Informed consent of
the witness to testify was a necessary, but not sufficient,
requirement to allow for the testimony to be heard. In some
cases, the Commission refused the offer of courageous
witnesses who offered to testify in public, since reprisals
against family were judged a real possibility. In other cases,
victims and witnesses whose names and experiences were already
subject to extensive media coverage were allowed to testify,
unless there were reasonable grounds to believe that
additional public testimony might result in further reprisals.
The Commission also took care to ensure that witnesses'
testimony and questioning would not refer to the personal
details of persons who had not expressed their consent to be
identified in public and who could face protection concerns.
4. The identity of all witnesses was established by the
Commission prior to the hearings. Most witnesses were also
prepared to reveal their identity during the public hearings.
For protection reasons, however, some witnesses were permitted
only to identify themselves with a pseudonym (Ms X, Mr Timothy
etc.) and to take measures to conceal their faces or adopt
other identifiers. A small number of witnesses wore hats,
sunglasses or other clothing that covered parts of their
faces, measures to prevent the discovery of their identity.
5. Even these extensive protection measures may not prevent
reprisals. The Commission requests that any information
indicating that persons who cooperated with the Commission or
their family members faced reprisals be brought to the
immediate attention of the Secretary-General, through the High
Commissioner for Human Rights. The Commission recalls that
primary responsibility for protecting victims, witnesses and
other persons cooperating with the Commission rests with their
states of residence and nationality and urges Member States to
provide additional protection measures where necessary.
6. The lack of physical access to witnesses and sites in the
DPRK, coupled with the stated protection concerns, created a
number of particular challenges for an effective
investigation.
7. The pool of potential first-hand witnesses is limited to no
more than 30,000 citizens who have left the DPRK, the vast
majority of whom reside today in the Republic of Korea. Most
of these witnesses are from provinces bordering China, which
means that the situation in those provinces is relatively
better documented than the situation in other provinces of the
DPRK. In most cases, a person who fled the DPRK requires
considerable time to reach a place of safety and to develop
the courage necessary to speak about his or her experience.
Given that the Commission applied a rigorous standard of proof
based on first-hand testimony, it was therefore not able to
confirm many of the most recent instances of human rights
violations alleged by non-governmental organizations and media
reports.
8. The most significant challenge faced by the Commission
resulted from a fear of reprisals. The majority of potential
witnesses were afraid to speak out even on a confidential
basis because they feared for the safety of their families and
assumed that their conduct was still being clandestinely
monitored by the DPRK authorities. The Commission is therefore
particularly grateful to those individuals who found the
courage to break the wall of silence by testifying publicly or
confidentially to the Commission.
9. Fear of reprisals for their work and operations has also
limited the willingness of many aid workers, journalists,
diplomats and other foreign visitors to the DPRK to share
knowledge and information with the Commission. Nevertheless,
foreigners usually have limited first-hand knowledge about the
human rights situation, since they are denied freedom of
movement in the country and their contact with DPRK citizens
is closely managed and monitored.
10. The Commission found encouraging the amount of information
that is seeping out of the DPRK with the advent and wider
availability of technology. The Commission was able to rely on
commercially available satellite images to confirm the
existence of four political prison camps described in this
report. Almost certainly, higher resolution satellite imagery
produced by more technologically advanced states would have
provided further information. Unfortunately, despite requests,
these images were not made available to the Commission.
11. The Commission also obtained clandestinely-recorded videos and
photographs showing relevant sites, documents and
correspondence that elucidated alleged violations of human
rights in the DPRK. The Commission relied on such material to
the extent that it could confirm its authenticity.
12. The Commission is conscious of the fact that most victims and
witnesses cooperating with the Commission had an overall
unfavourable opinion of the DPRK's authorities, though usually
not of the country itself or its people. Through its refusal
to cooperate with the Commission, the DPRK deprived itself of
the opportunity to offer its own perspectives on the human
rights situation and to provide information on any advances
made in regard to the human rights of its population. The
Commission has sought to account for these challenges by
carefully reviewing information provided by the DPRK in
publicly available documents. In particular, the Commission
has reviewed the DPRK's state reports to the Universal
Periodic Review and the Treaty Bodies as well as the publicly
available summaries of its responses to letters of allegations
transmitted by the Special Procedures of the Human Rights
Council. Figures and other relevant claims of fact stated in
these documents are reflected in this report, even if the
Commission could not confirm their basis or validity.
E. Legal framework and standard of proof for reported violations
1. In assessing the human rights situation in the DPRK, the
Commission relied chiefly on the binding legal obligations
that the DPRK voluntarily assumed as a State Party to the
human rights treaties mentioned above. Other obligations
expressed in customary international law also bind the DPRK.
2. In relation to issues within its mandate that harken back to
the period of the Korean War (1950-53), the Commission also
took into account those residual obligations of international
humanitarian law that continue to be applicable in the
relations between the DPRK and other parties to that conflict.
3. The possible commission of crimes against humanity are
assessed on the basis of definitions set out by customary
international criminal law, which to a large extent overlap
with those later expressed in the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court.
4. Where appropriate, the Commission has also considered relevant
obligations of other states, including the prohibition of
refoulement under international refugee law and international
human rights law as well as the rights and duties of states in
extending diplomatic protection to their nationals and
permanent residents.
5. Consistent with the practice of other United Nations fact-
finding bodies, the Commission employed a "reasonable grounds"
standard of proof in making factual determinations on
individual cases, incidents and patterns of state conduct.
These factual determinations provided the basis for the legal
qualification of incidents and patterns of conduct as human
rights violations and, where appropriate, crimes against
humanity.
6. There are "reasonable grounds" establishing that an incident
or pattern of conduct has occurred when the Commission is
satisfied that it has obtained a reliable body of information,
consistent with other material, based on which a reasonable
and ordinarily prudent person has reason to believe that such
incident or pattern of conduct has occurred. This standard of
proof is lower than the standard required in criminal
proceedings to sustain an indictment, but is sufficiently high
to call for further investigations into the incident or
pattern of conduct and, where available, initiation of the
consideration of a possible prosecution. The findings of the
Commission appearing in this report must be understood as
being based on the "reasonable grounds" standard of proof,
even when the full expression ("reasonable grounds
establishing") is not necessarily expressed throughout the
text of this report.
7. In line with the methodology of the Commission, particular
emphasis was given to information gathered during public
hearings, given that the general public and experts can
directly scrutinize the Commission's assessment of the
reliability and credibility of the witness and the validity of
the information provided.
8. Individual cases and incidents reflected in this report are
generally based on at least one credible source of first-hand
information, which was independently corroborated by at least
one other credible source of information. To the extent that
protection considerations permit, sources are identified.
Where the report describes patterns of conduct, these are
based on several credible sources of first-hand information,
which are consistent with, and corroborated by, the overall
body of credible information collected. In the few instances
where this rigorous standard of proof could not be met, but
the Commission still considered it appropriate to reflect the
incident or pattern, the underlying sources are identified.
9. The Commission considered the following to be sources of
first-hand information:
(a) testimony provided in public hearings and confidential
interviews by victims, eyewitnesses, victims' close family members,
perpetrators or former DPRK officials with direct knowledge of the
issues, incidents and trends brought before the Commission, where
it was assessed that the source was credible and reliable and the
information valid;
(b) satellite imagery from reliable sources, authenticated video
and photo material, autobiographies, and other documents containing
first-hand information from a reliable source. This category also
includes a number of exhibits received during the public hearings;
(c) publicly available admissions of relevant facts by the DPRK;
(d) laws, policies and directives of the DPRK as well as internal
DPRK documents, provided that they were received from a credible
and reliable source and their authenticity could be confirmed; and
(e) statistics, surveys and other quantitative information
generated by the DPRK or the United Nations, to the extent that the
data is based on an apparently sound methodology and the inputs
underlying the data are considered valid and originating from a
credible and reliable source.
1. The Commission relied on the following types of information
for the purposes of corroborating information based on first-
hand sources and providing the overall context to violations:
(a) testimony provided in public hearings or confidential
interviews by witnesses who received the information directly from
a person known to them (and not as a rumour), provided that the
Commission assessed the source to be credible and reliable and the
information to be valid;
(b) summaries of witness testimony contained in publications or in
submissions by the United Nations, research institutes and human
rights organizations, where the Commission assessed the source to
be credible and reliable and the information to be valid; and
(c) summary descriptions of patterns of conduct contained in expert
testimony, public reports, submissions, books, documentaries and
similar materials, where the Commission assessed the source to be
credible and reliable and the information to be valid.
1. The reliability and credibility of each source was carefully
assessed by the Commission. The Commission considered whether
the source was trustworthy and whether the person was telling
what he or she believed to be true. This assessment took into
account, amongst other considerations, the following:
(a) the witness's political and personal interests, potential
biases and past record of reliability (if known);
(b) the witness's apparent capacity to correctly recall events,
considering his or her age, trauma, how far back the events
occurred, etc.;
(c) the position of the witness in relation to the subject of the
information;
(d) where and how the witness obtained the information; and
(e) the reasons for which the witness provided the information.
1. The Commission additionally considered that any piece of
information had to be assessed for its validity by
considering, amongst other factors, the information's
relevance to the inquiry, its internal consistency and
coherence, its logicality and its consistency with and
corroboration by other information.
2. Assessments of the reliability and credibility of the source
were separated from assessments of the validity of the
information. The Commission did not assume that a witness,
judged to be a credible and reliable source, would necessarily
provide accurate and valid information.
3. Where information was assessed to meet the "reasonable
grounds" standard, the Commission could reach its conclusions
and draw inferences more comfortably because it had repeatedly
offered to the authorities of the DPRK the opportunity to
attend the public hearings, to obtain leave to ask questions
to the relevant witnesses, and to address the Commission on
such information. In addition, the Commission shared its
findings with the DPRK and invited comments and factual
corrections. The authorities of the DPRK have failed to avail
themselves of such facilities by their own decisions.
4. Where the Commission refers in this report to a testimony of a
witness, the testimony as assessed and described is accepted
by the Commission as truthful and relevant (except to any
degree expressly identified).
5. Direct reference to specific testimony in the report does not
indicate that such testimony is the sole basis of judgement by
the Commission in relation to the issues under analysis. Where
these direct references and citations are found in the report,
it is to be understood that the Commission has decided to
introduce them for the purpose of providing an example or an
illustration of broader human rights issues and/or patterns of
conduct.
F. Archiving and record-keeping of testimony
1. With the assistance of relevant OHCHR sections, a confidential
electronic database was specially created from an OHCHR
standard model to enable the Commission to securely record and
store information pertaining to its mandate. Specifically, the
use of the database enabled the Commission to:
1. safely manage, follow-up and archive information;
2. keep information secure, including through encryption;
3. retrieve and analyse information; and
4. adhere to a sound human rights monitoring and reporting
methodology.
1. The database contains the summary records of all interviews
conducted with witnesses as well as electronic copies of
relevant materials gathered during the course of the inquiry.
As a fully searchable tool, the database facilitated the
logical organization and retrieval of information for
analysis, establishing trends and patterns which assisted in
the writing of this report.
2. The free, informed and specific consent of interviewees to use
and/or share information gathered was recorded in the
database, as was any additional assessment of the Commission
about possible protection risks of using and/or sharing the
information received even when interviewees freely consented
to its use.
3. The Commission of Inquiry has requested the High Commissioner
for Human Rights to safeguard the confidential database. The
Commission has also informed the High Commissioner of its wish
that the database remain a living instrument that will
continue to be updated and expanded. The database should
therefore be made accessible in full to OHCHR, the Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea and any future United Nations
mechanisms tasked to protect human rights in the DPRK.
4. Furthermore, the Commission has authorized the High
Commissioner, acting as the residual Secretariat of the
Commission, to provide access to the existing materials
contained in the database to competent authorities that carry
out credible investigations for the purposes of ensuring
accountability for crimes and other violations committed,
establishing the truth about violations committed or
implementing United Nations-mandated targeted sanctions
against particular individuals or institutions. Access should
only be granted to the extent that witnesses or other sources
of information concerned have given their informed consent and
that any protection and operational concerns are duly
addressed. To ensure that the information gathered by the
Commission is preserved in its integrity once the Commission
has fulfilled its mandate, the physical records of the
Commission will also be archived in accordance with United
Nations archiving practices.15
5. At this stage of the history of the Korean people, the
creation and maintenance of an archive of the testimony of
individual witnesses on human rights abuses in the DPRK and
the writings of experts is an important contribution to human
rights awareness and eventual accountability. Among the
greatest affronts to the achievement and maintenance of
universal human rights for all peoples is the risk that grave
violations take place unknown, in secret, and are not recorded
and analysed so that future generations can learn from, and
resolve to avoid, shocking departures from the universal
values recognized in international law. This report describes
many such shocking departures.
III. Historical and political context to human rights violations in
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
1. The current human rights situation in the DPRK has been shaped
by the historical experiences of the Korean people. Confucian
social structures and the oppression suffered during the
Japanese colonial occupation have informed the political
structures and attitudes prevailing in the DPRK today. The
imposed division of the Korean peninsula, the massive
destruction that occurred during the Korean War and the impact
of the Cold War have engendered an isolationist mind-set and a
deep aversion to outside powers. The particular nature and the
overall scale of human rights violations in the DPRK can be
better understood through an appreciation of the development
of the system of government in the DPRK. The DPRK is a single-
party state dominated by a family dynasty which controls the
party, the state and the military. Rigid ideological tenets
loosely based on socialist Marxist-Leninist theory and an
extensive security apparatus sustain this regime.
2. Any description of history and political structures inevitably
reflects the sources and viewpoints of those who record it.
The Commission endeavoured at different stages to engage with
the DPRK in order to receive directly its perspective,
including on historical events. In the absence of any such
engagement, the Commission has nonetheless sought to effect a
balanced approach and to use the most reliable sources at its
disposal to inform its understanding of the historical and
political context to the human rights violations in the DPRK.
A. Pre-colonial history
1. The DPRK is often referred to as the "Hermit Kingdom"
suggesting that the insularity of the North has been
characteristic since its beginnings. The largely self-imposed
relative isolation of the DPRK today is not, however, an
extension of the earlier experiences of pre-modern Korea. It
is believed that humans inhabited the Korean peninsula since
Neolithic times, with the eventual emergence of settled
communities based on agricultural production that led to
enough surplus for horses, weapons and armies to sustain
centuries of legends of epic battles among various indigenous
kingdoms and against outside forces from modern-day China,
Japan and Mongolia.
2. Over the course of pre-modern history, Korea established a
class-based system whereby a small aristocratic elite,
combining elements of a landed gentry and scholar-officials,
eventually to be known as the yangban,ruled over peasants and
lower classes that included merchants and labourers. Slavery
and indentured servitude were also practised. This class-based
system is sometimes characterized as feudal and perhaps more
accurately as agrarian-bureaucratic. In theory, this system
conferred elite status on men who had passed a rigorous civil
service exam and were awarded high-level bureaucratic
positions, somewhat analogous to the mandarin system in China.
Over time, the yangban became, in practice, a hereditary
institution through the family registry system that passed on
elite status through the generations, with its self-
perpetuating privileges including the right to participate in
local councils.
3. The yangban class system speaks to the deep-rooted Confucian
underpinnings of Korean society. Confucianism is essentially
an ethical and philosophical system that regards adherence to
strict hierarchies as important to social harmony and personal
fulfilment. Five key relationships set out these hierarchies:
sovereign and subject, husband and wife, parent and child,
elder brother andyoungerbrother, and friend and friend. The
most important of those is the parent and child
relationship.In fact, respect for elders and social hierarchy
based on age remain key features of Korean culture both in the
North and South today. Likewise, the position of women remains
adversely affected by traditional attitudes of inequality.16
B. Japanese colonial occupation (1910 to 1945)
1. The Japanese colonial occupation of Korea was preceded by
centuries of encounters between Korea and the outside world,
through invasions by, and relationships with, the Chinese,
Japanese, Mongols, Manchus, and, in later years, the Russians,
French and Americans. In 1876, Korea signed an unfavourable
treaty with Japan, although foreign influence inside Korea was
not restricted to the Japanese. Factions allied with Chinese,
Russian and United States interests, as well as native Korean
reformers, jockeyed for position in the court of King Kojong.
Korea was contested by each of the powers seeking to expand
their spheres of influence in Asia. The Sino-Japanese War
(1894-95) resulted in Japan ending Korea's tributary
relationship with China by formally declaring Korea to be
independent, a status which allowed Japan to increase its
influence on the peninsula. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-05)
saw the Japanese defeat the Russian fleet at Port Arthur (in
Dalian, China). This led to a peace treaty brokered by United
States President Theodore Roosevelt in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, that recognized Korea as a protectorate of Japan.
In 1910, Japan formally declared Korea to be a colony, ending
its monarchy and requiring the allegiance of the Korean people
to the Emperor of Japan.
2. Japan imposed various modernizing reforms, including in
matters of social, administrative and economic organization.
Nevertheless, Koreans have overwhelmingly viewed the colonial
experience as negative and brutal. Koreans were subject to
racial discrimination laws in their own country. They were
prohibited from speaking the Korean language and made to adopt
Japanese names. Japan sent around 700,000 nationals to fill
roles in government service as all top administrative
positions were filled by Japanese.17 Transportation,
communications, industry and even agriculture were expanded
for the benefit of the colonial power rather than the Korean
people. The results of Japan's modernization drive on the
peninsula were characterized by patterns of development and
underdevelopment. The question of whether Japan ultimately
assisted Korea in its development remains highly contested
both politically and in academia.18
3. The March First Independence Movement of 1919 prompted
protests by students and other Koreans against Japanese rule
in several Korean cities, including Seoul and Pyongyang. These
non-violent demonstrations spread over the ensuing days to
numerous cities and towns. Japanese authorities arrested
thousands of Koreans, many of whom died as a result of torture
and inhumane conditions of detention.19
4. Japan instigated major industrialization on the Korean
peninsula as part of its massive war effort. Steel mills,
factories and hydroelectric plants were built, mainly in the
North. Much of the Korean population was uprooted from its
agrarian base. Koreans, including women and children, were
sent to labour in factories in the northern part of the
peninsula and in Manchuria and to mines and other enterprises
in Japan. Many of the labourers worked under terrible
conditions, and a large number of men and women were
conscripted as forced labour.20 By 1945, it is estimated that
Koreans made up a large percentage of the entire labour force
in Japan.21
5. It is estimated that by 1945, 20 per cent of all Koreans had
been displaced from their places of origin, with 11 per cent
displaced outside Korea.22 At the end of World War II, there
were approximately 2.4 million Koreans in Japan, 2 million in
China and about 200,000 in the Soviet Union.23 After Japan's
defeat in World War II, the colonial administration collapsed.
Millions of displaced Koreans sought to return home while
others stayed behind in Japan, China and the Soviet Union. The
legacy of this forced displacement includes substantial
minority populations of Koreans, particularly in Japan and
northern China.24
C. Division of the peninsula, the Korean War and its legacy
1. As the end of World War II approached, the matter of the
disposition of colonies around the world became subject to
negotiation by the soon-to-be victorious powers. The United
States of America suggested a multi-lateral trusteeship for
Korea in its general preference for the establishment of
gradual independence processes. In 1943, in anticipation of
Japan's defeat, the Allied Powers at the Cairo Conference set
out an agreement for the independence of Korea "in due
course". In 1945, the United States decided on the 38th
parallel to divide the Korean peninsula into two zones of
control, one under an American sphere of influence and the
other under a Soviet one. The United States sent 25,000 troops
to South Korea in fulfilment of these arrangements. They were
often met with resentment and resistance. In August 1945, the
Soviet Union sent its 25th Army to North Korea where it set up
the Soviet Civil Administration.
2. The Japanese departure from the Korean peninsula was abrupt.
Self-governance groups, or people's committees, appeared
throughout the peninsula to fill the vacuum. The United States
actively suppressed these groups while the Soviet Union
developed them into core institutions of governance. When the
Soviets arrived in Pyongyang, the leader of the Korean
nationalists, Cho Man-sik, the most popular politician in
North Korea, had established the South Pyongan Committee for
the Preparation for Independence. Among the Soviet troops who
were dispatched to North Korea were "Soviet Koreans", ethnic
Koreans who had been either been part of the substantial
Korean minority population following immigration into the
Russian Far East in the late 1860s or those more recent
arrivals who had fled from Manchuria under intensified
Japanese pressure against guerrilla fighters there. These
Soviet Koreans included the 33 year-old Korean guerrilla hero
Kim Il-sung who was a military officer with the rank of
captain in the Soviet Army.
3. When the Soviet Union decided against retaining Cho Man-sik as
the local leader, Kim Il-sung was selected as an alternate
candidate. On 14 October 1945, Kim Il-sung spoke publicly for
the first time to a mass rally in honour of the Soviet Army.
He was introduced by Soviet General Lebedev as a "national
hero" and an "outstanding guerrilla leader". Nevertheless, Kim
Il-sung was only one of three North Koreans who spoke at the
event. He was not the most senior of them as Cho Man-sik
remained the head of the Administrative Committee of the Five
Provinces, the first proto-government established by the
Soviets. In December 1945, however, the foreign ministers of
the Soviet Union, the United States and United Kingdom met in
Moscow where they agreed to a joint trusteeship of Korea for
five years. Nationalists in Seoul staged rallies against the
decision. Cho Man-sik, likewise, refused to sign the
declaration of support of trusteeship in January 1946. He was
subsequently imprisoned and died in October 1950.
4. By 1946, the Soviet Civil Administration devolved authority to
the local administration. Kim Il-sung was made head of the
Provisional People's Committee of North Korea. There was less
resistance to the Soviet Union's influence in the North than
there was to the United States in the South. In March 1946,
the Provisional People's Committee issued a Land Reform Law
which was signed by Kim Il-sung. Land belonging to Japanese
entities and individuals as well as large landowners was
confiscated and redistributed to former peasant tenants.25 The
land reform in the North was generally successful and helped
to strengthen the position of the new regime. In August 1946,
the Provisional People's Committee nationalized industry.
Technically, only Japanese owners and Korean collaborators
were subject to confiscation, but this effectively included
all large and most medium sized industries. Efforts to promote
national culture and education were also popular with the
people. In 1947, the DPRK launched its first economic plan.
5. At the top, this early period was marked by intense factional
jockeying for power that continued for over a decade. Kim Il-
sung began to consolidate his power by placing his supporters,
the young guerrillas who had fought with him against Japan in
Manchuria—the Guerrilla Faction, into positions of power and
purging those who posed a threat to his assumption of
authority. In 1946, former Soviet police officer Pang Hak-se
was appointed to head the Section on Political Defence of the
state within the Security Department, which was the first
organization for the political police and counter-
intelligence. Pang Hak-se is credited as the founder of the
North Korean political police. Despite coming from the Soviet
Korean Faction, and not from Kim Il-sung's own Guerrilla
Faction, he maintained lifelong loyalty to him.
6. Although Kim Il-sung was by most accounts an accomplished
guerrilla fighter, he quickly began to bolster his standing
through enhancement of his personal record and engendering a
cult of personality that has come to characterize the
governance of the DPRK and the state's approach towards
freedom of information, opinion and expression. Former
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's
AssemblyHwang Jang-yop explained:
The reason why Kim was chosen from among the Koreans in the 88th
Infantry Brigade was apparently because he was young and had a good
outlook. His experiences were no match for the Chinese [Korean]
leaders of the day, though. Exaggerated propaganda was necessary in
order to elevate a Russian army captain to the status of legendary
North Korean hero, but at that time Korea had just experienced
painful oppression under Japanese rule. This presented a good
opportunity for exaggerated propaganda.26
1. In 1946, there was a consolidation of all political groups
into the North Korean Workers' Party. The North Korean armed
forces were also organized and reinforced. They were trained
and equipped by the Soviet military although initially they
were disguised as police and railway defence units. By the
time the DPRK was established in September 1948, Kim Il-sung
was firmly in position as the head of the Cabinet of Ministers
(or Premier). Soviet forces then withdrew in large numbers
from the DPRK. In 1949, the DPRK instituted compulsory
military service, bringing the total number of troops to
between 150,000 and 200,000, organized into ten infantry
divisions, one tank division and one air force division. This
large military force was equipped with Soviet weapons,
including T-34 tanks and Yak fighter planes. These forces were
further bolstered by the return of 45,000 war-hardened Korean
soldiers from China following the end of the civil war there.
2. Between 1945 and 1948, the 38th parallel turned into a heavily
guarded border, while both sides of the divided peninsula
contemplated the use of military force to achieve
reunification. Tensions and military provocations increased
after the respective departures of Soviet and United States
forces in 1948. On 25 June 1950, Kim Il-sung, after finally
securing support from both Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong,27
initiated the Korean War by sending up to 90,000 Korean
People's Army troops over the 38th parallel in a multi-pronged
attack that surprised both the ROK authorities and their
United States advisors.28 Kim Il-sung was staking his claim to
the leadership of the entire peninsula based on the perceived
illegitimacy of the ROK leadership and expectations of
insurgency in the South. Initially, the Korean People's Army
easily overwhelmed the forces of the ROK, which numberedfewer
than 100,000 men. The capital Seoul fell in three days.
3. United States President Harry S. Truman interpreted the attack
by the DPRK on the ROK as the first major test of the Cold
War. He quickly ordered the deployment of United States troops
while seeking endorsement of his actions from the United
Nations Security Council. The Security Council had initially
adopted a United States-led resolution calling for the
immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of North
Korean forces to beyond the 38th parallel with a vote of 9 to
0 with three abstentions.29 The Soviet Union was not present
to exercise its veto as a Permanent Member of the Security
Council. The Soviet Union had been refusing to participate in
the Security Council since January 1950 over the issue of the
accreditation of China. China's seat in the United Nations was
still held by the representative of the Republic of China,
based in Taiwan, despite the defeat of Nationalist forces on
the mainland.30 On 27 June 1950, President Truman ordered
United States air and naval forces to support the ROK.
Security Council Resolution 83, adopted on the same day,
determined that "the armed attack upon the Republic of Korea
by forces from North Korea constitutes a breach of the
peace". It recommended that United Nations members "furnish
such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary
to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace
and security in the area". On 7 July 1950, the Security
Council further recommended that all members providing
military forces and other assistance do so under the unified
command of the United States and authorized "the unified
command at its discretion to use the United Nations flag in
the course of operations against North Korean forces
concurrently with the flags of the various nations
participating."31 Fifteen states, in addition to the United
States, contributed combat units to fight in the
"international field force" under the United Nations Command.
In August 1950, the Soviet Union returned to the Security
Council and vetoed all further resolutions concerning the
Korean War. The debate on Korea then shifted to the United
Nations General Assembly.32
4. The ensuing months yielded a string of successes for the
forces of the DPRK. By the end of August 1950, the DPRK's
military controlled 90 per cent of the Korean peninsula.
However, an amphibious landing of United States troops under
General Douglas MacArthur in Incheon in September 1950 turned
the tide. With the support of the United Nations now behind
them, the ROK forces marched northward and recaptured Seoul.
General MacArthur pushed UN-backed forces up to the Chinese
border despite warnings from the Chinese. By November 1950,
the ROK supported by the United Nations Command controlled 90
per cent of the peninsula. The People's Republic of China then
sent hundreds of thousands of troops to bolster the Korean
People's Army. They succeeded in pushing United Nations and
ROK forces back beyond the 38th parallel. The DPRK in its
subsequent accounts of the war has minimized the decisive role
played by the Chinese "volunteers".33 Nevertheless, Chinese
forces carried the main military burden for the rest of the
war.34 The DPRK has consistently downplayed the extent of
outside assistance that it received not only during the war
but in rebuilding after the war and then sustaining its post-
war economy. The counter-offensive by United Nations forces
reduced the gains made by the Korean People's Army and caused
massive destruction in the North. Thereafter, two years of
bitter stalemate ensued. During this time, more bombs were
dropped on the DPRK than had been deployed in the entire
Pacific theatre during World War II.35 The devastation caused
to all parts of the Korean peninsula was enormous.36
5. The Korean War ended in 1953 in a ceasefire. On 27 July 1953,
the Armistice Agreement was signed by Lieutenant General of
the United States Army William K. Harrison, Jr., for the
United Nations Command, and Generalof the Korean People's Army
Nam Il for the Korean People's Army and the Chinese People's
Volunteers. Over 2 million Koreans had been killed. Around
600,000 Chinese and over 36,000 United States combatants
died.37 Other nationalities' fatalities include over 1,000
from the United Kingdom, and hundreds from Australia, Belgium,
Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, the Netherlands,
the Philippines, Thailand and Turkey. Grave breaches of
international humanitarian law were reportedly committed on
both sides.38 United States military historian S.L.A. Marshall
called the Korean War the "century's nastiest little war". It
has also been referred to as the Forgotten War in the United
States.39 The conflict, however, is far from forgotten in the
DPRK where the war sacrifices were used to bolster the
narrative of Kim Il-sung's "forging of the nation". In the
DPRK, the authorized history remains that the Fatherland
Liberation War was started by the United States, and that Kim
Il-sung not only defended the nation but wrought devastation
on the American military. This rhetoric continued for decades.
For example, food aid from the United States provided during
the mass starvation in the 1990s was reportedly explained to
the population as war reparations.40
6. The legacy of the Korean War remains unresolved. The Armistice
Agreement recommended a political conference within three
months of the ceasefire. The 1954 Geneva Conference was
attended by the Republic of Korea, the DPRK, China, the Soviet
Union, and 16 of the 17 states that had contributed forces
under the United Nations Command. After two months, these
talks collapsed and have not resumed. There has not been a
comprehensive peace treaty. On both sides of the border, there
remains fear of invasion and infiltration. In the DPRK, this
fear has been instrumental in maintaining a state of emergency
invoked to justify harsh governmental rule and its
accompanying human rights violations. In this context,
perceived political dissidents have been branded as spies in
the service of foreign powers. Shortages in food and other
essential means of survival have been blamed on a hostile
outside world. The ROK likewise experiences the insecurities
of the unresolved war, which the country addresses through
general conscription and other security measures. These
security measures include restrictions that appear to infringe
on the human rights of its citizens in particular respects
such as the freedom of expression.41
7. The United States by 1954 was disassociating its forces from
the United Nations Command and continued its engagement in the
ROK through the United States-ROK Mutual Defence Treaty. At
the same time, the other states that had committed troops to
the United Nations Command withdrew most or all of their
forces. The United States maintains a military presence in the
ROK of about 28,500 people.
8. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, there were daily exchanges of
fire along the demilitarized zone killing some 900 soldiers
and civilians. In 1967, the DPRK sought to destabilize the ROK
by utilizing its secret services. In 1968, 31 men from Unit
124 of the DPRK's special_forces attempted to enter the Blue
House in Seoul in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate
President Park Chung-hee. Nevertheless, in 1972, following
secret negotiationsbetween Kim Il-sung's brother Kim Yong-ju
and the ROK's chief intelligence officer Yi Hu-rak,the ROK and
DPRK released a joint statement on achieving reunification
peacefully without the use of military force or external
forces. Despite these developments,the DPRK sponsored a number
of terrorist acts against civilian targets of the ROK. These
included: the 1983 attempted assassination of the ROK
President Chun Doo-hwan in Yangon through a bombing that
killed 21 people including four Myanmar nationals; the 1986
Gimpo Airport bombing that killed five people; and the 1987
Korean Airlines bombing that killed 115 people. These actions
contributed to the increasing international isolation of the
DPRK.
9. The wounds inflicted by the Korean War were deep and are still
felt. The Commission acknowledges the suffering that has
occurred on both sides of the border.
D. Imposition of the Supreme Leader (suryong) system
1. While Confucian principles have remained enmeshed in Korean
culture, in the North they were in many ways instrumentalized
by Kim Il-sung in the effort to consolidate his authority and
that of the Workers' Party of Korea under his control. The
relationship between sovereign and subject that is enunciated
as a mutually binding one under traditional Confucian precepts
has been stretched to one of absolute obedience to the leader
as articulated in the suryong, or Supreme Leader, system42
established by Kim Il-sung and carried on under Kim Jong-il
and Kim Jong-un. The "Mandate of Heaven", a Confucian
principle, is the right to rule granted to ancient Korean
rulers by the gods. This mandate conveyed obligations on
rulers to rule justly and fairly and for the benefit of all
the people. The Suryong system positioned Kim Il-sung (and his
heir apparent) as unchallenged rulers due to their proclaimed
wisdom and benevolence under which the general population
would live in a prosperous and righteous society. In this way,
the suryong system has facilitated the unchecked violation of
human rights in the DPRK.
2. In 1949, Kim Il-sung secured his designation as Suryong,
Supreme Leader. In order to eliminate any opposition to his
rule, he established a system of governance built on an
elaborate guiding ideology, a single mass party led by a
single person, a centrally-planned economy, a monopoly on the
means of communication, and a system of security that employed
violence and a political police. As a matter of priority, the
DPRK built up its state security apparatus. The Ministry of
Internal Affairs, modelled on the Soviet security system, with
4,000 to 5,000 headquarters staff, was comprised of 12,000
regular police, 3,000 political police, and 45,000 employees
within the Security Guard units, Border Constabulary and
Railroad Brigade. The Political Security Bureau within the
Ministry was responsible for ensuring loyalty to the regime by
uncovering and stopping resistance to authority and subversive
activities. The Political Security Bureau also provided
operational guidance to the Political Defence Bureau within
the Ministry of Defence, which carried out the same functions
within the military. The security system also employed an
informant network of 400,000 people, an estimated 5 per cent
of the population at that time.43
3. Having already commenced in the early stages of Kim Il-sung's
rule, the persecution of political and ideological opponents
intensified during the Korean War.44 A large number of
Koreans—estimates range from 685,000 to millions—moved to the
South during the war.45 Before 1945, Protestant Christians
were a politically active and substantial population but many
departed North Korea. The remaining population was often
subject to suspicion. Many were arrested, imprisoned or
executed. In 1951, Kim Il-sung reorganized the Ministry of
Internal Affairs and transformed the Political Security Bureau
into its own new ministry, the Ministry of Public Security, to
suppress political opposition more effectively.
4. After the Korean War, Kim Il-sung turned his focus to further
consolidating his power through a series of purges targeting
rival factions. The factional struggle within the leadership
was comprised of four groups. The Domestic Faction, numbering
about 500, was Koreans who had worked through the underground
Communist movement through the colonial period. Many of them
had moved to the North from the South. The Yanan Faction were
Koreans who had left for China in the 1920s and 1930s,
initially basing themselves in Shanghai then moving with the
Communists to their civil war headquarters of Yanan. The
Soviet Korean Faction, ethnic Koreans born or raised in the
Soviet Union, numbered between 150 and 200. Kim Il-sung was
able to play one faction against another while supporting his
own Guerrilla Faction, those Koreans who fought against
Japanese forces in Manchuria with him. In December 1952, Kim
Il-sung denounced factions in a long speech to the Plenum of
the Central Committee of the Party. In 1953, rumours of an
aborted coup attempt by the Domestic Faction led to the arrest
of their leaders. Twelve members of this group, leaders of the
South Korean Workers' Party responsible for organizing
guerrilla activities in the South, were charged with planning
a coup and spying for the United States. On the basis of
trials that were highly orchestrated and heavily publicized,
ten were convicted and sentenced to death while two were given
long prison sentences.46
5. Kim Il-sung continued to face pressure within the leadership
over his increasingly autocratic rule and emerging cult of
personality as well as the direction of his economic policies.
After 1953, the Soviet Union was itself undergoing a campaign
of "de-Stalinization" that did not comport with Kim Il-sung's
efforts to consolidate his own rule. Instead, the Soviet Union
was promoting collective leadership, peaceful co-existence and
an end to the excesses of the Stalin era.
6. In August 1956, the members of the Yanan Faction openly
criticized Kim Il-sung during the Party's Central Committee
Plenum. According to a Soviet account, one official "attacked
Kim Il-Sung for concentrating entire state and Party power in
his hands".47The leaders of the Yanan faction who had tried to
orchestrate the "August Conspiracy" were out-maneuvered by Kim
Il-sung who isolated them before purging the rank and file of
the faction members.48
7. In response to the criticism within the Party against his
rule, Kim Il-sung expanded the Ministry of Internal Affairs to
undertake what became one of the DPRK's first large scale
purges. On 30 May 1957, the Standing Committee of the Central
Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea adopted the
resolution "On the Transformation of the Struggle with
Counter-Revolutionary Elements into an All-people All-Party
movement" (May 30th Resolution) to evaluate the political
background of every adult in the DPRK. These developments were
to become a turning point for the DPRK. Earlier purges had
differed in that they had targeted specific groups of people,
such as landlords, Christians and high-ranking Party members
who were potential rivals to Kim Il-sung.49 This purge,
lasting until 1960, resulted in thousands of executions, often
in public. Pang Hak-se, the Minister of Public Security, told
a Soviet diplomat that 100,000 people were exposed as "hostile
and reactionary elements" between 1958 and 1959.50In 1959, the
Ambassador of the German Democratic Republic to the DPRK also
reported to his capital that, "In recent times, the
persecution of comrades who express a different opinion has
been increased. They are being sent to rural areas, mines,
hydropower dams and also into prison camps."51In order to
sustain the large-scale purges of the late 1950s, a system of
secret political prison camps was set up, which was later
expanded.52
8. The May 30th Resolution effectively launched the Songbun
system. Songbun translates literally as "ingredient" but
effectively means background. It is a system through which the
state categorizes citizens of the DPRK into classes based on
their perceived political allegiance to the regime,
ascertained by reference to family background and particular
actions taken by family members. Based on this assessment,
citizens fall into three broad classes: core, wavering and
hostile.53Decisions about residency, occupation, access to
food, health care, education and other services are contingent
on songbun. While the official songbun structure was quite
elaborate and changed over time, its main feature has been the
unchallengeable nature of the designation which is inherited
mainly through the paternal line.54 Following the May 30th
Resolution, the Cabinet issued Decree No. 149 prohibiting
members of the hostile class from residing near the
Demilitarized Zone or coastal areas, within 50 km of Pyongyang
or Kaesong, or within 20 km of any other large city. In
effect, a large number of people were forcibly transferred to
the rough mountainous regions in the northern part of the
country where special settlements were created for these
exiles.55
9. After the Korean War ended in 1953, the DPRK government
collectivized agriculture and established a centrally-planned
economy based largely on heavy industry. Those people who
remained on farms were allowed to keep a small proportion of
their production while the rest was taken by the state. The
government assigned people to compulsory employment.56In 1957,
the DPRK instituted the Public Distribution System to provide
food and to ration other goods. As the DPRK was highly
urbanized, an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of the population
relied on the state for these food distributions. The Public
Distribution System suppressed private production and
monopolized distribution of food and household necessities.
The entire economic framework of the country, and in
particular the Public Distribution System, became an important
means of social, economic and political control.57
10. By the early 1960s, Kim Il-sung successfully suppressed public
dissent. Any critical remark about the political or economic
situation could, and not infrequently did, lead to
imprisonment and worse. According to Russian observers who
were in the DPRK at the time, arrests and even executions were
imposed for an attitude deemed to be excessively warm
towards the Soviet Union, as well as any positive remarks
about the scientific, technical, or cultural achievements of
other countries.58
11. While the threat of these extreme human rights violations
constituted a form of terror deployed against the general
population, Kim Il-sung continued periodically to instigate
purges within the leadership of the party and military.59 For
example, in 1964, after the resolution "On Further
Strengthening the Work with Various Groups and Strata of the
Population" was adopted by the 8thPlenum of the Party's
Central Committee, a new campaign was launched to further
refine theSongbunsystem. Between 1964 and 1969, this work was
conducted by specially created groups. This exercise led to
more people being exiled, arrested and executed as enemies of
the regime.60
12. From the early days of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung and the Workers'
Party of Korea had employed thelaw and the justice system for
purposes of maintaining the Party's supremacy and suppressing
political dissent. In his March 1958 speech "For the
Elaboration of the Judicial Policy of our Party", Kim Il-sung
explained that the dictatorial functions of the judicial,
procuratorial and public security organs should be enhanced.
He said that "the DPRK's laws should serve as a weapon to
champion socialism" and emphasized that "all the workers of
the judicial organs should be true to the Party's leadership
and intensify the struggle against counter revolutionaries by
firmly relying on the judicial policy of the Party".61
According to official DPRK sources, Kim Jong-il carried on
with the approach of making the justice system, and judges in
particular, subject to the instructions of the Workers' Party
of Korea. According to official DPRK sources, Kim Jong-il "saw
[to it] that Party committees at all levels were strengthened
and their functions and roles were improved in order to
intensify Party guidance over … public security work, and
judicial and procuratorial work."62
13. The political function of the law and the justice system has
also been entrenched in the DPRK's criminal legislation,
starting with the 1950 Criminal Code, which borrowed language
from the Criminal Act of the Soviet Union that was in force
under Joseph Stalin. Many of the overt references to the
function of criminal law as a tool of political control were
removed in subsequent revisions. However, the present criminal
law of the DPRK still requires the state to carefully identify
friends and enemies of the state in its struggle against
"anti-state and anti-people crimes", and to subdue the small
minority of enemies.63 Furthermore, the state is tasked to
rely on the power and wisdom of the masses in its handling of
criminal cases,64 rather than to impartially apply the law.
Moreover, the Criminal Code currently in use defines "Crimes
against the state or the people" (called anti-revolutionary
crimes in the past) in such broad and vague terms that the
exercise of any number of human rights can be prosecuted as a
crime.65
14. To the extent that the law and the justice system serve to
legitimize violations, there is a rule bylaw in the DPRK, but
no rule of law, upheld by an independent and impartial
judiciary. Even where relevant checks have been incorporated
into statutes, these can be disregarded with impunity.
Decisions of the Workers' Party of Korea and the Supreme
Leader are generally considered to override formal laws. This
principle is reflected in article 11 of the Constitution
according to which the DPRK conducts all activities under the
leadership of the Party.66 The Constitution also establishes
that orders of the Supreme Leader supersede laws or other
directives.67 The political function of the judiciary is
inscribed in article 162 of the Constitution, which, among
other tasks, requires the courts to protect through judicial
procedure state power and the socialist system and to
staunchly combat class enemies. The superiority of executive
orders and the political function assigned to the courts
severely curtails the independence and impartiality of the
judges.
15. Formally, judges in the DPRK are appointed by and accountable
to the Supreme People's Assembly and provincial people's
assemblies. One former official, however, directly acquainted
with the process, indicated that judges are in practice
selected by and subject to the orders of the Supreme Leader
and the Workers' Party of Korea.68 As a matter of law, the
courts are reportedly also subject to the detailed oversight
of the Office of the Prosecutor, which is legally required to
consider each case to determine whether a hearing has been
conducted at the right time and in the correct manner as
required by law.69
16. In the 1960s, after Kim Il-sung had eliminated his potential
rivals who were largely affiliated with the Chinese and Soviet
factions, he actively distanced himself from the Soviet Union
and China. China by 1966 was in the throes of the Cultural
Revolution which caused great human suffering and disruptions
that threatened to spill over into the DPRK.70 As Kim Il-sung
also reduced contact with the Soviet Union and East European
socialist states, economic assistance from these countries,
which had been substantial, likewise began to dwindle.71 At
the same time, he expanded his cult of personality and set out
a policy of self-reliance and extreme nationalism known as
Juche.72 Kim Il-sung promoted the Juche ideology in
conjunction with a policy to focus on military readiness under
the Four Military Lines doctrine.
17. Juche has been variously called a philosophy, an idea and an
ideology. First espoused in a speech in December 1955 entitled
"On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche
in Ideological Work", Kim Il-sung called for a Korea-centred
revolution rather than one designed to benefit another country
or the international fraternal movement. According to Juche
ideology, citizens should develop the potential of the nation
through its own resources and human creativity as guided by
the Supreme Leader. Wherever the leader conveys his wisdom
through instructions, it was the duty of the people to learn
from him. As Confucianism placed high value on enlightenment
achieved by mastering of the classics and applying these
lessons, theDPRKimposed rigorous and constant study sessions
of Kim Il-sung's works, particularly those dealing withJuche,
on all citizens young and old.73
18. Juche principles underlie the economic system established by
the leadership. Jucherequires self-sacrifice and hard work.
Therefore, Juche became another element of control, as self-
reliance meant that the state would provide all the needs of
the people through the labour of the people, the natural
resources of the land and the ingenuity of their efforts but
required that the people follow the guidance of the state.
Thus, the solution to any shortfall in the needs of the
country were to be found in intensified campaigns to increase
production through more enthusiastic labour and longer
hours.74 The country would not use trade to address the
structural difficulty in producing sufficient food for the
population but find unique strategies to overcome it. The
DPRK's solution to inhospitable growing conditions was to
develop one of the most input-intensive agricultural system in
the world, one with complete dependency on fertilizers and
pesticides.75
19. Juche,however, did not prove to be an appropriate basis for an
effective economy. The industrial inheritance from the
Japanese and the input-intensive agriculture was maintained
for some decades with the support of the largesse from the
Soviet Union and China. In the mid-1970s, per capita GNP in
South and North Korea was about the same. Once assistance from
outside dried up the DPRK did not have the skills or the
political will to address its deeply rooted economic problems.
For a brief period in the 1970s, the DPRK attempted to borrow
funds from the international community. However, the state had
no plans on how to re-pay these debts or how to invest these
resources into the development of the country. The DPRK went
into default on billions of dollars and was unable to borrow
further. The choices that the leadership made over the years
led to serious food shortages long before the famine of the
1990s. Recurring patterns of shortages are reported as early
as 1945-46, 1954-55 and 1970-73.76 Survival of the political
system and its leadership rather than systemic economic
development or concern about feeding its population appears to
have been the priority of the DPRK leadership.
E. Consolidation of power under the Kim dynasty
1. Kim Jong-il spent 20 years preparing for his succession to
power. According to reports, it had actually been his uncle,
Kim Yong-chu, his father's younger brother, who had been the
original presumptive heir to Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il was
eventually able to side-line his uncle and win the confidence
of his father particularly through his efforts to expand the
cult of personality of Kim Il-sung. It was really in 1972 that
the intensity of the cult of personality of Kim Il-sung
surpassed those of Mao Zedong or Joseph Stalin. DPRK citizens
began to wear badges with his picture in addition to hanging
his portrait on their walls. Kim Jong-il had been serving in
the Party's powerful propaganda and organization departments
until he organized the Fifth Party Congress in 1970 which
proclaimed Juche as the monolithic ideology of the DPRK and
further enhanced his father's cult of personality thereby
setting in motion the process for his succession. Around this
time, Kim Jong-il introduced Kimilsungism, a concept linked to
Juche.77 Kim Il-sung's cult of personality became an important
instrument of Kim Jong-il's consolidation of his own
succession, as his father was the main source of his
legitimacy to rule the nation.78
2. The Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea appointed
Kim Jong-il as the Party's Secretary for Organization and
Guidance. This put him in control of the appointment process
and system of inspections. He used this position to build his
power base, sending inspection teams to every party and
government organization down to the local level. Thus he was
able to establish a dedicated reporting system to monitor all
information and to link important officials to his patronage
network. With the 1972 Constitution, Kim Jong-il reorganized
the state administration and further expanded the state
security apparatus. At this time, a new State Security
Department was set up that reported directly to Kim Jong-il
and supported the succession process.
3. Once the Central Committee elected Kim Jong-il to membership
of the Politburo and endorsed his selection as Kim Il-sung's
heir in 1974, he deepened the ideological basis of the Suryong
system. Kim Jong-il announced the "Ten Principles in
Establishing Party's Monolithic Ideological System"79 which
called for "unconditional obedience" and "all our loyalty" to
Kim Il-sung. Moreover, article 10.1 of the Ten Principles
declares that "(t)he entire party and society will adhere
strictly to the one-ideology system, and establish the one and
only leadership of the Central Party so as to complete in
shining glory revolutionary achievements of the Great Leader."
The "Central Party" was understood to mean Kim Jong-il.
4. In 1975, Kim Jong-il applied the "monolithic guidance system"
to the military through three reporting lines: the General
Political Bureau, the General Staff and the military secret
police. In 1980, Kim Jong-il was appointed to the Presidium of
the Politburo and the Central Military Commission.80 At this
stage, he was officially ranked fifth within the DPRK's
leadership. Nevertheless, only Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il
held positions in all three of the Party's leadership bodies
(the Politburo, Secretariat and Central Military Commission).
Kim Jong-il subsequently shifted decision-making on all
policies and personnel appointments from the Politburo to the
Party Secretariat Office, his base of power. In 1991, he was
appointed as supreme commander of the armed forces.
5. Despite Kim Il-sung's highly personalized approach to running
the DPRK, he had formally involved the Party in decision-
making and governance processes. In contrast, Kim Jong-il
adopted a highly centralized, top-down leadership style that
often relied on informal channels. He also moved his
organizational base from the Workers' Party of Korea to the
National Defence Commission which became the leading state
body after the 1992 revision of the Constitution (the first
revision since 1972).81 In 1993, Kim Jong-il became chairman
of the National Defence Commission.
6. Kim Il-sung died in 1994 at the age of 82. In 1997, Kim Jong-
il further consolidated his grip on the state security
apparatus when he transformed the Social Safety Agency into
the Ministry of People's Security and expanded the overall
apparatus. On the basis of these changes, the state security
apparatus expanded into a system that rested on five pillars.
These continue to be in place under the present Supreme Leader
Kim Jong-un:82
1. The State Security Department83(Kukgabowibu, often referred to
as simplyBowibu) is the primary political police. Legally
mandated to investigate "Crimes against the state or the
nation", it has the task of identifying and violently
suppressing threats to the political system and the Supreme
Leader;
2. In addition to regular policing functions, the Ministry of
People's Security (Inminboanseong) also takes on certain
political policing functions;
3. The Military Security Command (Bo-wi Saryeong-bu) serves as
the political police of the Korean People's Army;
4. Apart from its ordinary prosecutorial function, the Office of
the Prosecutor exercises legal and political monitoring roles;
and
5. Special bodies within the Workers' Party of Korea at the
Central Committee level monitor and police senior officials
and the security agencies.
1. In practice, the distribution of roles between the respective
security agencies has varied over time and between provinces,
influenced by political priorities, available capacity, the
relative power of senior officials and the extent to which a
particular agency enjoyed the trust of the Supreme Leader. In
many cases, the three main security agencies—State Security
Department, Ministry of People's Security and Military
Security Command—competed to show their efficiency in
identifying ideological opponents to gain favour with Kim
Jong-il. In relation to incidents or issues seen as major
political threats, the Supreme Leader or central-level
decision-making organs required security agencies to
coordinate their investigations. There are reports that semi-
permanent structures were set up by secret order of Kim Jong-
il and maintained under Kim Jong-un.84
2. Following a three-year mourning period, Kim Jong-il was
formally elected leader by the Supreme People's Assembly in
1998. The constitution was again revised in 1998, and Kim Il-
sung was designated Eternal President. The revised
constitution elevated the National Defence Commission to be
the highest organ of the state, and thus its chairman, Kim
Jong-il, to the highest position in the government.85 Lacking
the war hero credentials of his father, Kim Jong-il shifted
the fundamental orientation of the state in his effort to win
the support of the military by bestowing on it policy
influence and prestige, as well as a large share of the
national budget, throughthe Songun, or Military First,
doctrine. This doctrine has survived the death of Kim Jong-il
and the ascendancy of his son Kim Jong-un as his successor. On
25 August 2013, Kim Jong-un elaborated at length on the Songun
doctrine during the Day of Songun celebration:
Songun was the General's [Kim Jong-il] revolutionary idea, his
practice in the revolution, his political ideal and his political
mode…. Regarding the strengthening of the KPA [Korean People's
Army] as the most important of affairs in the Songun revolution, he
raised the KPA as the buttress, the main force, of our revolution
and achieved the historic victory in the grim anti-imperialist,
anti-US showdown in defence of the country's security and socialism
by training the KPA to be the army of the leader boundlessly
faithful to the cause of the WPK (Workers' Party of Korea), to be
an invincible revolutionary army. He defined the spirit of
defending the leader unto death, the spirit of implementing his
instructions at any cost and the self-sacrificing spirit displayed
by the service personnel as a revolutionary spirit symbolic and
representative of the Songun era, as the revolutionary soldier
spirit, and led all the service personnel and people to live and
struggle in that spirit, thus ensuring that a great turn and
changes were brought about in all sectors of the revolution and
construction. In order to consolidate the successes of his Songun-
based leadership and administer Songun politics in a comprehensive
way, he saw to it that the First Session of the Tenth Supreme
People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
adopted the Socialist Constitution that embodies the idea and
principles of the Songun revolution and established a new state
administration structure, whose backbone is the National Defence
Commission, and led all state affairs to be conducted on the
principle of giving precedence to military affairs.86
1. In keeping with the Songun orientation, the DPRK embarked on a
quest to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.87 The
DPRK presently has the world's fourth largest standing army
with 1.2 million active troops and 7.1 to 8.3 million in
paramilitary reserves. It is believed that the DPRK's military
capability has been steadily decreasing due to obsolescence of
equipment, difficulty in training, and lowering of standards
for soldiers following the overall decline in nutritional
status of the population and its subsequent impact on the
height of prospective recruits. As the DPRK has experienced
this decrease in capability, it has responded by focusing on
the development of nuclear weapons and other "asymmetrical
forces" such as special operations forces, chemical and
biological weapons, and mini-submarines.88 Reportedly, the
DPRK has one of the world's largest stocks of chemical
weapons. In addition to destabilizing security in the region
and further isolating the DPRK, the drive to be a nuclear
state has had profound consequences on resource allocation in
the DPRK particularly as parts of the population were already
reported to be food insecure for some time.89
2. The DPRK leadership's decision to develop a nuclear programme
in addition to other Songun policies had serious economic and
political consequences. Although the 1990s marked an
improvement in relations between the DPRK and the United
States,90 the DPRK's first nuclear crisis occurred in May 1994
when the DPRK unloaded fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor and
withdrew from the International Atomic Energy Agency, ejecting
its inspectors. This crisis risked derailing progress on the
amelioration of relations with the United States. Through
negotiations brokered by former United States President Jimmy
Carter, the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework provided Kim Jong-il
with non-aggression assurances from President Bill Clinton as
well as other concessions.
3. The DPRK had always been heavily dependent on assistance from
the Soviet Union and China, including for agricultural inputs.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the DPRK also accumulated
substantial debt to the Soviet Union and China which it was
unwilling or unable to pay. By the mid-1990s, the collapse of
the Soviet Union coincided with the end of Chinese patience
with its neighbour.
4. After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping instigated
unprecedented reform in China, bringing hundreds of millions
out of poverty. China also built ties with Japan as part of
this process. In 1989, the Sino-Soviet split came to an end.
China normalized relations with the ROK in 1992, which
unsettled the DPRK. The death of Kim Il-sung in 1994
contributed to strains in the relations between the DPRK and
China. In fact, one of the proximate causes of the 1990s
famine was the change in trade levels with China. After the
DPRK's bilateral trade with the Soviet Union dropped more than
ten-fold from $2.56 billion 1990 to $1.4 million in 1994, the
DPRK became dependent on China for assistance.91 However, the
DPRK's bilateral trade with China fell from US$900 million in
1993 to $550 million in 1995, while food exports fell by half
between 1993 and 1994.92 The seasonal arrival of extreme rains
in July and August 1995 compounded by soil erosion and river
silting led to flooding that destroyed the harvest and
contributed to the period of starvation that has been deemed
the great famine and referred to as the "Arduous March" by the
DPRK. Between 1996 and 1999, it is estimated that between
450,000 and 2 million people starved to death.93
5. One of the unintended consequences of the human-made famine
was the widespread emergence of informal markets. It is
estimated that informal economic activities reached 78 per
cent of total income for North Korean households a decade
after the famine.94 As the Public Distribution System was no
longer able to provide even minimal amounts of food, the
authorities were unable to exercise the level of control they
had once been able to. The breakdown of social control led to
fissures in the blockade on information from outside the
country. At the same time, control on the freedom of movement
was loosened as large numbers of people attempted to escape
from the DPRK and others sought to obtain supplies from China
to trade. As many more North Koreans travelled back and forth
to China, they were seeing for themselves the relative
prosperity of China and received information about the ROK
which was vastly different from the official propaganda of the
government. The leadership made numerous efforts to rein in
the markets and constrain the freedom of movement. These
measures met with various levels of resistance.95
6. In the ROK, two politically liberal presidents—Kim Dae-jung
elected in 1997 and Roh Moo-hyun elected in 2002—who had
strong human rights credentials, pursued policies of
engagement without conditions in a bid to improve relations.
Their goal was to gradually move towards reunification rather
than to engender sudden regime collapse in the DPRK or violent
confrontation. President Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy"
culminated in a historic summit with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang
in 2000. President Roh Moo-hyun essentially continued the
Sunshine Policy under the "Peace and Prosperity Policy". The
Sunshine Policy is estimated to have provided USD 3 billion in
aid from the ROK to the DPRK. The ROK also engaged in joint
projects to provide opportunities to the DPRK to earn foreign
exchange and to provide channels to the international market.
The Kaesong Industrial Complex was the key cooperation
project.96
7. In 2002, Kim Jong-il attempted to undertake economic reforms.
The "7.1 Measures" (named for the date 1 July 2002 when they
were announced) included the increasing of consumer prices to
more accurately reflect market prices, increasing official
wages, changing policies on management of state enterprises to
allow more independence, and the formal establishment of
general markets. While these events were unfolding
domestically, Kim Jong-il was continuing to seek international
assistance to compensate for the country's economic shortfall
on terms that were not easy for humanitarian agencies to
accept.97 Normalization talks between Japan and the DPRK had
begun in 1990s. They culminated in a summit betweenJapanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chairperson Kim Jong-Il
of the DPRK National Defence Commission in September 2002.
8. The second nuclear crisis occurred in late 2002. During a
visit to Pyongyang, United States Assistant Secretary of State
James Kelly announced evidence of a secret uranium-enriching
programme carried out in violation of the 1994
AgreedFramework, which he said DPRK authorities had
acknowledged. The DPRKsubsequentlyremoved seals and
surveillance equipment from the Yongbyon reactor, shipped
1,000 fuel rods to the reactor, expelled two International
Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors from the country, and
announced its intention to reopen a reprocessing plant that
could start producing weapons grade plutonium within months.In
2003, United States President George W. Bush ended bilateral
discussions with the DPRK. Instead, the Six Party Talks98 was
determined to be the appropriate forum for further
negotiations.
9. In the meantime, Kim Jong-il's 2002 economic reform initiative
appears to have met with backlash from the military, and
ultimately he retreated. In 2005, the DPRK attempted to revive
the Public Distribution System and confiscated grain from
farmers. At the same time, the government made it more
difficult to cross the border into China. Nevertheless, by
2006, the ban on trading in rice and corn was effectively
ended.99
10. In July 2006, the DPRK launched several long-range missiles.
This led to the imposition of sanctions by various countries
and a resolution by the United Nations Security Council
condemning the multiple launches and calling on the DPRK to
suspend all ballistic missile related activity.100 Months
later, the DPRK announced its first nuclear test. Chinaissued
strong statements criticizing the DPRK for its actions and
supported for the first time a Security Council resolution
imposing sanctions on the DPRK to prevent nuclear and
ballistics weapons development.101Nevertheless, the criticism
was quickly toned down as China has remained generally
supportive of the leadership in the DPRK.
11. The 2007 election of President Lee Myung-bak in the ROK
reversed the Sunshine Policy approach and focused on
reciprocity and denuclearization. Unhappy with the change in
tone, the DPRK made personalized attacks against him102 and
escalated military tensions. Since 2007, there have not been
any ministerial level talks between the ROK and the DPRK. In
2008, Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke. In 2009, the DPRK's
leadership attempted to gain control over its citizens and the
process of marketization by implementing a drastic currency
reform. Although the DPRK had previously attempted currency
reforms in 1959, 1979 and 1992, the 2009 currency reform
failed by causing widespread dismay and disruption by
triggering massive inflation and temporarily halting the
markets. The so-called reform introduced new notes with a
devaluation of the currency but the salaries of state
employees was effectively raised resulting in massive
inflation. Many citizens had their savings disappear through
the exchange limitation and the subsequent drastic rise in
prices.103
12. In 2009, the DPRK conducted missile tests, withdrew from the
Six Party Talks, ejected all international monitors from the
Yongbyon facility where it reprocessed 8,000 fuel rods and
conducted its second nuclear test. The Security Council passed
Resolution 1874 tightening sanctions.104 The DPRK accused the
United States and the ROK of declaring war, leading to its
announcement that the DPRK was no longer bound by the 1953
Armistice Agreement.
13. Following his stroke, Kim Jong-il began to focus more
explicitly on the issue of his succession. Until 2001, his
first-born son, Kim Jong-nam, had been presumed to be heir-
apparent when with several family members he attempted to
enter Japan on fake Dominican passports. In early 2009, the
official propaganda organs started mentioning the "New Star
General". Formal evidence of the selection of Kim Jong-un as
Kim Jong-il's heir apparent only emerged in 2010. In March
2010, the ROK's naval corvette Cheonan was attacked and sunk
by an underwater torpedo, killing 46 sailors.105 In September
2010, during the Workers' Party of Korea's first convention
since the 1980 Party Congress, Kim Jong-il's sister Kim Kyong-
hui and Kim Jong-un were promoted to four-star generals
although neither had served in the military. At the same time,
Kim Jong-un was appointed the Vice-Chairman of the Central
Military Commission. In November 2010, the DPRK shelled
Yeonpyeong Island killing four ROK citizens. On 19 December
2011, the government announced that Kim Jong-il had died two
days earlier. Dynastic succession promptly moved to the third
generation of Kim Il-sung's family. It appears that this
transition occurred without any formal democratic process or
effective engagement with the people of the DPRK.
14. Kim Jong-un is believed to have been born on 8 January 1983 or
1984. He was thus under 30 years of age at the time he
succeeded to the highest political, executive and military
power in the DPRK as the Supreme Leader. He has been
endeavouring to consolidate his authority. In the weeks after
Kim Jong-il's death in 2011, Kim Jong-un was given the title
of "Supreme Commander" of the major military organizations.
Official statements from various state organs referred to him
as the nation's "sole national leader".
15. In early 2012, the DPRK announced it would suspend nuclear
tests and allow international inspectors to monitor the
moratorium in exchange for food aid from the United States. In
April 2012, however, the DPRK launched an advanced missile,
the Unha-3, which failed. The United States still cancelled
planned food aid.
16. In the same month, Kim Jong-un consolidated his power by
taking on the posts of the First Secretary of the Workers'
Party of Korea and the Chairman of the Central Military's
Commission, as well as First Chairman of the National Defence
Commission.106 He filled with his own appointees the top jobs
at the Ministry of People's Armed Forces, the General
Political Bureau and General Staff of the Korean People's
Army. He further consolidated his hold over the military in
July 2012 by retiring the head of the army, promoting a
previously little known general in his place, and assuming for
the first time the rank of marshal.
17. In December 2012, the DPRK launched a rocket putting its first
satellite into orbit. Many analysts argued this was a cover to
develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Security
Council condemned the launch as a violation of resolutions
barring testing of technology used for ballistic missiles, and
adopted tightened sanctions against the country. The DPRK
conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013 and seeks
recognition as a nuclear state from the international
community.107
18. After assuming supreme power in the DPRK, Kim Jong-un
expressed his desire to revive the country's economy. On 31
March 2013, Kim Jong-un announced the "Dual Policy of Economic
Construction and Nuclear Arsenal Expansion" which seemed to
add improving the economy to the priority of the development
of the DPRK's nuclear arsenal. He subsequently continued to
add the slogan of "improving the lives of our people" to his
public statements. In November 2013, the plan to establish 14
special economic zones to attract more foreign investment was
announced.
19. The Commission has met with credible international sources who
have remarked on increased signs of prosperity in Pyongyang in
the past couple of years. They cite the increased use of
mobile phones in the DPRK (albeit without international
access), believed to number up to 2 million subscribers,108 as
well as the prevalence of new vehicles on the formerly quiet
streets. They marvel at the opening of new restaurants which
appear to be well-frequented. Some observers have been noting
what could be modernizing trends in the DPRK from Kim Jong-un
appearing publicly with his wife in contrast to his father and
grandfather, the brief appearance of an unlicensed Mickey
Mouse dancing with an unlicensed Winnie the Pooh at a state-
sponsored musical performance, and the commercial launching of
the country's own home-grown tablet computer. Kim Jong-un
himself has also been promoting sports in the DPRK by
makingpublic appearances at various athletic events.
20. At the same time, there has been a clampdown on the country's
borders since Kim Jong-un's succession to power. The number of
North Koreans who have reached the ROK fell significantly in
2012 and 2013.109 The Commission has received reports of the
use of blackmail and coercion against those who have left the
country, including threats to family members in the DPRK to
entice them to return to the DPRK. Certainly, a number of
Koreans who have returned to the DRPK from the ROK have
appeared on state television to express their apparent remorse
for leaving and voicing criticism of life in the South.110
Other control measures that have been reported include Kim
Jong-un placing new limits on privately-funded education
abroad by elite families.111
21. The sudden execution of Jang Song-thaek, Kim Jong-un's uncle,
in December 2013, appears to be part of Kim Jong-un's
consolidation process. Jang Song-thaek had been considered the
"control tower"112, due to his role as a guide to the new
leader, and was widely considered to be second-in-command
within the DPRK power structure. He was the husband of the
sister of Kim Jong-il and daughter of Kim Il-sung.
Herconditionwas uncertain at the time this reportwas finished.
F. External dynamics and the human rights situation
1. While an examination of the foregoing internal dynamics
provides one explanation for the evolution of the DPRK and its
human rights situation, it is also useful to examine the
external environment to understand the particular influences
that have shaped the character of the state. The end of World
War II brought to the forefront aspirations of many colonized
peoples for national independence, including the Koreans. At
the same time, the new world order gave rise to rivalry
between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union
and its allies. The Cold War has played an important role in
the international relations that have impacted the DPRK.
Equally important have been regional dynamics.
2. China has repeatedly expressed the desire for denuclearization
of the peninsula,113 and stability in the DPRK appears to be
the main priority for China. Nevertheless, the majority of
North Koreans who have sought to flee the DPRK have done so by
crossing the border into China and transiting overland to
reach South East Asia.114 This has raised questions regarding
China's treatment of these North Koreans and its adherence to
international human rights law,115 while human rights
violations in the DPRK have directly impacted China.
3. The Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration following the 2002 summit
noted that "establishing a fruitful political, economic and
cultural relationship between Japan and the DPRK through the
settlement of unfortunate past between them and the
outstanding issues of concern would be consistent with the
fundamental interests of both sides, and would greatly
contribute to the peace and stability of the region."116 The
process was derailed by the failure of the DPRK to follow up
on its admission of the abduction of Japanese nationals.117
The abductions issue continues to resound forcefully with the
Japanese public, as do the security threats from nuclear
weapons and ballistic missiles that the DPRK has tested and
continues to develop.
4. Both the ROK and the DPRK have stated that unification of the
peninsula is a goal. Under the ROK's National Security Law,
anyone who knowingly supports or encourages "anti-state"
entities faces up to seven years' imprisonment. Unauthorized
trips to the DPRK also remain forbidden. In recent years,the
ROK has increased efforts to assist DPRK citizens who have
fled the DPRK. The DPRK has countered that citizens of the
DPRK who have escaped or are attempting to flee have been
trafficked. Since 2007, there have not been any ministerial
level talks between the ROK and the DPRK. President Park Geun-
hye announced a new framework in the ROK's approach to
relations with the DPRK, using the term "Trustpolitik" to
refer to an incremental trust-building process that would both
provide a tough position as well as flexibility for
negotiating when there are openings.118 Cabinet-level talks
that were scheduled for 12 June 2013 in Seoul were aborted
after the two sides failed to agree on the composition of the
delegations. Beyond the aborted ministerial level talks, the
new administration's experience in negotiating with the DPRK
has yielded mixed results. While the Kaesong Industrial
Complex was reopened in September 2013 after marathon rounds
of talks, family reunions organized for the national Chosuk
(Harvest Festival) holiday were abruptly cancelled by the
DPRK, after having raised the hopes of long separated and
mostly elderly family members on different sides of the Korean
border. Following Kim Jong-un's 2014 New Year's address urging
the ROK to "put an end to slander and calumny that brings no
good to either side" and his offer to "join hands with anyone
who opts to promote inter-Korean relations…regardless of his
or her past",President Park proposed resumption of temporary
family reunions for the Lunar New Year. The proposal was
rejected by the DPRK.
5. The Commission recalls that the Korean War has not been
concluded. In 2013, 85 year-old United States citizen Merrill
Newman, a veteran who fought in the Korean War, was arrested
and detained for over one month in the DPRK. This event again
highlights the sensitivities over the Korean War that remain
in the DPRK. Resolution of this conflict may need to be part
of any process that integrates the DPRK into the international
community as a responsible nation-state that respects the
human rights of its own people. Likewise, the DPRK has
continued to express discontent over the colonial occupation.
These matters similarly require attention as part of that
process. Pursuing gradual progress on these matters should not
detract from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's
obligations under international law that it must immediately
implement.
IV. Findings of the commission
A. Violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion
1. Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion. The Commission considered
this provision along with article 20 of the ICCPR when
assessing the allegations of human rights violations regarding
the indoctrination of the DPRK people by the state. It is
noted that article 14 of the Convention of the Rights of the
Child (CRC) further provides the same right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion specifically for children.
2. When looking at the extent the DPRK people are able to freely
express their opinions, access information and join
associations, the Commission is guided by articles 19 and 22
of the ICCPR as well as articles 12, 13, 15 and 17 of the CRC.
1. Indoctrination, propaganda and the related role of mass
organizations
1. The population of the DPRK is indoctrinated from a young age
in accordance with the single state ideology and the Ten
Principles as sustained by the Supreme Leader and the Workers'
Party of Korea to such a degree that it not only infringes on
the freedom to seek and receive information as article 19 of
the ICCPR and article 17 of the CRC envisage, but it also
supresses the emergence and development of free thought and
conscience, which is protected by article 18 of the ICCPR and
article 14 of the CRC. The Human Rights Committee has
commented that the latter right is far-reaching and profound,
and encompasses freedom of thought on all matters. The
fundamental character of these freedoms is also reflected in
the fact that this provision cannot be derogated from, even in
times of public emergency.119
(a) Indoctrination from childhood
1. Children are taught to revere and idolize Kim Il-sung, Kim
Jong-il, and now Kim Jong-un. Plaques with slogans, posters
and drawings expressing gratitude to the Supreme Leader are
found in kindergartens irrespective of the children's ability
to fully comprehend these messages.120 In addition to the
usual subjects in schools, such as mathematics, science, art
and music, an unusually large portion of the school syllabus
is dedicated to the instruction about achievements and
teachings of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, including the Ten
Principles and the DPRK's official version of its
revolutionary history.121 One former educator in the DPRK
suggests that the teachings of ideology based on the writings
of and about Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in fact "constitutes
most of the education" in the DPRK.122 The contents of these
teachings are customized to suit the students' capacity to
understand and then memorize them.123 If the students do not
perform well on the subjects of Kim Il-sung's philosophy and
revolutionary history, they may be punished even if they do
extremely well in other subjects.124 These educational goals
are contrary to those outlined in article 29 of the CRC.
2. There are two basic themes central to the North Korean
indoctrination programme. One is to instil utmost loyalty and
commitment towards the Supreme Leader. The other is to instil
hostility and deep hatred towards Japan, the United States of
America (USA), and the Republic of Korea (ROK). The latter
objective is pursued with such deliberate and systematic
efforts that it clearly amounts to advocacy of national hatred
constituting incitement to discrimination, hostility and
violence, and to propaganda for war, in violation of article
20 of the ICCPR.125
3. Children are taught that they should aspire only to emulate
Kim Il-sung. For example, those inclined to drawing are
encouraged only to draw pictures of the Supreme Leader or make
drawings which might have pleased Kim Il-sung. Good drawings
are put up in schools. Typically, they either depict the Kim
family or they depict children stabbing Japanese or American
soldiers with swords or pencils.126
* One witness stated that as a school student, drawing anything
other than images to please Kim Il-sung never occurred to him. He
was interested in becoming a great warrior, to become a killer of
the enemies, going to the Republic of Korea and dying for the
sake of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.127
1. Children are encouraged to be willing to risk their lives for
the values of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, more so than for
their own parents.128 Children are surrounded by patriotic
images and slogans projecting Kim Il-sung as a fatherly
figure, protecting the nation and providing for its
citizens.129 Such messaging and indoctrination serves not only
to create loyalty to the leader from a young age, but
effectively works to fracture familial ties as children are
expected to display greater respect and commitment towards the
Supreme Leader than their own parents.
2. All school subjects are taught in a manner compatible with
state ideology. For example, one witness described that, when
reference was made to a chemical gas in chemistry lessons, a
comparison had to be made between how the two Korean
governments would use the gas.130 According to this rhetoric,
while the DPRK aimed at industrial development, ROK would use
it for tear gas against protestors discontented with the
conditions of their lives. In a 1981 speech, Kim Il-sung had
reminded that:
It is important in class education to intensify anti-imperialist
education, education against US imperialism and Japanese
militarism. They are sworn enemies of the Korean people and the
target that must be attacked in the Korean revolution. We must
intensify anti-imperialist, anti-US and anti-Japanese education
among Party members and the working people so that they fight
indomitably against US imperialism and Japanese militarism. We must
also educate people to harbour bitter hatred for the landlords,
comprador capitalists, and reactionary bureaucrats the anti-popular
fascist ruling system of South Korea and to have the spirit to
fight them without compromise.131
1. Article 29 of the CRC outlines the goals of education for
children. Disproportionate time allocation to allow worship of
the Kim family in school is contrary to these goals. Most
alarming are the teachings of hate, violence and racism in
direct contravention of sub-articles (1)(c) and (d) of article
29.
(b) The Mass Games and other compulsory mass propaganda events
1. Children and university students in the DPRK are regularly
required to participate in parades, mass rallies and other
choreographed performances which serve a political purpose.
The largest of these performances is the annual mass
gymnastics, today generally referred to as the Mass Games.
2. The Games feature approximately 100,000 children and young
adults in a minutely choreographed display of gymnastics,
dance, acrobatics, and dramatic performance. In a lengthy talk
delivered to the producers of the Mass Games, Kim Jong-il in
1987 explained that the Mass Games not only aim at fostering a
particularly healthy and strong physique in participants, but
also a high degree of organization, discipline and
collectivism in schoolchildren.132 He went on:
The schoolchildren, conscious that a single slip in their action
may spoil their mass gymnastic performance, make every effort to
subordinate all their thoughts and actions to the collective. …
Since mass gymnastics are creative works … [t]he creative workers
must present in great depth and breadth throughout their mass
gymnastic productions the leader's greatness, the sagacity of his
leadership, his immortal revolutionary achievements and his noble
communist virtues. Their works must also show in full the greatness
and brilliant achievements of the Party that effects historic
changes …
1. The Mass Games have become a major source of foreign currency
revenue for the DPRK. They attract large numbers of tourists,
who are often unaware of the human rights violations endured
by participating children, who are compelled to participate
(unless their physical appearance does not meet the state-
determined ideal). Training will often last an entire year,
including 4-6 months during which the participants train all
day at the expense of their schooling. Training practice is
gruelling. Children who do not perfect their performances are
subjected to physical punishment and additional evening
training.
* A former university sports teacher informed the Commission that
he was required to train students for the Mass Games. He said
students were forced to train 6-12 hours a day in very harsh
conditions. Although most participants were school children and
university students, some army personnel also participated.
Anyone with any sort of disability was excluded. The witness
recalled that many children fainted from fatigue during training.
Many also suffered severe injuries.133
* In testimony before the Commission's Tokyo Public Hearing, Ms L
described how she missed an entire semester of university
education because her class was required to practise for 6
months, 10 hours a day, for a short segment of a parade, to be
held in the Kim Il-sung Stadium of Pyongyang in the presence of
Kim Jong-il. Training was so intense that some participants
fainted from exhaustion. Fainting was especially common during
summer when students trained in the hot sun, on concrete floor.
Practice emphasized perfection. Anyone who made repeated mistakes
was made to remain on the training ground until midnight as a
punishment. Ms L recalls that her teachers would invoke the
example of a boy of 7 or 8 years of age who had practised through
the intense pain of an acute appendicitis. He eventually died
because he did not receive timely medical care. The dead child
was treated as a hero because he had dedicated his entire life
for an event in the presence of Kim Jong-il.134
1. The strict training routine for the Mass Games over such a
long period and in such conditions is dangerous to the
children's health and well-being. The Commission finds such
exploitation of children to be in contravention of articles 31
and 32 of the CRC providing for a child's right to rest and
leisure and to be protected from work that interferes with the
child's education or is harmful to the child's health.
(c) Confession and criticism sessions
1. Children in the DPRK are introduced at an early age to
"confession and criticism" sessions. Children gather in groups
weekly and take turns standing up and describing their
activities for the previous week, as far as possible showing
how they were living in accordance with the teachings of the
Kim philosophy and the Ten Principles. The Principles are
recited during the confession. Children must berate themselves
if they have failed in some way during the preceding week;
such as being absent from class or not having made a
contribution as expected. They must then make a commitment to
become better. They are also expected to describe the failings
of at least one of their peers in the same group. Until they
identify someone for criticism, they are not allowed to stand
down.
2. Weekly "confession and criticism" sessions constitute a method
for the state to monitor any perceived foibles in its
citizens.135 These weekly sessions are carried out throughout
the lives of the DPRK citizens. They take place in prison and
labour training camps. They are also undertaken for those
mobilized to carry out public construction works.
3. Notably, sub-principle 4.5 of the Ten Principles calls for all
to:
Participate without absence in more than 2 hours of study groups,
lectures and collective studies devoted to revolutionary ideas of
Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung, ensure discipline for these
studies and make these studies a habitual part of daily life, at
the same time struggling with any contradictions or neglect towards
ensuring such studies are always completed.136
1. It was reported in August 2013 that the Ten Principles were
revised, for the first time in 39 years, to add Kim Jong-il's
name to that of Kim Il-sung to be honoured with loyalty by the
people. It was further reported a month later that the DPRK
authorities had "ordered a nationwide round of public
criticism sessions and associated writings to determine
whether [the revised Ten Principles] are being upheld".137
2. In the aftermath of the execution of Kim Jong-un's uncle, Jang
Song-thaek, in December 2013, the number of indoctrination
sessions across the country appears to have been increased,
with the population expected to pledge their loyalty in
writing and to reflect upon their own behaviour. The execution
of Mr Jang had reportedly caused a considerable amount of
bafflement and fear among the DPRK population.138 However,
there was no room for criticism of the process, its lack of
transparency, its unseemly haste, and its violent ending. Only
expressions designed to further the interests of the Supreme
Leader and the dictates of the leadership are tolerated.
(d) Compulsory membership in mass organizations
1. Article 22 of the ICCPR, article 15 of the CRC, and the DPRK
Constitution provide for the right to freedom of
association.139
2. The DPRK has claimed that if anyone wishes to form a
democratic social organization, an application should be sent
to the Cabinet thirty days in advance, specifying the purpose
of the organization, the number of its members, its
organizational structure, date of inauguration, and the name
of the leader, accompanied by a copy of the proposed
statute.140 There are reportedly associations such as the
Unified Culture and Arts League, the Democratic Attorneys'
Association, the Anti-Nuclear Peace Committee and the Africa-
Asia Coalition Committee. However, all of these bodies appear
to also be under the oversight of the Workers' Party of
Korea.141 In practice, not a single officially registered
political party or civil society organization appears to exist
that is not effectively under the control of the state and of
the Workers' Party of Korea.
3. All citizens are required to become members of and participate
in the activities of mass associations that are under the
oversight of the Workers' Party of Korea.142 Membership starts
on entry to elementary school.143 All children aged between 7
and 13 are made members of the Children's Union. Their
activities are overseen by officials of the Kim Il-sung
Socialist Youth League, which is made up of DPRK citizens aged
between 14 and 30.144 After the age of 30, a citizen becomes a
member of the General Federation of Korean Trade Unions,
Democratic Women's Union or the Union of Agricultural Working
People depending on one's employment and marital status.145
Although the on-going socio-economic changes make Party
membership less attractive than in the past, most citizens
would still aspire to become a member of the Workers' Party of
Korea. This is, however, a privilege granted only to about 15
per cent of the population. Party members also become
officials of the mass associations controlled by the Party.146
It is compulsory to be a member of one of these associations
until one's death.147 One witness remarked that even those who
were forcibly repatriated would resume membership upon release
from detention.148
4. Membership of these associations serves several basic
functions. One is to organize and monitor the daily activities
of the people whether at work or outside of work. Another is
to ensure continued indoctrination through regular classes on
teachings of the Kim philosophy as well as sharing of
information on current and foreign affairs.149
* A former official for the Kim Il-sung Socialist Youth League
spoke of four categories of basic duties to be discharged by
members of the Youth League. First and foremost is the duty to
"worship the Kim family". Second is the duty to "arm the people"
with revolutionary ideas. Third is the duty to "secure the
nation" through the monitoring and assessment of loyalty. Fourth
is the duty to "build the socialist economy" by mobilizing select
groups of people to carry out construction and related works.150
* Once a member of the Children's Union, one witness spoke of
striving to be a model student, and to be exemplary in her
studies and in extra-curricular activities. She and other
students were also expected to contribute towards their school by
donating materials such as used paper and used vinyl paper.151
* Another witness spoke of the Children's Union members being
engaged in certain activities such as chanting slogans of the
Workers' Party of Korea and beating drums on the street to secure
public attention. They would also be asked to carry out
activities aimed at generating income for the state as well as to
chant slogans during election periods.152
* One witness who was one of the officials for the Women's
Democratic Union explained that they are responsible for, among
others, ensuring that lectures are administered for its members
on Juche and revolutionary history, as well as on internal
politics and foreign affairs. Members are also assigned to attain
goods which may be sold to earn foreign currency. For example, in
one year members are expected to deliver one gram of gold, two
adult hares' skin and two dogs' skin. These would be collected
and sent to the central level of the Party.153
1. A major activity undertaken by the Youth League is to mobilize
its members and administer "volunteer" labour units to carry
out public construction works. It is expected that ordinary
DPRK citizens, aged from 17 years old onwards, would be
mobilized and enlisted into groups to work on various
construction projects building roads or public structures. At
the level of a county, only a group of 1,000 would be
required; 20,000 at the provincial level and as many as
100,000 people would be necessary for projects in a large city
such as Pyongyang.154 Those selected to perform these duties
reportedly consider it an honour to serve in this way. Such
participation is viewed as one of the stepping stones to
improving one's chances of becoming a member of the Workers'
Party of Korea or being accepted for further study.
2. Refusing participation in these activities does not appear to
be an option as doing so would reduce one's prospects for
social and political mobility and leave a black mark on one's
dossier.155 In addition to a registration system where all
DPRK citizens are issued an identity card which they keep in
their possession, there is another record system maintained by
the Government with respect to each individual which has
direct impact on one's ability to succeed and advance in
society, and which the individual has no right to access.156
(e) Ubiquity of propaganda
1. Citizens in the DPRK are constantly exposed to ubiquitous
state propaganda. The Propaganda and Agitation Department
within the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea is
primarily responsible for generating propaganda directives.157
In a speech to "Party Propagandists" in 1981, Kim Jong-il
stated, "… solid foundations for propaganda and agitation work
have been laid under the single guidance of the Party Central
Committee." Kim Jong-Il provided guidance on how to intensify
ideological education as well as propaganda and agitation for
the construction of the socialist economy. He spoke of "verbal
agitation", "agitation by artists", effective use of visual
aids and officials setting personal examples as different
forms of agitation that are powerful and influential.158
2. The propaganda units in local administrations, schools, places
of work and at various other levels are responsible for
reproducing messages determined at the centre. They also put
up propaganda materials under the directive of the Central
Committee's Propaganda Department. In every province for
example, there is an art centre responsible for drawing the
portraits of the Supreme Leaders and portraying their
accomplishments which are displayed in exhibitions, and hung
in the hallways and on the walls of public departments and
companies.159 Mansudae Art Studio in Pyongyang is reportedly
the central level body responsible for producing propaganda
paintings, murals, posters, billboards, and monuments revering
the Kim family. It has been suggested that it is the largest
art factory in the world, employing roughly 4,000 DPRK
nationals, including some 1,000 artists.160
3. Exceptionally good drawings by children are put up not only in
their own schools but also other schools. There are also
designated artists in universities and in the military who
draw such propaganda materials for posters and billboards to
be put in university halls and premises, and for drawings in
textbooks and other publications for teachings in the military
academy.161
4. Pictures of the Supreme Leaders and monuments dedicated to
them are omnipresent. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)
reported in April 2013 that, "44.8 per cent of the total state
budgetary expenditure [for the previous year] for the economic
development and improvement of people's living standard was
used for funding the building of edifices to be presented to
the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Kim Il-sung,
the consolidation of the material and technological foundation
of Juche-based, modern and self-supporting economy and the
work for face-lifting the country."162 Another report, citing
sources in the DPRK, estimates that the equivalent of USD200
million has been spent on 3,200 eternal life towers, about 400
mosaic murals and 23-metre high Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il
statues.163
5. In each and every household in the DPRK, there must be at
least three framed pictures on display, i.e. one of Kim Il-
sung, one of Kim Jong-il and one of the two of them appearing
to be in discussion. Kim Jong-un's picture has not yet been
ordered to be displayed. This may be in keeping with the
example set by Kim Jong-il. He did not add his own image until
the end of the traditional mourning period of three years
following his father's death. It has been widely reported how
every DPRK citizen must wear a badge or lapel pin with Kim Il-
sung's portrait as a sign of loyalty.164 Everyone is also
expected to bow to these portraits and to always make sure
that they are kept in pristine condition.165
6. As the following accounts illustrate, any damage to or
destruction of the images of the leaders is considered a
political crime subject to the harshest of punishments.
* One witness described how his father had unintentionally soiled
an image of Kim Jong-il printed in a used newspaper which he had
used to mop up spilt drink and was consequently sent to a
political prison camp (kwanliso). The rest of the family was
spared this fate, but was rendered as a family with hostile
songbun and thus suffered decades of harsh official
discrimination.166
* According to one witness, a staff member of a hospital in North
Hamgyong Province was investigated by the State Security
Department (SSD) for one month after accidently breaking the
glass on a portrait of Kim Il-sung whilst carrying out the
mandatory weekly cleaning of it.167
1. In July 2012, KCNA published the supposed testimony of a man
who was allegedly involved on behalf of the ROK and the USA in
what the authorities described as "terrorist activities"
designed to destroy Kim family statues and monuments. The
article implied that the man would be executed.168 Other
sources verified that he was indeed executed for his alleged
actions.169
2. Propaganda permeates every aspect of the lives of citizens of
the DPRK. Apart from the state-controlled media, they are also
exposed to inescapable propaganda broadcasts in their homes
and in public spaces. A foreigner who had visited DPRK
recounted to the Commission how she was struck by the
pervasiveness of loudspeaker systems broadcasting state
propaganda in public.170 In addition to the controlled
television and radio broadcasting (see below), DPRK nationals
receive information from the state through "fixed line"
broadcasting. The fixed line system operates through the use
of speakers in every DPRK household. These speakers are
inspected regularly by officials to ensure they are still
functioning. These fixed lines are often used for broadcasting
"forbidden" news and information (i.e. news that the outside
world is not supposed to know) and also for emergency
situations. Information that is transmitted through the fixed
lines includes conditions of factories and farmlands, and how
each collective farming effort has performed in output and
production. Details regarding criminals, the crimes they have
committed and the punishments imposed are also transmitted
through the fixed lines. The names of criminals are released
along with their places of residence so that others are
alerted and also deterred from committing the same crime.171
* Ms Jeong Jin-hwa worked as a newspaper reader for the radio
system on the trains. While some private transport services have
recently emerged, rail remains the main mode of public transport
for long distances in the DPRK. As such, it provides an excellent
opportunity for indoctrination. As a reader on these trains, Ms
Jeong was given specific instructions from Pyongyang on which
specific articles from the Rodong Sinmun (the official newspaper
of the Workers' Party of Korea) she had to read. In addition, to
reading these articles live over the train radio system, she was
also sent cassette tapes (later compact discs) containing news
and other pre-recorded items from the Party Propaganda Department
in Pyongyang to be played on the train radio system.172
She stated:"And it seems that the Workers' Party papers that I read
now are the same as the papers I read 20 years ago. On the first
page and on the second page they deal with political issues about
what's happening with the Kim family, that's dealt with in section
1 and section 2. Section 3 and section 4 of the paper talk about
the development, about the economies and about some of the issues
related to residents of North Korea. And section 5 and section 6
deal with other countries, such as South Korea and the United
States. And so what's dealt with in the paper, that is the
newspaper, is the same right now as it was 20 years ago."173
1. Readers are specifically trained at the Office of Speaking
Guidance in the Workers' Party of Korea on how to read the
articles. There is a manual on how to speak and enunciate. For
example, when saying the name of the Great Leader or the Dear
Leader, there is a special slow and high pitch that had to be
used to convey admiration and endearment. On the other hand,
when speaking about the Americans or the South Koreans, a
pitch that is grating is used. The words are chewed in order
to convey hostility and hatred. On every train, there was a
political agent whose job was to not only monitor the
passengers but also the train crew including the radio news
readers. A reader could get into trouble for mispronouncing or
stumbling over the names of the Great or the Dear Leader. When
the electricity current on the train got too low, the tape
recording would become distorted. On these occasions, the
reader had to quickly take out the cassette to prevent the
names of the Leaders from being broadcast in a distorted and
therefore unacceptable way.
2. The people of the DPRK are taught from young to revere the Kim
family and to internalize the state ideology as their own
thoughts and conscience. The Commission finds that throughout
the lives of the DPRK citizens, whether at work or outside of
it, the activities of citizens are regulated and closely
monitored by the state. The individual has no option but to
participate in state-directed associations and activities; as
otherwise, one's record would be tainted and opportunity for
upward mobility would be impeded.
2. Control of information through tightly controlled State media
and prohibition of any external information, including non-
political information
1. Summing up the impressions that numerous persons who fled the
DPRK conveyed to the Commission, one witness emphatically
stated :
"You are brainwashed … don't know the life outside. You are
brainwashed from the time you know how to talk, about 4 years of
age, from nursery school, brainwashing through education, this
happens everywhere in life, society, even at home … North Korea is
not open to the outside world, is a fenced world. So nothing should
come through that fence. Even listening to the radio, this is
restricted to certain channels. They want the people to be blind,
deaf to the outside world, so that the people won't know what is
happening."174
(a) Control of television and radio
1. There are four television channels that are broadcast in the
DPRK. One channel is for the "ordinary people", i.e. outside
Pyongyang, called Chosun Central Television. Another channel
is only for Pyongyang residents called Education and Cultural
Broadcasting. A third channel, Kaesong Television, is
broadcast to the ROK. On weekends, there is a fourth channel
for foreigners called Mansudae Television. Foreigners in
Pyongyang can watch the other channels in the Korean language
whereas Mansudae Television broadcasts programmes in their
original language with subtitles in Korean. There are
programmes in Chinese and Russian. People in Pyongsong, Nampo,
and other regions close to Pyongyang can also watch those
channels meant for Pyongyang residents such as Education and
Cultural Broadcasting and Mansudae Television.175
2. In addition to direct propaganda programming, there may be
other programmes with songs and dramas. Their underlying
message, however, remains about being loyal to the state. Even
a romance between a man and a woman typically includes their
pledging allegiance to the government.176 Cinema is also
directed, under the instructions of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-
il, to "play a mobilizing role in each stage of the
revolutionary struggle."177
3. When people buy television sets in the DPRK, they have to
register the television with a government authority, the
Transmission Surveillance Bureau of the SSD, referred to as
Department or Bureau 27. This bureau is responsible for
modifying the equipment so that it is able to receive only the
approved channel(s) and to block off television channels
broadcast from the ROK, China and Russia. The DPRK also
deploys sophisticated jamming equipment to block foreign
television broadcasts.178 However, such jamming efforts face
limitations considering they are energy-intensive while the
DPRK commonly suffers from energy shortages.
4. Due to the different capabilities of radio wave frequencies
and the changing radio signals depending on atmospheric
conditions and solar activity, it is much harder to control
radio transmissions. For example, the radio channel used to
listen to "Chosun Central Broadcasting" (a state-approved
channel) in the summer switches to an ROK radio channel called
"One-Nation Broadcasting" in the winter. For this reason, the
state does not normally permit ordinary DPRK residents to own
radios. Radios inside cars and automobiles are removed before
ordinary DPRK citizens can acquire a vehicle. DPRK citizens
are allowed to own cassette recorders. These are usually
foreign produced and come equipped with a radio; the
"Communication Maintenance Bureau" and Ministry of People's
Security (MPS) is responsible for removing the radio
components of the cassette recorder before it can be used by
ordinary citizens. Free-dial radios are confined to specific
organizations, or are used by the military for purposes of
emergency situations.179
5. DPRK citizens with some technical knowledge are able to listen
to the radio, including foreign broadcasts, while avoiding
detection. A skilled technician can substitute the missing
components in a recorder such that a nail can be used
externally to complete the circuit to allow someone listening
to the radio using earphones to appear as if he or she was
simply listening to the recorder. Short wave radio broadcasts
produced by stations located in or set up by the ROK are also
easily accessible with appropriate equipment.180 Several of
these Seoul-based radio stations, some funded by the USA, are
run by former DPRK nationals and provide listeners with not
only news from outside the DPRK but also news regarding the
DPRK and the government's activities not normally broadcast
internally.181
6. As portable free-tuning radios from China are inexpensive and
can easily be concealed, DPRK citizens are also reported to
secretly purchase and smuggle these into the country, despite
the obvious risks of being caught with one.182 Kim Jong-il
reportedly issued an order in 1999 to the SSD that anyone
found to have a small mobile radio should be treated as a spy.
Department 27 officials carry out surprise inspection visits
to private households in order to investigate whether people
have manipulated their state-approved radios/recorders and
televisions or secretly acquired equipment, smuggled in from
China, in order to receive foreign broadcasts. If anyone is
detected with forbidden equipment, their television set or
radio is confiscated and they are sent for ideology re-
education. If they are officials, they are liable to lose
their positions.183
* One witness, who worked as an inspector checking televisions and
radios in North Hamgyong Province near the Chinese border,
described how he had to check the equipment in an area inhabited
by privileged officials. He remembered once catching a mother who
allowed her small children to watch the cartoon "Tom and Jerry"
on Chinese television. The mother pleaded with him not to report
her, and, in exchange for a bribe, he did not.184
(b) Control of print media and the Internet, and other means of
communication
1. In 2009, the DPRK informed the Human Rights Council that there
are 480 newspapers published and circulated in the DPRK at
national and provincial levels, factories, enterprises and
universities. It was also claimed that there "were hundreds of
kinds of magazines published by scores of publishing
houses."185
2. A witness who worked in the state media apparatus in the DPRK
told the Commission that all of these newspapers, despite
their different titles and reporters, have essentially the
same content. All media content, including television,
newspapers and radio, is controlled by the Publication and
Broadcasting Department which operates within the Propaganda
Department of the Workers' Party of Korea.
3. There is no editorial freedom in the DPRK; all stories
published at all levels are pre-determined and centrally
controlled. The Publication and Broadcasting Department issues
a "monthly plan for publication and report" to the Central
Party and each regional newspaper agency, broadcasting bodies,
and magazine publishing houses. All publication, broadcasting
and magazine publishing entities formulate their work plan
based on this monthly plan.186 For example, if the government
were to order that more grass eating animals are to be reared,
all media content down to the regional levels would relate to
this topic.187
4. All content prepared by journalists goes through several
layers of review. While editing does occur, the layers of
review relate more to censorship; ensuring that content is in
line with the directive and state ideology.188 Journalists are
liable to be admonished for seemingly minor mistakes in not
adhering to the Publication and Broadcasting Department
directive or the state ideology.189
* Mr Jang Hae-sung provided testimony at the Seoul Public Hearing
of the Commission saying that he made a typographical error and
misspelled Kim Il-sung's name in a report. He was sent to a
training camp for six months as punishment for this
transgression.190
1. Local journalists are not ordinarily allowed to go abroad on
reporting assignments. A very small number of journalists at
the central level would be permitted to go overseas on
assignment, usually to China or Russia. Foreign correspondents
in the DPRK, initially mainly coming from China, Russia and
Cuba, are apparently only allowed to write stories
complimentary of the DPRK. They are also not allowed to speak
to the general population.191 It has been often reported that
the DPRK permits foreign media only for occasional visits,
usually for important ceremonial events. In those situations,
the foreign journalists are subject to restricted movement and
must be accompanied by officials at all times.
2. There has been some recent liberalization of restrictions on
foreign journalists operating within the DPRK though the
system is still far from free. Associated Press (AP) opened a
western news bureau in January 2012. It claimed at the time
that its Pyongyang bureau, which is based inside the official
Korean Central News Agency, would operate under the same
standards and practices as AP bureaux worldwide.192 A foreign
correspondent (who is part of a small team of AP journalists
who are allowed to visit the DPRK on a regular basis) spoke of
having a minder accompanying him at all times during field
visits. Attempting to evade the minder was not possible as the
journalist would have had their visa revoked in response.
Requests to view certain events or locations not already
planned by the authorities are usually declined. Official
permission is also required for ordinary citizens to meet
foreigners. Members of the public who are introduced by the
minders to foreign journalists typically have only positive
things to say about the situation in the country.193
* One witness spoke of having to memorize a script which was
incomprehensible to her and other employees of a public facility
which was expected to receive foreign officials inspecting the
facility. As the Party secretary was expected to accompany the
inspectors, everyone was fearful and practised the given script
repeatedly so as not to make a mistake.194
* Another witness described having a friend who worked in the
Propaganda department. His friend told him that when there were
inter-Korean or other international meetings, the department
would provide a script to be followed by participating DPRK
officials. If someone diverted from the script, the meeting would
be halted and that person would be reproached.195
1. The Commission learned that while it is possible for an
individual to have a telephone installed in the DPRK, it is
restricted and extremely expensive. Wiretapping of such
telephones was also found to be "enforced in an effort to cut
off and control the flow of information."196It was reported in
mid-2013 that the only 3G mobile provider in the DPRK is now
nearing 2 million subscribers (close to ten per cent of the
population). Mobile phone usage was apparently rare before the
North Korean mobile phone service, ‘Koryolink', was launched
in 2008. The service is now available in all major cities and
along main roads and rail routes across the country. While the
service includes voice calls and SMS, the government does not
allow its citizens to make international calls or connect to
the Internet. Foreigners and tourists visiting the country are
allowed to use the Internet and international communication,
but are barred from contacting most domestic telephone
lines.197 Koryolink also reportedly sells a Chinese-made
mobile phone with only basic functions.198
2. While around 2 million citizens are said have access to
computers, they only have access to an intranet system that
contains information filtered and determined by the
government. Internet access is restricted to a limited few
such as universities or some members of the elite.199Computers
must be registered with the authorities including those for
official organizational use and home computers are not
connected to the intranet system.200
3. Reportedly, following the execution in December 2013 of Kim
Jong-un's uncle, Jang Song-thaek, about 35,000 articles from
the KCNA website and a further 20,000 items from the Rodong
Sinmun website were removed.201 This appears to be part of the
wider efforts to purge Mr Jang from the DPRK's (political)
history and is reflective of how the state controls and
manipulates information to support its official position.
4. Department 27 is also believed to be responsible for
monitoring email transmissions, and the use of mobile phones
and satellite phones including those of foreigners.202
Surveillance apparatus in the DPRK is increasingly
sophisticated, and the areas monitored are increasingly
expanding beyond the border areas. Information received by the
Commission indicates that the SSD employs a large number of
hackers who interfere with websites critical of the regime.203
* Mr Kim Joo-il, who fled the DPRK and now runs a website with
political news and human rights information about the DPRK,
testified before the Commission that his page was attacked on so
many occasions that his service provider had informed him that it
was no longer willing to host the webpage.204
(c) Crackdown on foreign movies and mobile telephones
1. All CDs and DVDs used in the DPRK must have a stamp to show
they are government approved. Over the last few years with the
growth of informal markets, movies and recorded television
programmes from the Republic of Korea are increasingly being
smuggled into the DPRK for use on CD/DVD players and mini disk
drives. Local officials, sometimes including SSD agents, or
persons connected to these officials, are often involved in
secretly selling and distributing ROK films. A 2012 study on
the changing media environment in the DPRK found that half of
its sample reported having watched a foreign DVD.205
2. Many witnesses spoke about crackdowns and inspections
searching for ROK soap operas and films on DVDs, CDs and USB
sticks. They recounted personally being caught and punished
for watching ROK content, or knowing people who were subject
to such treatment.206 The minimum punishment for those found
to have watched South Korean films or with South Korean films
in their possession was a period in a labour re-education
centre.207
3. Articles 194 and 195 of the DPRK's 2009 Criminal Code provide
for the punishment of reform through labour for any period
less than five years, depending on the gravity of the offence,
with respect to the "conduct of decadent acts" such as
"watching or listening to music, dance, drawings, photos,
books, video-recordings or electronic media that reflects
decadent, carnal or foul contents" as well as "listening to
hostile broadcasting and collect[ing], keeping and distribut
[ing] enemy propaganda".208
* Ms L testified that she regularly watched ROK movies on a hard
disk or CD, but she was very scared of being caught. Some of the
vendors were shot to death. She was asked by the municipality to
go to one of the executions, but did not do so. The authorities
could not force her, because she was out of school and they could
not easily locate her. In her home province, there was a special
security force that was assigned to crack down on the viewing of
South Korean movies. They conducted door to door searches and
checked people's CD players. On some occasions, they waited for
the electricity power to come on and then deliberately cut it, so
that people could not take out the CD from the player. On one
occasion, a friend threw his CD player out of the window, so as
not to get caught. Around 2006, one of her sister's friends, a 31
year old woman and her brother were caught watching South Korean
movies and were tortured. She was detained for one month, during
which she was deprived of sleep and beaten. She had to write a
long apology for days on end. Shortly after her release, Ms L saw
the woman and noticed how thin she was. She also heard that the
woman's brother was beaten so badly that he could not walk for a
while.209
* A former SSD official, who served in a border province, indicated
that the SSD would be responsible for monitoring illegal
importation of "capitalist" goods such as soap operas from the
ROK and pornographic material. Those implicated in such crimes
would be shot to death or sent to an ordinary prison camp
(kyohwaso) for 10-15 years depending on the severity of the crime
and level of involvement.210
* One witness informed the Commission that, in 2008, a relative of
hers had watched CD-roms from China and then gave the CD-roms to
his friends. He was arrested by the local authorities and "tried"
publically, and eventually executed in Hoeryong.211
1. The Commission was informed by several witnesses that orders
were apparently handed down directly by the Supreme Leader to
crack down on foreign movies. Group 109, an inter-agency
surveillance group named after the date of its establishment
on 9 October 2003 by Kim Jong-il, is mentioned as being
responsible for specifically cracking down on these items.212
Group 109 also gathered people in a stadium, more than twice a
month, as spectators to those who had been caught and would be
sent to an ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso) as a warning for
the rest.213 According to one former SSD agent, Group 109 was
made permanent in 2009 and with more specialized agents.214
* According to one witness, there was a very large crackdown under
the order of Kim Jong-il on items illegally imported from the ROK
and other prohibited goods into the DPRK towards the end of 2004.
A central inspection group was reportedly established, comprising
representatives from the Central Committee of the Workers' Party
of Korea, the prosecutor's office, the judiciary, SSD
intelligence, the police, the Youth League, Women's Union, and
Workers' Organization. The central inspection group had full
authority to undertake inspections, arrests and imprisonment. It
had the objective of "clearing" the areas near the border
including Musan, Hoeryong, and Onsong in North Hamgyong Province,
and in Ryanggang Province. Examples of prohibited items included
illegal books (such as books not printed in the DPRK, and
religious and other DPRK books published without Government
approval) and illegal recordings (such as CD-roms, video tapes,
and memory cards) from foreign countries. Illegal activities
involving trafficking in persons and smuggling, as well as any
activities related to defecting from the DPRK, also fell under
the purview of this central inspection group. During this
crackdown, the witness, who had been involved in smuggling CDs
and tapes from China, was arrested and sent to Kyohwaso Jeongori
Camp No. 12 where he was detained for six years.215
1. The crackdown on foreign movies has been reinforced again from
2010 when Kim Jong-un became the designated successor and
started assuming control. Orders were reportedly handed down
from the Supreme Leader ordering the security agencies to form
an inter-agency task force to crack down on the smuggling of
movies and also on drug trafficking.216 In January 2013, the
MPS apparently issued a proclamation on behalf of the National
Defence Commission that urged the population to report various
types of behaviour to the security forces, including
possessing "strange and decadent" goods such as recordings,
videos, pictures and publications, which do not conform to the
local custom, and watching and distributing foreign television
shows. In October and November 2013, a string of public
executions reportedly occurred targeting people mainly for
watching and distributing foreign pornographic material and
movies from the ROK.217
2. DVDs reportedly became available to DPRK nationals from early
to mid-2000s and remain popular. More recently new media
devices such as MP3 players and USB flash drives are
increasingly being used to watch and listen to foreign content
as well as to share information.218 In November 2013, it was
reported that the "North Korean authorities are focusing on
Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives and Enhanced Versatile
Disc (EVD) players they believe are the primary way the
recordings are being smuggled into the country."219
3. People living along the border with China have also recently
started using mobile phones of Chinese service providers to
make unauthorized international telephone calls. Some offer
this service to others for a fee. Although the use of illegal
Chinese mobile phones and/or service providers is limited by
geography and carries a high risk for those who are caught, it
has been found to have a large impact on cross-border trade,
efforts by separated family members in maintaining contact
with each other including for purposes of arranging border
crossings, and the flow of information into and out of the
DPRK.220 The authorities consider the unauthorized use of
foreign mobile phones to be a political crime. Department 27
has deployed sophisticated monitoring equipment to pick up the
emissions of Chinese mobile phones.221 Those caught are
subject to interrogation by the SSD, often under torture.
Users are regularly subject to imprisonment in a labour
training camp or sometimes an ordinary prison camp
(kyohwaso).222
* In 2009, one witness, who was planning to flee the DPRK, was
caught while calling from a mobile phone through a localization
device employed by the SSD. He was stripped and searched. When
the mobile phone was discovered, the agents accused him of
espionage and beat him, before detaining him at the SSD
Interrogation Detention Centre in Hyesan, Ryanggang Province. In
detention, the agents took turns beating him with a piece of
wood. He lost his teeth in the lower jaw. The witness managed to
escape and was later told by a contact in the SSD that he would
have been executed if he had stayed.223
* Another witness recalled a man being arrested for the use of a
Chinese mobile phone and involvement in smuggling activities in
2006. He was interrogated by the SSD and severely tortured,
resulting in head injuries and fractured bones. The victim was
released without further punishment following the payment of a
substantial bribe.224
1. The Commission finds that the DPRK strictly controls the
information and opinions that reach the population through
media as a necessary precursor to indoctrinating the
population. No local private media is allowed to exist in the
DPRK. The state media is subject to central level direction
and strict censorship to further the objectives of the state
and the Party. The DPRK further cracks down systematically on
any attempts or enterprise which might allow foreign
influences into the country, whether through
telecommunications or information technology.
3. Suppression of freedom of expression and opinion through
surveillance and violence
1. Intensive state indoctrination occurs in an environment where
the exercise of the right to express facts and opinions
critical of the state or its official ideology is not
tolerated. One submission received by the Commission
highlighted that,
[L]ack of freedom of expression does not only mean a prohibition of
certain things. It rather means that everybody has to talk and
behave in a certain manner. If, for example, a DPRK citizen who
participates in a mass gathering fails to shout "man se" ("May he
live 10,000 years!") and to applaud at the appearance of the "Dear
respected Marshall" Kim Jong Un, he might be denounced and
punished.225
1. Among the long list of offenses allegedly committed by Jang
Song-thaek, uncle to Kim Jong-un, who was executed in December
2013, was "unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-
heartedly clapping" when Kim Jong-un was elected vice-chair of
the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea
and announced at the Party's Third Conference.226
2. A witness related to the Commission how he was discouraged
since his youth by his parents from aspiring to become a
writer as no one could write freely.227 In the DPRK, one can
only write about matters which put Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il
and the Workers' Party of Korea in a good light. Writers who
write beyond this remit were liable to be arrested and treated
as political criminals.228
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr Jang Hae-sung told the
Commission: "My friends, people who used to be writers … [w]e are
never allowed to write our ideas, our thoughts … for example,
this writer, he slipped when he was talking to someone else. He
was drunk at the time, he slipped and he said that writers are
never allowed to write their ideas and just by saying that, he
was sent to Yodok, Camp No. 15..."229
* Ms Jeong Jin-hwa during the same session of the Seoul Public
Hearing added: "There are lots of people who were taken like
that, especially in the media. If you are in the media in North
Korea, if you slip, it becomes a political issue. And as Mr. Jang
said, we saw a lot of people taken away to the kwanliso, the
political camps. So some people, the general criminals go to the
correctional camps, but these writers, the people in the media,
if they slip just once, they can disappear overnight and their
family can be gone overnight, and sometimes, the three
generations are wiped [out]. So you see, some people are told
that, people think that they deserve it because they turned their
backs on the regime. This is what the people think."230
* One witness recalled memorizing children's songs such as
"Revolutionary Army Game", as part of the nation's required music
curriculum. Only classical music pieces composed before 1899
could be played, and works by the Russian composer Rachmaninoff
for example were off limits because he had migrated to the USA.
The purpose of music in the DPRK was to inspire adoration of the
leader and the belief that socialism will triumph. Accordingly,
only pieces that convey admiration for the Kim family and instil
loyalty towards the nation and the Party are allowed. Popular
music of the West and ROK is totally banned. A person responsible
would be punished if caught for playing music of this genre.231
1. Witnesses interviewed by the Commission, while they did not
understand the basis for the law, knew that expressing their
opinion freely was not acceptable in the DPRK. When asked
about why no one would protest against the harsh living
conditions and strict rules the population in the DPRK was
subjected to, witnesses indicated that such protest was
unimaginable and no one would dare to protest. As explained by
Mr Kim Jong-su, "protest is equivalent to death".232
2. In its submission to the Human Rights Committee, the DPRK
highlighted that its citizens are guaranteed the right to
freedom of opinion and expression under the Constitution and
the Press Law. This right is not without qualification
however; "such expression of one's thought is forbidden as
encouraging others to attempt to overthrow, disrupt or
undermine the state, disclosing state secrets to do serious
harm to the state security and the healthy public order,
insulting another or impairing his or her honour".233
3. In responding to a question posed by a member of the Committee
on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights on how the Government
reconciled the difference between individual rights and
collective rights under the Covenant, one DPRK representative
said,
Individual and collective rights were intertwined: what was
good for the individual was good for the group and vice-versa.
Since individuals lived in society, there should be harmony
between individual and collective needs. If an individual
expressed an opinion that was contrary to that of the group,
the opinion would be taken into consideration, but efforts
would also be made to persuade the individual to bring his or
her opinion into harmony with the collective opinion. Care was
taken not to resort to oppression in such cases.234
4. The Commission recalls that the Human Rights Committee
considers the right to hold opinions without interference to
be one which the ICCPR permits no exception or restriction.
"All forms of opinion are protected, including opinions of a
political, scientific, historic, moral or religious nature. It
is incompatible with paragraph 1 to criminalize the holding of
an opinion. The harassment, intimidation or stigmatization of
a person, including arrest, detention, trial or imprisonment
for reasons of the opinions they may hold, constitutes a
violation of article 19, paragraph 1 … Any form of effort to
coerce the holding or not holding of any opinion is
prohibited".235 The CRC also obliges states to respect every
child's right to express their views freely,236 and the right
to seek and impart information and ideas of all kinds, either
orally, in writing or print, through art or any other
media.237
5. The population is in fact encouraged to denounce any conduct
that may pose a threat to the political system and its
leadership. The Commission received a document, reportedly
issued by the Ministry of Public Safety in January 2013, which
provides a list of 18 acts or "behaviours" that are to be
reported to the security forces. This list includes:
committing anti-state, anti-national crimes and promoting to
commit them; meeting foreigners illegally and exchanging
letters and goods; behaviours which corrupt public morals; and
all other kinds of "abnormal behaviours".
(a) Monitoring and surveillance system
1. The state has established a vast surveillance apparatus to
become aware of the expression of sentiments deemed anti-state
or anti-revolutionary. This includes the setting up of a large
network of secret informers, who operate in all areas of life.
In addition to the monitoring carried out by the officials of
the mass organizations, of which membership is compulsory for
all citizens, there is also the Neighbourhood Watch.
2. The Neighbourhood Watch (Inminban) is made up of about 20-40
households with a leader appointed to report to the police or
SSD on unusual activities in the neighbourhood including
unregistered visitors and monitor for anti-state activities
and expressions of dissent. Sometimes villagers are also given
orders by security agents to spy on their neighbours.238 The
Neighbourhood Watch has been described to be responsible for
registering residents, monitoring their activities, providing
ideological education, and mobilizing people for various
campaigns with leaders appointed by local party committees.
The Neighbourhood Watch scrutinizes the intimate details of
family life. It also has the authority to visit homes at any
time, even at night, to determine if there were unregistered
guests or adulterous activities, and to report these to
security organs for action.239
3. The Commission learned that even casual remarks shared in a
small circle could end up being reported by informants,
leading to serious consequences.
* Mr Son Jung-hun was working in a trading company within the
Central Committee when he visited the house of his chief for a
small New Year gathering in January 1996. There he saw scenes
from a video tape recording of Western military weaponry
including fighter jets. He made the mistake of saying out loud
that the technology was quite developed. His act of making this
statement was reported, and he was called in for questioning. He
was accused of praising capitalist nations and though he was not
charged or arrested (due to his good songbun and general good
behaviour), he was removed from his position.240
1. The monitoring of the individual's actions to assess and
determine their loyalty happens at various junctures in their
life.
* Mr Kim Joo-il explained at the London Public Hearing, for
example, how the Korean People's Army has a two-track system of
official political monitoring whereby the commanding captain and
a second political officer of a company monitor the soldiers'
political loyalty and then report to the Korean People's Army
(KPA) political department run by the Workers' Party of Korea. In
addition, every platoon stationed close to the Demilitarized Zone
also had an officer from the KPA's Military Security Command (the
army's own secret police). Every morning, they would participate
in an indoctrination session from 9 to 11 a.m.241
* One witness stated that in the DPRK, people with low songbun are
required to monitor each other. Her father could not join the
Party. He was nonetheless forced to work as a spy for the SSD,
investigating the Japanese wife of his friend because the SSD
wanted to learn more about letters that she was receiving. The
witness also described the general fear most people live in.
People cannot tell their families what they think or talk about
attempting to escape the DPRK. An elderly woman in her
neighbourhood was imprisoned in Camp No. 15 at Yodok for 10 years
after her daughter-in-law told authorities of plans to escape
involving her and her son. When the witness's family (her mother,
father, sister, brother, husband and daughter) left the DPRK,
they did not tell her uncle. After they left, they heard that he
was interrogated and severely tortured. His injuries were so
severe that he was unable to move for a long time after the
torture.242
1. Witnesses also spoke of how their movements or the movements
of their family members were monitored more closely because of
their backgrounds.243
2. Having come from South Korea, Mr Lee Jae-geun, who provided
information to the Commission in Seoul, felt that he was under
close surveillance. He stated how there were seven levels of
surveillance monitoring him, and that everyone was watching
every single word he uttered, every single act he undertook.
Anything that appeared suspicious was reported to the SSD.244
* One witness, whose parents were born in Japan and then "returned"
to the DPRK, believed that their family was closely monitored
because they were returnees. Her parents never talked about their
former life in Japan. They advised her never to talk about Japan
in her school. Party officials came to their home and questioned
the family, particularly when they received mail from Japan.245
* A Japanese national, who had moved to the DPRK with her adoptive
parents and later married a Korean who had also "returned" from
Japan, recalled having to write in all letters that they were
living well thanks to Kim Il-sung, and that all letters they
received appeared to have been opened before they received
them.246
* One witness spoke of the 10th Chamber which falls under the
Department of Organization Guidance under the Secretariat of the
Party Central Committee that is responsible for monitoring and
carrying out surveillance on those who interact and fraternize
with relatives of the Kim family. It was necessary to submit a
report to the 10th Chamber about all interactions with the Kim
family. Passing the second son of the second wife of Kim Il-sung
in the corridor and being acknowledged by him was sufficient
interaction that a report was necessary. The witness also related
how one official who had been running errands for a similar
relative of Kim Il-sung while posted abroad was reportedly
admonished and returned to the DPRK following a surveillance
report from the 10th Chamber.247
1. In addition to crackdowns against foreign items such as DVDs
described above, there are also central inspection groups set
up to regularly carry out inspections targeting specific
crimes and wrongdoings including on activities deemed to be
anti-socialist, such as drug abuse, and dealing with homeless
people and vagrants.248 At a lower level, groups of citizens
are also mobilized to crack down on what are referred to as
morality violations. These are violations of decrees that are
handed down from time to time like the prohibition against
women wearing trousers or riding a bicycle.249 One crackdown
in 2009 on gambling in the parks of Pyongyang led to those
caught being sent to an ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso) and
their families exiled from Pyongyang.250
2. In the rare event that political criticism is publically
voiced, this is considered a major event and is harshly
punished.
* The Commission was informed by a witness of a young worker who
had hung up a few dozen hand-printed posters in the city of Nampo
that called for the overthrow of Kim Jong-il in June 2001. This
was considered a major political incident and KPA Security
Command, MPS and SSD formed a joint taskforce to investigate the
case. Kim Jong-il was notified and he apparently personally
issued orders to track down the suspects and persecute them
severely. Over the course of 5 months, the security agencies took
writing samples from every inhabitant above the age of 10. The
man was caught after he confided about his conduct to a friend
who was an informant. Despite intense torture, the man did not
implicate any co-conspirators and the investigators concluded
that he had acted alone. For political reasons, however, the
security agencies spread rumours that the man had been corrupted
by viewing foreign movies and pornography and eventually agreed
to commit the crime as a spy acting on behalf of the USA. Based
on a conviction by the Military Supreme Court, the man was
executed by hanging. His immediate family and the entire city
population were forced to watch. The wife of the victim was
forced to immediately divorce him when he was arrested so as to
avoid guilt by association. His mother and two sisters were sent
to Kwanliso No. 15.251
1. There have been recent commentaries regarding DPRK citizens
increasingly expressing openly their anger about the economic
conditions. It was reported, for example, that when women
under 50 were banned from trading in the open markets in North
Hamgyong Province in early 2008, a protest staged by groups of
women led to a relaxing of the ban. A wave of protests was
said to have taken place during the DPRK's failed attempt at
currency reform towards the end of 2009. People were seen
burning old currency notes in public in protest. This was
however followed by reports of around 50 executions taking
place including of the officials supposedly responsible for
the policy reform. In early 2011, when electricity was
diverted from North Pyongan Province to light up Pyongyang in
commemoration of Kim Jong-il's birthday, the people there had
spontaneously protested, demanding both food and
electricity.252
2. The Commission noted that these random protests are mostly
about economic conditions rather than direct criticisms
against the state. The two appear to be closely connected; and
as information from the outside world comes through from China
to the DPRK border areas and trickles inland, increasing
numbers of DPRK citizens learn of different truths. With the
recent execution of the supposed second most powerful person
after the Supreme Leader, however, and purges of those
associated with the former, the people are again warned of the
state's apparently arbitrary power over life and death and its
determination to stem anti-state or anti-revolutionary
activities.
4. Denial of freedom of religion and of religious expression
1. Freedom of religion and religious expression are guaranteed in
articles 18 and 19 of the ICCPR, as well as articles 13 and 14
of the CRC. Both treaties not only call for State Parties to
recognize these rights, but also to protect associated rights
to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.253 Despite
being a State Party to these treaties, the Commission finds
that these protections are not afforded to DPRK citizens who
are consequently unable to practise the religion of their
choosing.
(a) Institutionalization of the personality cult
1. At the London Public Hearing, the Reverend Stuart Windsor
provided testimony regarding the institutionalization of "the
personality cult and requirement of unwavering obedience" such
that "no political deviation is tolerated".254 The reverence
and idolatry of Kim Il-sung was compared to a religious
belief, and several sub-principles of the Ten Principles were
highlighted to contain elements indicating the religious
nature of the state ideology.255In particular, Principle 4 of
the Ten Principles states:
Accept the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung's revolutionary thought
as your belief and take the Great Leader's instructions as your
creed. Accepting the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung's thought as
one's own belief and taking his instructions as one's creed is the
most crucial element requested for one to become an endlessly loyal
Juche communist warrior. It is also a precondition for the victory
of our revolutionary struggle and its construction.
1. In Seoul, Mr A told the Commission that, "[i]n North Korea,
the only ideology, the only religion that is allowed is the
ideology of Kim Il-sung".256 The Commission finds that the
intolerance and non-acceptance of any other belief system than
that of the official state ideology effectively meant the
intolerance and non-acceptance of the people's right to
freedom of religion and the freedom to have or to adopt a
religion or belief of one's choice.
* Mrs X at the Washington hearing stated: "Well you can consider
the entire North Korean society as some sort of religious group
with the religious leader being Kim Il-sung and their Bible being
the Juche or self-reliance ideology. So if there are any other
religions be that Christianity or Catholicism or whatever, if
there's any other religions that are somewhat in competition with
that -- their main religion then it will be undermining the basic
foundation of the Kim Il-sung religion so that will mean more
difficulty for the leadership to maintain or the control of the
society. So if the North Koreans start to realize that Kim Il-
sung might not be the real god and there might be some other god
out there then it's not a good thing for the leadership and
that's why they wanted to avoid all the other religions occurring
in North Korean society and persecuted other religions."257
1. The DPRK Constitution provides for freedom of religion in
article 68. This is a qualified right as approval must be
sought for the construction of religious buildings and the
holding of religious ceremonies. It further provides that,
"Religion must not be used as a pretext for drawing in foreign
forces or for harming the state and social order".
2. Christianity has a long history in Korea with first contacts
dating back to the 17th century. It gained particular traction
in the North, and Pyongyang was sometimes described as the
"Jerusalem of the East".258 In the 20th century, Cheondogyo, a
religion blending elements of Confucianism, Taoism and
Buddhism emerged and also gained a large number of followers.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide quoted an estimate of more than
28 per cent of the population that had a religious belief in
1950, whereas the 1950 Yearbook of the Workers' Party of Korea
placed the figure at almost 24 per cent. Based on figures
provided by the DPRK to the Human Rights Committee, it is
estimated that only 0.16 per cent of the population followed a
religious belief in 2002.259 Basically, according to official
statistics, there were approximately 38,000 DPRK nationals who
were religious believers in 2002 compared to over 2 million in
1950 (noting that in 1950, the entire population was reported
to number 9 million, compared to approximately 23 million in
2002).260
(b) Religious persecution
1. Information received by the Commission indicates that
religious persecution in the DPRK commenced before the Korean
War. While the rhetoric was that of conciliation and unity
with guarantees of religious freedom, a parallel message being
issued was that religious people are pro-imperialist and pro-
feudalist.261 The overall period of religious oppression has
been described as being divided into four phases (1946-1950:
Pre-Korean War; 1950-1953: Korean War; 1953-1971: pre-
Kimilsungism movement; 1972-present: era of Juche),262 with
the Korean War and pre-Kimilsungism movement periods described
as the most vicious in the persecution of religious believers.
Religious people were killed, exiled and imprisoned.
Christians were said to have been targeted the most as the
movement of Christianity was much more organized than the
other religions and because of its supposed connection with
the USA. Towards the end of the third phase and in preparation
for the fourth and current phase, members of the Chondo Party,
Christians, and Buddhists were included in the Hostile Class
under the Songbun system.263
2. The independent exercise of Christianity grew in the 1990s, as
people who fled to China during the height of the food crisis
came into contact with, and often received aid from, local
churches. Witnesses claimed the existence of underground
churches in the DPRK referring to instances where Christians
congregate secretly in homes or other places to practise their
religion. It has been suggested that clandestine religious
activities have increased since the early 2000s, although more
specific details have been difficult to obtain.264 One
estimate suggests that there are between 200,000 and 400,000
Christians still professing their religion secretly in the
DPRK despite the high risks.265
3. Generally, the DPRK's policy towards religion has been
described to be a dual one through which an appearance of
religious tolerance is maintained for the international
audience while in fact religious activities are suppressed
internally.266
4. In the DPRK's UPR submission, it highlighted the existence of
several officially recognized Christian congregations and
associations of believers of other religions. It was submitted
that:
There are such religious organizations as Korea Christian
Federation, Korea Buddhists' Federation, Korea Roman Catholic
Association, Korea Chondoist Society and Korea Religionists'
Society. In recent years the Pongsu Christian Church, the
Janchung Roman Catholic Church in Pyongyang and Ryongthong
Buddhists' Temple in Kaesong have been rebuilt and expanded,
and the Singye Temple in Mt. Kumgang and Bopun Temple in Mt.
Ryongak restored to their original state. A Russian Orthodox
Church was built in Pyongyang in August 2006, where Russian
religious persons staying in the DPRK are holding religious
ceremonies. The publications of the religious organizations
include ‘Chondoism Scriptures', ‘Chondoism Digest', ‘The Old
Testament', ‘Hymn', ‘Choice and Practice', ‘Let's learn Roman
Catholicism', ‘Steps of Religious Life' and ‘Catholic
Prayer'.267
5. Further, according to DPRK's submission to the Human Rights
Committee in December 1999:
There are religious educational institutions managed by religious
bodies. The Central Committee of the Korean Christians Federation
runs the Pyongyang Theological School, the Central Committee of the
Korean Buddhists Federation [runs] the School of Buddhism, the
Korean Central Guidance Committee of the Believers in Chondogyo
[runs] the Chondogyo Secondary School, and the Central Committeeof
the Korean Association of Roman Catholic also educates students. In
1989 the state newly established the Department of Religion in Kim
Il Sung University in view of the desire of some school parents for
such education of their children.268
1. There are reportedly also some "house churches" which the DPRK
government recognizes and claims to number 500.269 The
participants in these gatherings are apparently individuals
whose families were Christians before 1950; and as such, they
are allowed to gather for worship without leaders or religious
materials. Most of the house churches are in urban areas and
the families who attend are often segregated in separate
housing units. The religious studies that were established in
1989 in the Kim Il-sung University cover Protestantism,
Catholicism, Buddhism, Cheongdyo and Islam.270
2. However, witnesses have claimed that the opportunity to
undertake such studies is limited to only very loyal citizens,
and those who graduate from these studies include those who
carry on to become ministers of state-approved churches.
Further, the Commission learned from witnesses that state-
approved churches exist for the purpose of earning foreign
currency, as those affiliated with such churches are meant to
contact foreigners and raise externally-sourced funds.271
According to one report, former attendees of the university
said, "graduates from [the university] programme work for the
religious federations, the foreign trade sector, or as border
guards seeking to identify clandestine religious activity".
The same report alleges that state-approved churches are
showpieces for foreign visitors.272 Witnesses have also told
the Commission that the churches that have been established
with permission by the state are not true churches that are
open to those who want to practise Christianity freely.273
3. Based on first-hand testimonies received from Christians in
the DPRK, one organization has surmised that: (i) no churches
as such exist in the DPRK except in Pyongyang, and it was
questionable how far the family (or house) churches sanctioned
by the authorities are functioning or free to carry out their
activities; (ii) churches and temples that do exist are
substantially used for external propaganda and political
purposes; and (iii) all former DPRK citizens interviewed
stated that one would certainly be persecuted for practising
religion at a personal level.274 Buddhist temples and shrines
are reported by former DPRK nationals to be maintained only as
heritage and cultural sites, and not as functioning places of
worship.275
(c) Practising Christianity as a political crime
1. The Commission finds that despite the establishment of several
churches with state approval apparently confined to Pyongyang,
the messaging from the state to the people regarding
Christianity clearly suggests that ordinary citizens in the
DPRK are not permitted to be open to Christianity. It has been
compared to a drug, narcotics, a sin, and a tool of Western
and capitalist invasion. Christian missionaries are portrayed
as the product of USA capitalism and work akin to
vampirism.276 This appears in line with what Kim Il-sung has
been quoted to have stated regarding religion: "Religion is a
kind of myth. Whether you believe Jesus or Buddha, it
essentially believes a myth [sic]." He had also further
directed that, "we cannot take religious people to the
socialist society" and "religious people should die to cure
their habit".277
* Mr Kim Song-ju at the London Public Hearing told the Commission:
"To my knowledge, North Korea believes that religion is like
narcotics or drugs, and, as a result, it should be completely
rooted out. This is expressive of the Marxist belief that
religion is the opiate of the masses."278
1. Although the practice of Christianity is not explicitly
criminalized, effectively the authorities consider it a
political crime. The Commission finds that the SSD makes
concerted efforts to identify Christians. One report describes
how security agents are trained to suppress religious
activities, and how they are rewarded for uncovering
clandestine activities on the basis that religious
practitioners are deemed political offenders. These agents
also spoke of being trained in religion so that they might
infiltrate prayer meetings or pose as religious leaders, and
even set up false underground religious meetings.279
Identified Christians are interrogated for longer periods,
usually under torture, in an effort to identify other members
of underground Christian churches. The SSD also monitors the
activities of the Korean churches in China and systematically
interrogates persons repatriated from China to identify
practising Christians among them.
2. One submission, based on extensive testimonies from Christians
clandestinely practising their religion within the DPRK,
presented three reasons why Christians are sought by the
authorities and seen as political criminals: "(1) [They] do
not genuinely worship the leaders, adhere to another ideology
and therefore pose a threat to the stability of the society;
(2) [They] are considered to be spies of ‘Christian states
like South Korea and the United States'; and (3) [They] are
held responsible for the end of the communist bloc in Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union. In Poland, the Roman Catholic
Church was a strong opposing force for example. The protests
that ended Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime in Romania were
triggered by a Hungarian [Protestant] pastor, Laszlo Tokes,
who publicly criticized the government and refused to be
evicted from his church-owned apartment."280
3. The Commission heard from numerous witnesses that those
forcibly repatriated from China were systematically
interrogated about whether they made contacts with churches
and missionaries from the ROK and the USA. Those found to have
engaged in such conduct faced harsher punishment upon
repatriation including being sent to a political prison camp
if they made contact with any foreigners including American or
South Korean missionaries.281 The Commission received the
following testimony:
* One witness explained that she had been specifically questioned
following repatriation about whether she had gone to church in
China. She was caught again another time when she left the DPRK
for China and was tortured and detained for one year to confess
that she was a Christian. She was informed that her friend had
told the authorities of her belief in Christianity. She refused
to confess and was sent to Kyohwaso No. 11.282
* Mr Timothy's father studied Christianity in an "underground
church" in China; and in 2003, he was arrested with 39 other
North Korean Christians. They were all repatriated, and his
father was sent to Yodok Camp. Because of his father's arrest, Mr
Timothy who was about 14 years of age at the time was also sent
to a labour training camp for one year. He nonetheless became a
Christian and spent several years secretly propagating
Christianity in the DPRK. He knew he had to do this in secret
because otherwise he risked being arrested and sent to a
political prison camp for his actions. He also spoke of a fellow
Christian who had been sentenced to a political prison camp
because of his religious belief.283
* Both of Mr A's sisters were punished severely for their religious
belief and activities. One was discovered to be preaching
Christianity to a friend and was caught with a Bible resulting in
a 13 year sentence in an ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso). The
other was caught in China. As a result of the starvation rations
and horrendous living conditions, the first sister almost died in
prison and only survived after Mr A paid a substantial bribe to
free her after three years of confinement. The other sister was
labelled a political criminal because it was discovered that she
had practised Christianity in China and had also attempted to
flee to the ROK. She was sent to Yodok Camp and was never heard
from again.284
* In 2006, China forcibly repatriated Mr Kim Song-ju's mother to
the DPRK. According to his testimony, the Chinese authorities
informed their DPRK counterparts that his mother had practised
Christianity in China. The SSD interrogated Mr Kim's mother for
six months before she was sentenced to three years in a kyohwaso.
However, because of the harsh treatment and the starvation
conditions experienced in SSD detention, she was too weak to be
sent directly to prison. The police sent her to the local
hospital instead. There she was tied to the bed. Mr Kim's uncle
went to visit her, but she was too weak to eat the food he
brought. Mr Kim's mother starved to death, tied to her hospital
bed. The MPS did not notify her relatives so they were unable to
recover her body.285
* One witness gave information that he believed that his son was
arrested by the SSD and sent to Kwanliso No. 18 because he had
taken Bible studies in China with a Korean American pastor who
was then under the surveillance of the SSD.286
1. In 2011, a woman from Ryanggang Province narrowly escaped
arrest by KPA Military Security after a fellow believer gave
away her name under torture. She and other witnesses also
informed the Commission of how people who were caught in the
possession of Bibles were tortured during interrogation and in
some cases executed afterwards.287
2. Despite the toleration of a limited number of state-authorized
houses of worship in Pyongyang and some suggestions to the
contrary, the Commission finds that there is no effective
freedom of religious belief in the DPRK. Such belief is
treated as basically incompatible with, and hostile to, the
state-sponsored personality cult surrounding Kim Il-sung and
his descendants. Countless numbers of persons in the DPRK who
attempt to practise their religious beliefs have been severely
punished, even unto death. In consequence, the population of
religious adherents in the DPRK has fallen from about 24 per
cent of the population in 1950 to only 0.16 per cent of the
population in 2002, estimates provided by the DPRK itself.
5. Principal findings of the commission
1. Throughout the history of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, among the most striking features of the state has been
its claim to an absolute information monopoly and total
control of organized social life. Based on witness
testimonies, the Commission finds that there is almost
complete denial of the right to freedom of thought,
conscience, and religion as well as of the rights to freedom
of opinion, expression, information, and association.
2. The DPRK operates an all-encompassing indoctrination machine
which takes root from childhood to propagate an official
personality cult and to manufacture absolute obedience to the
Supreme Leader (Suryong), effectively to the exclusion of any
independent thought from the official ideology and state
propaganda. Propaganda is further used by the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea to incite nationalistic hatred
towards official enemies of the state: Japan, the United
States of America, and the Republic of Korea, and their
nationals.
3. Virtually all social activities undertaken by citizens of all
ages are controlled by the Workers' Party of Korea. Through
the associations which are run and overseen by the Party, and
to which DPRK nationals are obliged to be members, the state
is able to monitor its citizens as well as to dictate their
daily activities. State surveillance permeates the private
life of all citizens to ensure that no expression critical of
the political system or of its leadership goes undetected.
DPRK nationals are punished for any "anti-state" activities or
expressions of dissent. They are rewarded for reporting on
fellow citizens suspected of committing such "crimes".
4. Citizens are denied the right to access information from
independent sources as state-controlled media is the only
permitted source of information in the DPRK. Access to
television and radio broadcasts, as well as the Internet, is
severely restricted, and all media content is heavily censored
and must adhere to directives issued by the Workers' Party of
Korea. Telephone calls are monitored and mostly confined to
domestic connections for its citizens, who are punished for
watching and listening to foreign broadcasts, including
foreign films and soap operas.
5. Strengthening market forces and advancements in information
technology have allowed greater access to information from
outside the country as information and media from the ROK and
China increasingly enter the country. The state's information
monopoly is therefore being challenged by the increasing flow
of outside information into the country and the ensuing
curiosity of the people for "truths" other than state
propaganda. Authorities seek to preserve the status quo by
carrying out regular crackdowns and enforcing harsher
punishments, to halt the inflow of information and ideas.
6. The spread of Christianity is considered by the DPRK a
particularly serious threat since it ideologically challenges
the official personality cult and provides a platform for
social and political organization and interaction outside the
state realm. Apart from the few organized state-controlled
churches, Christians are prohibited from practising their
religion. Christians caught practising their religion are
subject to severe punishment in violation of the right to
freedom of religion and the prohibition of religious
discrimination.
B. Discrimination on the basis of State-assigned social class
(songbun), gender and disability
1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 2 states:
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the
political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or
territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent,
trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of
sovereignty.
1. Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and article 2 of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) similarly note
the non-discrimination principle in ensuring the rights
elaborated in these treaties that the DPRK has ratified.
Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
further explicitly calls for states to take "all appropriate
measures to ensure that the child is protected against all
forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the
status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the
child's parents, legal guardians, or family members".
2. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) defines in article 1:
For the purposes of the present Convention, the term
"discrimination against women" shall mean any distinction,
exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the
effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition,
enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital
status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights
and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social,
cultural, civil or any other field.
1. Article 3 of the ICCPR also stipulates that State parties to
the Covenant must undertake to ensure the equal rights of men
and women to the enjoyment of all civil and political rights.
2. Article 2 of the CEDAW prohibits discrimination against women
and stipulates equality between the sexes must be pursued in
all areas including through the provision of protection and
abolishment of discriminatory laws, regulations and customs.
3. According to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities,
"Discrimination on the basis of disability means any distinction,
exclusion or restriction on the basis of disability which has the
purpose or effect of impairing or nullifying the recognition,
enjoyment or exercise, on an equal basis with others, of all human
rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social,
cultural, civil or any other field. It includes all forms of
discrimination, including denial of reasonable accommodation."
1. Discrimination based on social class and birth: the songbun
system, past and present
1. Through the Songbun system, the state places citizens of the
DPRK into three broad classes with approximately 51 more
specific categories, although the actual categories seem to
have been adjusted over the years.288 Decisions about
residency, occupation, access to food, health care, education
and other services have been contingent on songbun. Songbun is
also reflected through geographic segregation.289
2. Elites are concentrated among the population officially
permitted to live in Pyongyang, which has a population of 3.3
million according to the 2008 population census. The ruling
elites among them are assigned to live in the most modern part
of the capital. Goods and public services in Pyongyang are
superior to those in other regions. Ordinary citizens of low
or medium songbun are precluded from residing in Pyongyang,
and even obtaining the right to visit Pyongyang is difficult.
* Mr Kim Soo-am of the Korea Institute for National Unification [of
the Republic of Korea] described the continuing impact of songbun
at the Seoul Public Hearing:
"Family background is also a core factor in discriminating between
people, allowing different levels of access to the right of food.
The core elites who live in Pyongyang or other major cities still
receive benefits in terms of medicine, and those who live in the ri
[villages], the level of residents, they have very limited access
to medical facilities, so the rights to enjoy healthy life [are]
also discriminated and not guaranteed…"290
* A witness at the Seoul Public Hearing, Ms Kwon Young-hee,
described the discrimination that her family confronted because
both her parents were originally from South Korea. The family
encountered discrimination when they sought to leave Musan in
North Hamgyong Province and move to Pyongyang:
"I learned about the fact that we were not able to relocate to
Pyongyang. By the time we learned about the rejection we were old
enough to understand that we were discriminated against, because my
elder sister against her wish had to apply to this other college
and so my siblings suffered from this kind of discrimination."291
1. The Songbun system saw antecedents in the early policies of
the DPRK when the leadership sought to elevate peasants and
laborers over the former landlords and those they deemed to
have been Japanese collaborators. In 1946, the North Korean
Provisional People's Committee began to purge officials who
had been associated with the Japanese colonial administration
and undertook the first citizen registration campaign. The
official start of the Songbun system appears to have been in
1957 when the Party adopted the resolution "On the
Transformation of the Struggle with Counterrevolutionary
Elements into an All-people All-Party movement" (the May 30th
Resolution). The adoption of this resolution was linked to a
purge of potential rivals by Kim Il-sung. At that time, the
division of people coalesced into three broad categories of
core, wavering and hostile.
2. In conjunction with the May 30th Resolution, the Cabinet
issued Decree No. 149 that dictated where members of the
hostile class could reside and essentially exiled a large
number of people to more remote parts of the country with more
difficult living conditions. Other stages in the
institutionalization of the Songbun system include the 1964
resolution "On Further Strengthening the Work with Various
Groups and Strata of the Population", which launched another
campaign to refine the Songbun system. In 1966, a resident re-
registration drive which lasted until 1970 led to the re-
classification of the population into the three classes with
51 sub-categories.292 Other campaigns to re-examine political
loyalty and family background followed, such as the 1983-84
citizenship identification card renewal project.
3. The highest songbun was awarded to family members of
guerrillas who fought with Kim Il-sung against Japanese forces
(although many of them were eventually subject to purges over
the years).
* One former high-level official explained to the Commission that
he knew of his songbunstatus since he was about 10 years old as
there had been a certificate in his family home about his
grandfather's involvement in the Korean War. He was also told by
his family not to play or associate with those of a lower status.
He grew up believing that a high songbun meant that one was
closer to the Kim family.293
1. The lowest songbun was given to, among others, formerly
wealthy industrialists, alleged spies, Catholics and
Buddhists. In effect, a family's history even before the
establishment of the DPRK pre-determined a citizen's destiny
in the DPRK.
2. In the past, songbun was the key factor determining the course
of every citizen from birth. Higher songbun determined whether
a person could gain access to the army (particularly the more
elite units), university and the Workers' Party of
Korea—necessary preconditions to any future career in public
service. Conversely, those with lower songbun were often
assigned to jobs in mining and farming, and their descendants
often were excluded from higher education. Hard work,
individual ability and personal political loyalty provided
only limited opportunity to improve one´s songbun. However,
conduct deemed to be politically disloyal could destroy the
favourable songbun of individuals and their entire family.
3. The determination of songbun is recorded in a comprehensive
resident registration system with detailed files on all adult
citizens and their families. The systematic compilation of
these files by security agencies and institutions of the
Workers' Party of Korea is not a transparent process, and
determinations cannot be contested.294 Moreover, official
discrimination under the Songbun system is also an
intergenerational phenomenon, where an individual's
classification is not only determined by his or her personal
conduct, but also by the songbun classifications derived from
more than one generation of the person's extended family.
Therefore, a system of perpetual discrimination on the ground
of birth, akin to a caste-based system, has emerged in the
DPRK.
4. The existence and relevance of songbun status does not appear
to have been formally encoded in law. However, it tacitly
reverberates in constitutional references to the working
people becoming the masters of society and exhortations that
all citizens and organs of the state should struggle staunchly
against class enemies.295 The concept is also invoked in
internal guidance and training documents.296 Former security
and party officials interviewed by the Commission indicated
how consideration of songbun prominently featured in important
decisions relating to a person. For example, a former official
explained to the Commission that the Ministry of Public
Security color-coded files according to a person's songbun.
The files of core class families were placed in red folders,
while those of families whose members included an inmate of a
political prison camp (kwanliso) were placed in a black
folder.297
5. Songbun appears also to be an important factor when
considering the punishment for a criminal offense. As one
witness explained, when someone with higher songbun commits
the same crime as someone with lower songbun, the one with the
higher songbun will get the lighter punishment. When someone
is sent to a detention centre by a security agency, what will
be assessed first is the person's family tree and background.
If the individual comes from the core class (i.e. has higher
songbun), then, regardless of the crime, the individual will
be treated relatively well on the assumption that the
individual had no intention of betraying the country. If the
individual comes from a lower songbun, then the person is
assumed to be "built" to do bad things, and will receive a
harsher punishment.298
* Ms Kwon Young-hee told the story of her brother who was arrested
in China and forcibly repatriated to the DPRK during the mourning
period for Kim Il-sung in 1994. Instead of being treated as an
"economic" offender for going to China illegally, he was charged
as a political prisoner.
"Just because our parents were from the South, if we do commit a
crime or commit an offence, we always get heavier punishments. I
think that was one of the most unfair things and that is why one of
my brothers cannot be found, one of my brothers was sent to the
prison."299
1. It is difficult to verify the exact proportions of different
songbun classes today and to know how much these have changed
over time. Figures from 2009 suggest the core class to be
about 28 per cent of the population, while the basic class
constitutes 45 per cent, and the complex (wavering and
hostile) class constitutes the remaining 27 per cent.300
Within the core class, there is a ruling elite. This group is
sometimes referred to as the revolutionary class, as it is
comprised of the extended family of Kim Il-sung and a small
number of other families who usually have a forebear of the
highest level songbun. The ruling elite includes the families
of Political Bureau members and secretaries of the Workers'
Party of Korea, members of the Central People's Committee, the
State Administration Council, the Central Military Commission
and the National Defense Commission.301 They are directly
involved in the preparation of major policy decisions and
participate in the inner circle of policy-making.
2. The broader elite are those individuals with core class
songbun302 who continue to dominate the central and local
administrative structures, the broader corps of officers in
the military and the security agencies, and other managerial
positions. Both the ruling and broader elite are able to use
their official powers, privileges to move freely around the
country, access to state resources and social connections to
seize opportunities arising from the DPRK's increasing
marketization.
3. Intergenerational responsibility and collective punishment are
core elements of the songbun system. Despite auspicious family
origins, songbun can be lowered if a person or his or her
relative commits a crime in the DPRK.303 Songbun status
appears to be particularly affected by offenses deemed to be
of a political nature.
* Mr Kang Chol-hwan, a former political prisoner, gave testimony to
the Commission's at the Seoul Public Hearing in these terms:
"My grandmother was a member of the Communist Party for a long
time, and she was instrumental, actually played a very important
role in setting up the North Korean Communist Party in Japan…. My
grandfather was doing business, so he was quite rich, so he was
able to donate a lot of money to the North Korean government. So my
grandmother was quite high up in the government. At that time, my
grandmother was the vice chairperson to an organization which was
headed by the wife of Kim Il Sung. And my grandfather was very high
up in the business network that included department stores. When I
was born, I belonged to a very top class and I was born at the
centre of Pyongyang, so when I was young, I think I was very happy.
And compared to other North Korean residents, I think I was a very
happy child. And then in 1977, my grandfather went to work and then
he didn't come back for one month. So we went to his workplace to
find out why, and we were told that he went on a business. And then
[someone] from the Bowibu, that is the State Security Department of
North Korea, came to us and said that our grandfather committed
treason to the state as well as the people, that he deserved to
die, but that instead of giving him the death penalty, that he was
taken somewhere else. Our properties were confiscated. On the 4th
of August in 1977, our families were brought into the Yodok
political prisoner camp. I was 9 years old. It was [the] 8th of
August 1977, that's when we were taken to the political prison
camp."304
* Another witness interviewed by the Commission, Kim Hye-sook,305 a
51-year old woman, was detained in Camp No. 18 from 1975 until
2001. In October 1970, her entire family was arrested. She only
initially escaped arrest because she had been living with her
maternal grandmother from the age of 13, but the authorities
seized her five years later. Only after her release in 2001 did
Ms Kim find out that her family was sent to the camp because her
paternal grandfather had moved to the ROK during the Korean War,
leaving Ms Kim's father and grandmother behind.306 Ms Kim found
that she could not reintegrate into society and decided to go to
China in 2005.
1. Administratively, the Songbun system is based on carefully
recorded information on every DPRK citizen and his or her
family. The state authorities established a comprehensive
resident registration file on every citizen aged 17 and
older.307 These files contain biographical information
including genealogy and indications of ideological
steadfastness and political loyalty, which are ascertained
through evaluations of a person's performance in different
circumstances such as acts at work and through the weekly
"confession and criticism" sessions.308 Information collected
could include skills and talents, ambitions and health status,
as well as the enthusiasm with which an individual dusts off
the portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, pays tribute at
their shrines, keeps up with revolutionary history studies, or
carries out duties at construction projects.309
* A witness saw his own brother's resident registration file in
2006, and described how it noted details about the family,
including dates when people had moved around the country and
details of the family's connections since 1949. The file also
noted the date when the witness's brother had joined the
military. The witness had heard that such files existed, but this
was the first time he had seen one for himself. The witness's
family was able to see the resident registration file when
security officers came to their house asking about the
whereabouts of the witness's brother, who had fled the DPRK.310
* Another witness saw songbun files because his father was a high-
level official, and other people had brought over confidential
papers that he was able to read. The files seen by the witness
contained a photograph, the grandfather's name, the person's good
and bad activities (for example, fighting against the Japanese),
in addition to three or four signatures of witnesses to these
activities. According to the witness, these documents would be
checked by officials in cases where an individual seeks a
promotion or is accused of having committed a crime.311
1. Individuals' resident registration files follow them
throughout their life. If and when that individuals serve in
the military, enters university or joins the workforce, their
file is sent to the relevant overseeing authority. A
continuing assessment of an individuals' loyalty to the state
would be reflected in the file. At any point when an
individual's loyalty "score" appears low, that individual
would be criticized harshly, monitored even more closely, and,
in the worst cases, sent for training through labor.312 Low
scores can affect applications to enter university or
promotions at work. However, individuals are seldom informed
of the actual reasons behind an unsuccessful application or
lack of advancement at work, even though they can usually
infer that the reason is poor songbun.313
2. The local branches of the Ministry of Public Security are
tasked to prepare resident registration files based on
information provided by the workplace, school, local
neighborhood watches and mass organizations. Officials
overseeing the mass associations, to which every DPRK citizen
must belong, are responsible for collecting relevant
information and including them in these files.314 In addition,
the Ministry of Public Security maintains a vast network of
secret informants.315
3. Resident registration files record all available information
on the background of family members, in some cases going back
as far as the Japanese colonial period. The original files are
kept in hardcopy by the Ministry of People's Security.316
Other security agencies and the Workers' Party of Korea
receive copies that are also accessible to relevant senior
local cadres like the manager of a person's workplace. In
addition, files of family members are cross-referenced. This
makes it virtually impossible to alter a file without risking
eventual detection and subsequent harsh punishment.
* For example, a witness's uncle disappeared into a political
prison camp because of unfavorable remarks he made about Kim
Jong-il. The uncle's disappearance stained the songbun of the
entire family. The witness graduated in 1994 and passed the entry
level exam for political cadres. Only then did his father reveal
to him the uncle's fate and told him that he would be prevented
from a political career and could at best reach administrative or
technical positions. Through Ministry of Public Security contacts
and bribes, the family was able to see the witness's resident
registration file, where two lines about the uncle had been
added. They discussed with the Ministry agent whether the line
could be removed against a bribe, but decided against it. Each
file has cross-references to other files. If it was ever found
out that the witness's file was tampered with, the repercussions
for the entire family could have been very serious. Eventually
the witness took up a position as a technical expert. He was
denied promotions and the chance to pursue further studies. His
older brother, who served with distinction in the military and
was recommended for the officer track, was denied entry to the
military academy due to the family songbun. His younger brother
and the father experienced similar problems.317
1. Individuals are not normally given official access to their
own resident registration files.318 Thus, they do not have the
opportunity to contest or correct information contained in the
files. The witnesses interviewed by the Commission who had
seen their own resident registration files had all gained such
access through informal connections and/or bribes.319
* For example, a former SSD official who was frustrated with his
lack of advancement at work sought to see his own resident
registration file, which a colleague showed him. In it he found
an element that made it clear to him that he would not be
promoted.320
1. Most people have a general idea of the existence of the
Songbun class system and where they fall in the order. Often,
DPRK citizens became aware of their songbun when graduating
from school, or when they experience barriers to gaining
entrance to the military, university or preferred professions.
Many former DPRK citizens interviewed by the Commission were
aware of the types of considerations that would go into
determining their songbun and the effects that their class may
have had on their access to higher education or employment.321
* For example, a witness was denied tertiary educational
opportunities and was forced to work in a mine upon finishing
secondary school. When he inquired of a security supervisor to
whom he was close about the apparent discrimination against him,
the supervisor showed him his file. He was classified as a "No.
43", the classification of familes of prisoners of war, which
made it clear to him why he faced such discrimination.322
1. Factors in determining social class include family origins.
Koreans who had resided in Japan and emigrated to the DPRK
between 1959 and 1980 (called "returnees"), together with
their descendants are estimated to number between 100,000 and
150,000.323 These Koreans were drawn to the DPRK by propaganda
and promises of opportunity, as well as widespread
discrimination against ethnic Koreans in Japan. Upon arrival,
they were not permitted to leave the DPRK. They were, however,
allowed to solicit money transfers from relatives in Japan
which provided much-needed foreign reserves for the DPRK. The
government operated hard currency stores for luxury goods like
televisions and refrigerators and other items not generally
available to average DPRK citizens. These remittances provided
former Japanese residents with better clothes and food, which
fueled some degree of resentment amongst their less fortunate
compatriots.
2. In 1960, the Hungarian Ambassador to the DPRK, Károly Práth,
noted the situation of almost 31,000 Koreans from Japan who
had arrived in the DPRK:
"Apart from formalities, the Korean workers do not like the
repatriates very much. They have several reasons for that: 1) A
great number of people have been removed from their flats so as to
provide adequate flats for the repatriates; 2) In the factories,
they get strikingly high wages; 3) They occupy a privileged
position in food-supply; 4) Work discipline is less binding on them
(at least they are not taken to task in the same way as others); 5)
In respect of clothing and way of life, they are different from the
local people."324
1. Several witnesses recounted discrimination suffered as
children where they were ostracized by teachers and other
students for their family origins.
* Ms Chiba Yumiko, a former Japanese "returnee", testified in the
Tokyo Public Hearing about her experience in the DPRK. She noted
that discrimination against "returnees" was rampant. She recalled
teachers and students tearing her Japanese clothes if she wore
them to school, and being constantly told that she was stupid to
wear Japanese clothes.325
1. The "returnees" from Japan could afford to eat rice, the
preferred staple of Koreans, while most DPRK citizens had to
make do with corn and barley. The former residents of Japan
remained isolated and interacted mostly with their own
community rather than integrating into DPRK society.
2. Despite the relative prosperity of the group, they were seen
to be politically suspect because they had come from outside
the country, and particularly because they were from Japan,
considered the mortal enemy of the DPRK.
* For example, a witness, who had been born in Japan, noted that if
a person had an issue with his or her songbun status, he or she
would not be allowed to travel overseas. In order to visit other
countries, a person was obliged to get a signature from the SSD
office. However, the SSD officer would not trust a person of low
songbun, since the officer would get into trouble if the person
failed to return from his or her visit overseas.326
* A witness who came from a family of "returnees" said that he and
his family were considered to be spies and untrustworthy. No one
in his family could aspire to high-ranking positions, no matter
how hard they worked. He noted that punishments for "returnees"
committing crimes were also disproportionate to those of regular
DPRK citizens. While they were forced to bribe officials for
everything, very high ranking officials would not accept bribes
from them because they were "returnees".327
1. Former residents of Japan were for the most part ineligible
for mid- or high-level positions within the Party or the
military.328 According to experts and testimony received by
the Commission, Koreans from Japan were more at risk of being
sent to political prison camps.329
* Ms Chiba explained at the Tokyo Public Hearing:
"In 1970s, speaking in Japanese, singing in Japanese, using
Japanese language was also target of punishment, and Mr Yamada
talked about Magujabi period, so in '70s and '80s many people did
not commit any crime per se, but without any reason many people
disappeared. This was something that was quite ordinary that
happened in North Korea."330
* Another "returnee" told the Commission that, in 1976, his father
was sent to a political prison without any warning. The witness
continued seeking answers from the Social Safety Agency and SSD
about the fate of his father. After several weeks, an officer
from the SSD brought his father's file to their house, showing
him the charges. His father had apparently defamed Kim Il-sung,
when he had said, "In Japan, trains travel at 200 km per hour,
here they only go 40 km per hour. It is said that the DPRK will
grow beyond Japan, but I doubt it." The witness said that he
argued with the officer, saying that the constitution guaranteed
freedom of speech, but the officer said freedom of speech did not
extend to defamation of the regime. The witness believes his
father was sent to Political Prison Camp No. 22. A childhood
friend who was also sent to Camp No. 22 reported that his father
died in the kwanliso in 1978. The family did not receive any
notification of his death.331
1. When remittances from Japan tapered off in the 1990s, the
privileges of Japanese "returnees" also ended.
2. Other DPRK citizens who had been born in the South, or whose
parents were born in the South, were also subject to
discrimination.332 This was also the case for people whose
family had originated in China, even if ethnically Korean.
* For example, Ms Jo Jinhye testified at the Washington Public
Hearing that "my grandfather actually got married in China and
there my dad was born. And they did not come down to North Korea
until my dad was eleven years old. So I do not think my family
was part of a very high or good class in North Korea."Her father
had been a miner.333
1. Among those who suffered the most extreme discrimination were
South Korean prisoners of war (POWs) retained in the DPRK
after the armistice.334
* Mr Yoo Young-bok, a former POW who fled the DPRK and returned to
the ROK, explained at the Seoul Public Hearing:
"Because we were POWs, we were discriminated against. They were
looking down on us. Although we married North Korean women, our
children were controlled, our children were kept under
surveillance. They did not really give us good jobs; there were
just no opportunities to make better lives for our children."335
* Another former POW from South Korea worked in a coal mine in
North Hamgyong Province for 40 years. He told the Commission that
about a quarter of the miners were POWs and were under
particularly strict surveillance by the Ministry of Public
Security and the State Security Department. The witness was
regularly interrogated and his interrogators seemed to know many
details about his life. He married and had three sons and two
daughters. His sons were neither allowed to join the army nor go
to university, and one asked him "Why are we even born?" His
daughters were not able to marry a man of good songbun, because
they were from a POW family. Even his grandsons were denied the
opportunity to join the army or to obtain a tertiary education.
The witness recalled how a POW friend hung himself because his
children complained so bitterly to him about their situation yet
he could not do anything about it.336
1. Social mobility in the DPRK remains constrained despite the
emergence of a private sector resulting from the de facto
marketization of the DPRK economy that commenced during the
famine and despite the advent of some limited new information
technology. However, the role that songbun plays in
determining a person's opportunities is shifting. One well-
known expert claims that the role of songbun – "once the
single most important factor that determined the life of a
North Korean" – is being displaced by wealth: "North Korean
society has become defined by one's relationship to money, not
by one's relationship to the bureaucracy or one's inherited
caste status."337 By most accounts, songbun still matters
today, particularly at the very top and very bottom ends of
the hierarchies. However, songbun now appears to be only one
factor that figures into the calculus of access to services or
opportunities in a changing society where corruption has
seeped into almost every facet of life.338
2. Discrimination against women
1. The DPRK acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on February 27,
2001. In its first report to the CEDAW Committee in 2005, it
reported:
In the course of a number of social revolution and development for
more than half a century up to now, the content of and the
guarantees for sex equality have ceaselessly been developed and
enriched. Equality between men and women has been realized in such
a degree that the word "discrimination against women" sounds
unfamiliar to people now. Sex equality being not confined by simple
equality, the policies and legislation of the state reflect the
concept of attaching more importance to women, and their
enforcement is now a natural ethical obligation and a life tone of
the whole society going beyond the limit of legal obligation.339
1. Korean society is deeply embedded with Confucian values.340
Traditional Confucian ideology ties a women's ‘virtue' to how
well she obeys her father in her youth, her husband in
marriage and her son upon her husband's death. Pursuant to
Confucian ideals, a woman's marriage was arranged for her, and
upon marriage she became part of her husband's family and an
outsider to her own.341
2. Kim Il-sung is reported to have commended women's
participation in the liberation movement, noting that "the
women were completely on an equal footing with men; they all
received revolutionary assignments suited to their abilities
and aptitudes and carried them out".342 However, women's
participation in the independence movement did not affect
their status in post-liberation society.
3. The DPRK commenced on a progressive sex equality platform. Kim
Il-sung sought to improve equality between the sexes through
the implementation of the Law on Sex Equality, announced on 30
July 1946. This law emphasized equal rights in all spheres,
free marriage and divorce, and equal rights to inherit
property and to share property in the case of divorce. It
prohibited arranged marriages, polygamy, concubinage, the
buying and selling of women, prostitution, and the
professional entertainer system.343
4. Recognizing that legislation alone would not liberate women
from patriarchy and bring about equality, Kim Il-sung sought
to liberate the women of the DPRK by promoting their full
integration into the labour force. According to Kim Il-sung,
in a liberated Korea, "women … can achieve complete
emancipation only if they strive with no less devotion and
awareness than men to solve the problems arising on the
productive fronts of the factories and countryside".344 In
1961, at the National Meeting of Mothers, he advised:
"An important question in Women's Union activities in the past was
to wipe out illiteracy and eliminate the feudalistic ideas that
oppressed the women. But this work no longer seems to be of major
importance in our society. Today, the Women's Union should actively
campaign for women's participation in socialist construction and
bend its efforts to provide conditions that will allow them to work
well."345
1. In order to enable women to dedicate themselves fully to the
public economy, Kim Il-sung advocated in 1946 that the state
should take steps to rear children.346 To this end, the 1972
Socialist Constitution codified the measures to be taken so
that women could take part in public life. These included paid
maternity leave, free nurseries and kindergartens, and reduced
working time for mothers with young families.347 The
responsibility of the state to bring up children and protect
working mothers was further enshrined in the 1976 Law on
Nursing and Upbringing of Children and the 1978 Labour Law
which provided that women with three of more children would be
paid for eight hours but required to work only six. Indeed,
state childcare services expanded exponentially under Kim Il-
sung. In 1949, there were reportedly 12 nurseries and 116
kindergartens. In 1961, there were 7,600 nurseries and 45,000
kindergartens. By 1976, almost 100 per cent of the 3.5 million
children could attend one of the 60,000 nurseries and
kindergartens.348
2. The pronouncement of legal and social arrangements to achieve
equal rights by DPRK leaders was to some degree aimed at
abolishing the traditional family structure. The emphasis on
liberation of women through labour led to a decline in the
economic power of the patriarch, and the "socialization" of
childrearing served to break down the traditional family
structure. The projection of Kim Il-sung as the father-figure
further added to the reconfiguration of society, in which Kim
Il-sung was the patriarchal head and DPRK nationals his
children. Although the commitment to abolish the feudal family
was portrayed as necessary to achieve gender equality, in
reality this neither served women's liberation nor the family
unit. With women free from their "shackles", they could devote
themselves fully to the state (as men were already expected to
do). Having children in the care of the state further served
to strengthen the leader's position as they could be taught to
think of the leader as their father, and pledge their
allegiance to him over their own family. This proved to be a
key ingredient to maintaining control, as having children
under the responsibility of the state from a young age
provided for many years of indoctrination.349 The weakening of
familial relationships, coupled with the failed economy and
severe food shortages across the country at different points
in time, has deeply impacted children. In some cases, this has
led to their being institutionalized, abandoned and vulnerable
to poor health and abuses against them.350
3. During the height of economic activity in the DPRK in the
1960s and 1970s, electrical appliances and "fast food" such as
canned food were introduced in an effort to minimize domestic
work for women in the larger cities. The state had arguably
contracted out women's traditional roles in the home so that
they could fully participate in state production, so-called
"liberation through labour". Yet, despite women's full
participation in public life, their economic status did not
equal that of men. Although there is no official information
on pay scales, other sources reveal that the structure of
income distribution between husband and wife meant a husband's
income was always higher than his wife's. The structure also
did not engender a culture of equality.351
4. Despite implementing laws to improve gender equality, cultural
attitudes remained traditional. The extreme militarization of
society in the DPRK has encouraged such themes as the
protection of Korean women's virtue and the defence of Korean
purity against hostile outside forces thereby contributing to
ongoing gender discrimination. The only manifestation gender
equality was the expectation that women along with men would
work in state-sponsored employment. Women's lives at home and
work remained subservient to men and unequal. Notwithstanding
the provision of childcare services, appliances and other
developments aimed at decreasing the domestic workload, women
were still overwhelmingly responsible for domestic work. Kim
Il-sung's aim of liberating women through labour effectively
doubled their burden, as they were now expected to engage in
both state employment and domestic work.
5. The double burden faced by women led to the increasing
departure of women from the workforce as they married.352 As
the economy deteriorated in the 1990s, women were dismissed
from their work positions, as working for the state was
considered politically more advanced and thus "men's work".
Men were also the focus of surveillance, and the state
employment system was a critical element to the surveillance
structure.353 As the economic system collapsed, and women
remained outside of state employment, women's energies turned
towards survival. The subsequent emergence of private markets
largely operated by women saved many families from starvation.
However, being outside of state employment, women lost their
rights to a state pension and the use of childcare
services.354
6. Nevertheless, women working in the markets can earn double the
monthly salary of a man in one day. In recent years, men often
have not been paid at all by their state employers.355 While
DPRK decision-makers did not intend to raise the profile of
women through the reversal of their policy to engage women in
the labour force, effectively by pushing them out of state
employment, this contributed to the rise in their economic
power. It is estimated that almost half of DPRK families rely
on private trading as their only source of income, and women
are the main breadwinners in 80 to 90 per cent of
households.356 This has changed dynamics in the family.
7. Despite the economic advancement of women, they are still
discriminated against by the state. The state imposed many
restrictions on the female-dominated market, including
prohibiting anyone other than women over forty years of age
from trading.357 Gender discrimination also takes the form of
women being targeted to pay bribes or fines. In a recent study
conducted with North Koreans who have left the DPRK, 95 per
cent of female traders reported having paid bribes. More than
one-third of men reported that criminality and corruption is
the best way to make money.358 Regulations in force until 2012
prohibiting women from riding bicycles were reintroduced in
January 2013.359 Public safety officials were reportedly
imposing fines equivalent to the cost of 4 kilograms of corn
on rural women who were riding bicycles under the prior ban,
but are now said to be confiscating the bicycle instead.360
Losing a day's wage due to a fine or the confiscation of a
bicycle seriously hinders a woman's ability to earn an income
and feed her family. There is recent evidence that women are
beginning to object and resist such impositions.
8. Regulations stipulating that women should wear skirts have
also been in place and enforced by the Moral Discipline Corps
(groups of citizens mobilized to crack down on what are
referred to as morality violations). Recent evidence suggests
such restrictions were eased in Pyongyang but may still be in
place in less urban areas.361 Furthermore, the Youth League
and Women's Union have tasked themselves with ‘educating'
girls and women on proper attire.
* A witness told the Commission:
"Women in North Korea are not allowed to wear tight pants and
jeans. Women should preferably wear skirts and black shoes
according to the socialist lifestyle. Married women can wear jeans.
In summer they cannot wear sandals with jewels. I learnt the rules
on restrictions for women at the Youth League. If women do not
respect the restrictions they can be sent for one month to the
dalyundae [labour-training corps]."362
* Another witness explained why these types of regulations have
been created:
"Kim Jong-il's orders are usually turned into law. If there is
something that he does not like, the People's Safety Ministry
devises a plan and once they have a plan, Kim Jong Il signed it and
it becomes law. In order to follow the instructions, the SSD and
the Ministry try to do everything possible in order to carry out
the law decree… they do everything. If Kim Jong Il thinks that
girls wear skirts that are too short or have too long hair, the
inspection group starts to work on the issue (to create a law).
There are so many decrees forbidding women from cycling and from
wearing pants."363
1. In the 2005, the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women requested that the DPRK define
discrimination against women in line with the Convention, and
undertake measures and policies to eliminate discrimination
against women.364 In response to those requests, in December
2010, the DPRK enacted a Women's Rights Act, the first
legislation specifically aimed at gender issues since the 1948
Gender Equality Law. According to the nongovernmental
organization Citizens Alliance on North Korean Human Rights:
"[t]he Women's Act was merely a façade created during North Korea's
[United Nations] human rights review when it faced international
pressure… the North Korean state has recently been trying to
reinforce through ideological education the traditional role women
in a patriarchal society."365
1. In the political sphere, women remain discriminated against
despite the early reforms. Women make up just 5 per cent of
the Worker's Party of Korea Central Committee Members and
Candidate Members,366 and 10 per cent of central government
employees.367
2. In the home, while women remain subservient to men, women's
economic progress is having an impact. Men, who have also
become creative at making money through non-state sanctioned
enterprise, are reticent to work in the market as they are not
permitted to by the state (having to remain officially in the
employ of a state position) and because the market is
considered ‘a women's area'.368
* A former trader told the Commission that some men sold bicycles
in the market but for the most part "women were more numerous
because men had their careers".369
* One witness whose wife traded in the market, explained that he
did not engage in the market because it was "embarrassing". He
told the Commission that he also heard "rumours that men who
engaged in the black market get punished. From 2002-03, more men
have worked in the markets, but there is still a stigma attached
to it. Men are expected to work in the official jobs."370
1. As a consequence of the disproportionate representation of
women in the markets, most household income is generated by
women, which has led to a perceived disempowerment of men.
Some women are allegedly calling their husbands "puppies"
because they have to be fed, yet they do not contribute to the
economy of the household. The additional financial burden
women are bearing is coupled with additional burdens at home
due to the lack of electricity and/ or running water in some
homes caused by breakdown of state services.371 The extra
burdens women carry has begun to have social consequences.
Younger women are hoping to delay marriage to avoid taking on
a husband, and domestic violence is increasing as many men are
unable to cope with the changing gender roles.372
2. Witness testimony revels that domestic violence is rife within
DPRK society, and victims are not afforded protection from the
state, support services or recourse to justice.373
* One witness testified before the Commission:
"Domestic violence is quite common. There is no law on this: family
issues stay within the family. Even if a woman complains, the
police will not interfere in family business."374
* Similar sentiments were heard by the Commission from another
witness:
"[Violence against women] is considered a family matter. Only if
the person is seriously injured then it becomes public. It is
frequent. There is no place to complain. It can be used as a cause
of divorce. Nothing is done to the husband even if the woman is
severely beaten."375
1. Witnesses have testified that violence against women is not
limited to the home, and that it is common to see women being
beaten and sexually assaulted in public.376 Officials are not
only increasingly engaging in corruption in order to support
their low or non-existent salaries, they are also exacting
penalties and punishment in the form of sexual abuse and
violence as there is no fear of punishment.377 As more women
assume the responsibility for feeding their families due to
the dire economic and food situation, more women are
traversing through and lingering in public spaces, selling and
transporting their goods. The male dominated state, agents who
police the marketplace, inspectors on trains and soldiers are
increasingly committing acts of sexual assault on women in
public spaces. The Commission received testimony that while
rape of minors is severely punished in the DPRK, the rape of
adults is not really considered a crime.378 The Commission
also received reports of train guards frisking women as they
travel through the cars, and abusing young girls onboard.379
One witness told the Commission:
"Women were frisked as they entered the station [to check they were
not carrying items for sale], I think this is how the sexual
violence started happening. Guards also take young girls on the
train for sexual acts, including rape. Everyone knows this is
happening, it is an open secret."380
1. Such behavior has been observed as "the increasingly male-
dominated state preying on the increasingly female-dominated
market".381 Sexual assaults of women within the military have
become frequent.382 A former military officer explained:
"There were a lot of cases of sexual abuse and rape committed often
by senior officers. Normal soldiers would also engage in rape,
exacerbated by the fact that these young men were denied the right
to have any sexual relations while serving in the army. The rapes
were typically covered up, although male comrades would talk about
them and some even bragged. It was common knowledge that rapes were
taking place."383
1. Reports also suggest that sexual abuse takes place in the
process of single women seeking membership to the Workers'
Party of Korea or better positions in the workplace.384 The
Commission finds that sexual and gender-based violence against
women is prevalent throughout all areas of society.
Transactional sex and prostitution are also rife within the
DPRK as women voluntarily submit to men for food, money,
travel or to avoid a fine or other punishment. These
activities, driven by the need for survival by vulnerable
persons, are the consequence of the structural problem of food
shortage and gender discrimination.385 Such structural
problems are also major contributing factors to the high
levels of trafficking in women and girls.386 In this regard,
the Commission notes the particularly difficult position of
younger women, with little opportunity for state employment or
advancement in the public sector, and prohibited from engaging
in the private market due to the age restriction of only women
40 years and over being allowed to trade.
3. Discrimination against persons with disabilities
1. According to the United Nations, around 10 per cent of the
world's population lives with a disability.387 The World
Health Organization notes that the DPRK has estimated that 3.4
per cent of its population have a disability according to 2007
data, or about 790,000 people.388
2. In July 2013, the DPRK signed the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities, although it has yet to ratify it.
The Korean Law for Persons with Disabilities was passed in
2003 promising free medical care and special education for
persons with disabilities. According to the DPRK's state
report to the Universal Periodic Review in 2009, the law was
adopted
"with a view to protecting the rights of persons with disabilities
satisfactorily. They receive education and medical treatment,
choose their occupation according to their talents and abilities,
and enjoy cultural life with equal rights with others...while
children with other disabilities are included in the mainstream
classes. Disabled soldiers' factories and welfare service centres
were set up for the purpose of creating jobs for the persons with
disabilities, tonic medicine and walking aid devices are provided
free and paid vacation and allowances are provided to them."389
1. According to witnesses, North Koreans do not openly discuss
disability and impairment, and there is widespread prejudice
against people with disabilities.
* Mr Ji Seong-ho, who lost limbs in a train accident, testified in
the Seoul Public Hearing before the Commission:
"
In North Korea, we call people with disabilities, the crippled, or
people with a lot shortcomings or they use a derogative term to
refer to the specific part of their body that is disabled. For
example, if you don't have a hand, or missing a wrist like me, then
they would refer to it as a gravel hand. They have derogative terms
for blind people, for people who have hearing disabilities. And
even instead of names, even to refer to my family, they refer to my
family as the family of the gravel hand. So that's [the] kind of
the prejudice that we encountered."390
1. The government in 1998 established the Korean Federation for
the Protection of Disabled People, closely modelled on the
China Disabled Persons' Federation. The Federation,
established through a cabinet resolution, is intended to be a
civil society organization representing people with
disabilities and addressing their needs. The Federation
developed a partnership with an international non-governmental
organization by signing a long term memorandum of
understanding in 2001. Together they have implemented projects
in the areas of physical rehabilitation and education for
children with sensory disabilities.
2. It is believed that, in 1959, the government built 11 special
boarding schools for hearing-impaired children and vision-
impaired children. There do not appear to be any schools or
systems for the educational integration or inclusion of
children with intellectual or multiple impairments.
3. While acknowledging the legal rights of persons with
disabilities appears to be a positive step in addressing the
human rights concerns of this vulnerable population, reliable
information about this population is scant. Witnesses have
reported systematic discrimination against people with
disabilities, whereby families of babies with disabilities
have been banished from Pyongyang and forced to relocate in
rural areas where there are no services for them, in addition
to generally harsher living conditions.391 According to a
former high-level official interviewed by the Commission, the
Ministry of Public Security was responsible for cases of
children with disabilities. He said that the public security
officers visited families to discourage them from keeping
their children with disabilities. If they were residents of
Pyongyang and insisted on keeping their children, the families
would have to leave the capital. If the family agreed to be
separated from the child, however, the child would be taken by
the government to a designated location. The family would have
to sign documentation to agree never to seek that child again
and the name of the child would be deleted from the Family
Registration File as if the child with disabilities never
existed.392
To what extent this policy is still in practice is
questionable as there have been recent reports that people
with disabilities are permitted to reside in Pyongyang.393
This may be an indication that this policy may have been
abandoned or not pursued as strictly as in the past. This is
may reflect preparations by the DPRK to accede to the
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
following its signature in July 2013. Nevertheless, if the
allegation regarding the deletion of a child with disabilities
from the family registry was true, the Commission notes this
would amount to a violation of articles 7 and 8 of the CRC.
* Nevertheless, Mr Kim Soo-am of the Korea Institute for National
Unification explained to the Commission that "there is still a
high level of discrimination against people with disabilities. In
regions where they get a lot of foreign visitors, they limit the
residence of people with disabilities."394
1. According to a recent NGO report, many DPRK nationals who fled
the DPRK indicated that infants with disabilities were killed
or abandoned.395 Another research institute based in the ROK
reported that human rights violations against persons with
disabilities include the segregation and forced sterilization
of persons suffering from dwarfism.396
2. There have been disturbing allegations of an island in South
Hamgyong Province where gruesome medical testing of biological
and chemical weapons has been conducted on persons with
disabilities. The Commission has received no first-hand
accounts of these allegations. A former high-level official,
recounted two occasions when he was working for the Ministry
of Public Security when people were arrested and sent to a
facility, Hospital 83, where the doctors told him they would
be used for medical experiments.397 Based on the information
received, the Commission is not in a position to confirm these
allegations. It notes them as subjects for further
investigation.398
3. In addition to progress on the legal front, the rights of
persons with disabilities have received positive attention on
a government policy level. Diplomatic sources note that the
Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled People
has made the International Day of People with Disability a
national event. One North Korean athlete participated in the
2012 Paralympics.399 In its 2009 UPR report, the DPRK noted
that the annual day of persons with disabilities "serve[s] as
an important occasion in facilitating their integration into
society and encouraging the general public to respect the
dignity and worth of the persons with disabilities and render
them support."400
4. Impact of discrimination on economic, social and cultural rights
1. Discrimination results in unequal access to basic human rights
including food, education, health care and the right to work.
The Commission finds that the Songbun system leads to
structural discrimination whereby generations become locked
into disadvantage and social mobility is not possible. The
Commission considers that discrimination on the basis of
songbun, gender and ability has created many vulnerable
groups. The effects of discrimination on the enjoyment of
economic, social and cultural rights appear to vary across
time and locations. According to diplomatic sources,
discrimination is worst in the countryside.401
2. Pyongyang is a city for the core class, with better
infrastructure and services than elsewhere in the country.
Residency in Pyongyang is considered a privilege, and one that
has been revoked.402
* One witness who spoke to the Commission was born in Pyongyang,
but after her father was executed in the mid-1950s under
suspicions of having been a collaborator with the South during
the Korean War, she and the rest of the family were expelled to
the North Hamgyong Province because of their low songbun.403
1. Many of the Koreans who came to the DPRK from Japan were not
allowed to reside in Pyongyang or other cities.
* Ms Chiba explained to the Commission: "[A]mong the 93,000 people
– people were classified into different ranks and classes, and
depending on the classes people were sent to mountains. Many
Japanese people were sent to mountains, they were not able to
live in cities."404
1. The effects of food shortages are felt more keenly by more
vulnerable populations, which was particularly the case during
the famine of the 1990s. The public distribution system, which
allocated all legal rations of cereals, determined people's
entitlements to food on the basis of their age or professional
status. Another dimension of the famine was the geographic
variance in availability of food. Pyongyang and the
surrounding areas where most of the elite resided fared better
than more remote areas, particularly the industrial
northeastern region of the country.405
2. Although the Socialist Labor Law guarantees the right to
choose one's profession, in practice the state plays a
predominant role in determining a citizen's employment.
* For example, a prisoner of war from the ROK, was re-educated and
then married a DPRK woman with low songbun.He had two sons. One
died but his other son was not allowed to join the military or to
go to university. He reported to the Commission that children of
miners become miners and go to mining vocational school.406
1. For university graduates, the Bureau of Staff of the regional
committee of the Korean Workers' Party determines who gets
placed in a managerial or technical post. In some cases, the
Party's Central Bureau of Staff must be consulted and the
Secretariat must sign off. Factors that are considered include
songbun, gender, physical ability, academic qualifications and
other lifestyle matters.407
2. For high school graduates and discharged soldiers, the Labor
Department of the regional People's Committee determines work
assignments. For manual labor jobs such as mining, road and
railroad construction, group allocations are made. In 2003,
the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
expressed concern "that the right to work may not be fully
assured in the [DPRK's] present system of compulsory state-
allocated employment, which is contrary to the right of the
individual to freely choose his/her career or his/her
workplace."408
3. Discrimination impacts not only the designation of profession
but also professional development and advancement. Songbun has
also been a limiting factor for DPRK nationals who seek to
progress in their careers.409
* For example, MrJang hae-sung, a former DPRK journalist, testified
at the Seoul Public Hearing:
"I am a person of good songbun, good class in North Korea. My
grandfather was also involved in anti-Japanese activities. And two
of my father's siblings died during the Korean War so I was one of
those really privileged, high class, high songbun. But I'm from
China, but if I was not born in China, if I was born in North
Korea, then I could have been able to work in the core
institutions, but because I was born in China, I was not able to
work [for the] BoAnBu or Bowibu [MPS or SSD]. That is why I had to
work in the press."410
1. Military service is compulsory for all males in the DPRK, but
those with low songbun or a disability are not able to serve.
In the past, citizens wished to serve in the military for
career purposes. However, since the 1990s, the military has
been less attractive due to the risk of malnutrition, and many
people actually attempt to escape conscription at great risk.
Nevertheless, military service is a key way for securing a
position as an official. Most citizens enter the military for
10 to 13 years, although children of high-ranking officials
appear to only need to serve for three years before they are
eligible for Party membership or enrolment into university.
According to first-hand information received by the
Commission, professional advancement for officials requires
four credentials: military service, membership of the Workers'
Party of Korea, university qualification and high songbun.
Without all four qualifications, an individual would have
limited chances of becoming a high-ranking official whether in
the party, military or government. These qualifications are
particularly important for jobs in the security bureau,
foreign service and economic bureau.411
2. In 2012, the Supreme People's Assembly extended compulsory
education to 12 years from 11 years, promised more classrooms
and said that teachers would be given priority in the
distribution of food and fuel rations, according to the DPRK's
official Korean Central News Agency.412 Despite the DPRK's
commitment to universal provision of education,413 access is
hindered for some by systemic discrimination. Because of the
collapse of the DPRK economy, students are generally required
to provide resources to fund teachers and school
operations.414
* Mr Charles Jenkins, who lived in the DPRK for over 39 years, told
of goods that his two daughters were asked to bring to school: "
[T]he girls were always coming to me saying that school officials
had requested a certain amount of supplies from every student's
family. Sometimes they would say their teachers told them they
needed to bring in 2 kilograms of brass each by Monday. Or a
kilogram of lead. Or a hundred meters of copper wire. They asked
for coal, gasoline, even rabbit skins."These specific requests
were in addition to the 60 kilograms of corn that he had to send
every month to the school."That's 2.2 pounds per daughter every
day, even though a student's ration is only a pound per day, so
you can see that someone, somewhere, was skimming more than half
of what we sent."He also noted that his daughters were attending
the Foreign Language College, "supposedly a high-class place
where the country's elite were being educated".415
1. The Commission believes that if these practices prevailed in
elite schools, those attending less privileged institutions
may be subjected to similar requests to provide subsides that
their families may not be able to afford.
2. In addition, it appears that privileges in school – such as
whether a student can be designated head of class – are also
determined by songbun.416 Furthermore, compulsory education
does not apply to children sent to political prison camps,
where an elementary level of instruction is administered under
a different curriculum.417
3. Where discrimination in education becomes most apparent is in
the selection process for universities or the opportunity to
even take the entrance examination. Numerous testimonies of
witnesses interviewed by the Commission reported that those
persons with low songbun were not even allowed to take the
entrance exam or were not allowed to attend institutions
appropriate to their level of academic performance and test
scores.418
* A witness told the Commission that, due to her hostile songbun,
she was prevented from returning to Pyongyang where she was born.
She was also rejected by the university where she had applied to
study dance and instead was sent to work in agricultural
projects.419
1. Given the outsized role in determining one's future, songbun
also affects people's opportunities for marriage.420 One
prominent example is Ms Jang Kum-song, whose mother is Ms Kim
Kyong-hui (the sister of Kim Jong-il) and whose father is the
now-deceased Mr Jang Song-thaek. Ms Jang died in Paris in
2006, aged 26, as a result of suicide. Educated in Europe, she
reportedly wished to marry a particular DPRK man but her
parents opposed the union due to the difference in songbun.
2. The most vulnerable groups—persons of low songbun, women,
children and persons with disabilities—are particularly
disadvantaged in their access to health services and medicine.
The state purports to provide free access to medical services
for all citizens while providing special protection for
special groups such as "revolutionary fighters, families of
revolutionary martyr soldiers, families of patriotic martyr
soldiers, families of North Korean People's Army soldiers, and
awarded soldiers".421 In reality, however, while patients may
access hospitals for free, medical equipment and medication
are unavailable to the masses and must be bought on the
private market by those who can afford them.422
* A former nurse at a county hospital in North Hamgyong Province,
the northern-most region of the country to which many of lower
songbun have been banished, told the Commission: "Working
conditions were difficult. There was always a shortage of
medicine. It was distributed from high levels at the national
level down to the county, and misappropriated by officials who
sold it on the black market [for money]. Consequently, doctors
did not have medicines to use and could only write prescriptions.
A more alarming side-effect of the misappropriation of medicines
was the sale of dangerous ‘knock-offs' that flooded the markets.
Entrepreneurs mixed liquid antibiotics with fuel and mixed pills
with flour to make more money. As a result, many people presented
to hospital with infections and problems from using knock-off
antibiotics. It was well known in the medical profession that
bottles, lids and labels from the Suncheon factory for
antibiotics were regularly stolen for the containment and sale of
knock-off antibiotics. Although patients can technically go to
the hospital at any time of day, the staff are rarely there after
lunch as they had to engage in other business to make money to
feed their families, or shop and do household chores".
The witness further explained that the dire situation in regional
hospitals is known to party officials: "Party staff carry out
nominal inspections of the hospitals each year. They are fully
aware of the deficiencies of the hospital and the health
situation of the community, but are bribed by the head of the
hospital not to report the conditions. Staff are also expected to
give money so a party could be put on for the visiting officials.
Bribery and corruption are the norm in the DPRK. The officials
are also the ones siphoning off the supplies, so they are more
than aware of the situation. Party officials always given
priority in the hospital, treated in separate rooms; they have no
interest in how the rest of the population is suffering."423
1. Women are particularly disadvantaged by the lack of access to
health care. Tests for female diseases or screening for breast
cancer do not exist. A survey recently conducted with women in
the ROK originally from the DPRK found that almost half of the
women surveyed did not see a doctor throughout their pregnancy
and almost half delivered their babies at home regardless of
whether they were from a major city or village. Women also
reported that the death of the mother or baby during or after
childbirth was not uncommon.424 Maternal mortality rates
almost doubled in the decade from 1993 to 2003, largely due to
inadequacies in emergency obstetric care.425 The maternal
mortality rate in 2010 was estimated to be 81/100,000 live
births.426
5. Principal findings of the commission
1. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has presented itself
to the world as a state where equality, non-discrimination and
equal rights in all fields have been fully implemented.427 In
reality, the Commission finds that the DPRK is a rigidly
stratified society with entrenched patterns of discrimination,
although these are being modified to some extent by the
transformative socio-economic changes introduced by market
forces and technological developments in the past decade. The
Commission finds that state-sponsored discrimination in the
DPRK is pervasive but shifting. Discrimination is rooted in
the Songbun system, which classifies people on the basis of
social class and birth and also includes consideration of
political opinion and religion.428 Songbun intersects with
gender based discrimination, which is equally pervasive.
Discrimination is also practised on the basis of disability
although there are signs that the state may have begun to
address this particular issue.
2. The state sponsors and implements a system of official
discrimination based on social class, deriving from perceived
political loyalty and family background as manifest in the
Songbun system. The concept of songbun was originally
conceived as a means to re-engineer the fabric of society, so
as to replace the pre-1945 traditional elites with new
"revolutionary" elites loyal to the leadership and the new
state. In this regard, the DPRK remodeled pre-existing
hierarchies in Korean society that were deeply rooted for
centuries.429
3. The Songbun system used to be the most important determining
factor in an individual's chances of livelihood, access to
education and other services including housing and the
opportunity to live in favorable locations, especially the
capital Pyongyang. This traditional discrimination under the
Songbun system has been recently complicated by increasing
marketization in the DPRK and the influence of money on
people's ability to better access their economic, social and
cultural rights. Money and heightened levels of corruption
increasingly allow newly emerging business elites and others
able to obtain resources to circumvent state-sponsored
discrimination. Moreover, new information technologies,
including mobile phones, help to facilitate the operation of
the market system and the exchange of knowledge and
information. However, whether an individual has the necessary
access to make money in the most lucrative sectors of commerce
is to some degree determined by songbun. At the same time,
significant segments of the population that have neither the
resources nor favorable songbun find themselves increasingly
marginalized and subject to further patterns of
discrimination, as basic public services have collapsed or now
require payment.
4. Discrimination based on songbun continues to articulate itself
today through the stark differences in living conditions
between larger cities, in particular the capital Pyongyang,
where the elites of the highest songbun are concentrated, and
the remote provinces, to which people of low songbun were
historically assigned. Discrimination remains a major means
for the leadership to maintain control against perceived
threats, both internal and external.
5. Early reforms aimed at ensuring formal legal equality have not
resulted in gender equality. Discrimination against women
remains pervasive in all aspects of society. Arguably, it is
increasing as the male-dominated state preys on both the
economically advancing women and marginalized women. Many
women, driven by survival during the famine in the 1990s began
operating private markets. However, the state imposed many
restrictions on the female-dominated market, including
prohibiting anyone other than women over forty years of age
from trading. Gender discrimination also takes the form of
women being targeted to pay bribes or fines. There is recent
evidence that women are beginning to object and resist such
impositions.
6. The economic advances of women have not been matched with
social and political advancements. Entrenched traditional
patriarchal attitudes and violence against women in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea persist. The state has
imposed blatantly discriminatory restrictions on women in an
attempt to maintain the gender stereotype of the pure and
innocent Korean woman. Sexual and gender-based violence
against women is prevalent throughout all areas of society.
Victims are not afforded protection from the state, support
services or recourse to justice. In the political sphere,
women make up just 5 per cent of the top political cadre, and
10 per cent only of central government employees.
7. Discrimination against women also intersects with a number of
other human rights violations, placing women in positions of
vulnerability. Violations of the right to food and freedom of
movement have resulted in women and girls becoming vulnerable
to trafficking and increased engagement in transactional sex
and prostitution.430 The complete denial of the freedoms of
expression and association outside state-approved
organizations has been a large contributing factor to the
generally unequal status of women vis-à-vis men. Among other
things, these limitations have prevented women from
collectively advocating for their rights, as women have done
elsewhere in the world.
8. Despite Kim Il-sung embrace of Marxist-Leninist theory and the
DPRK participation in the Socialist International, the DPRK
diverged from those ideals in its propagation of the notion of
a pure Korean race that had to be kept clean and untainted by
external influences. This construct flows from the general
resistance to foreign influences and inward focus emphasized
by Juche ideology.431 This deliberate withdrawal from the rest
of the world bolstered the rationale for control by Kim Il-
sung. The DPRK's inward focus was one aspect of Juche
ideology. Its other main element was the ever expanding cult
of personality of Kim Il-sung.432 While justifying
isolationist policies and elevating Kim Il-sung (and
subsequently his heirs) to the supreme father-figure who could
protect the nation from the hostile outside world, Juche
ideology has had dire repercussions for persons seen as
sullying the image of an untainted DPRK. Women and persons
with disabilities experience particular discrimination,
although the state has reportedly taken positive steps lately
to improve its approach towards the latter group.
9. While discrimination exists to some extent in all societies,
the Commission finds that the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea has practised a form of official discrimination that has
had a very great impact on individuals' enjoyment of human
rights. Given the exceptional levels of state control, this
official discrimination influences most aspects of people's
lives. Discrimination remains a major means for the leadership
to maintain control against perceived threats, both internal
and external.
C. Violations of the freedom of movement and residence, including
the right to leave one's own country and the prohibition of
refoulement
1. In considering the right to freedom of movement, the
Commission looked particularly at article 12 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
which provides, among others, for the right to liberty of
movement and freedom to choose one's residence; freedom to
leave any country including one's own; and the right not to be
arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter one's own country.
As DPRK nationals are assigned their employment by the state
which therefore dictates where they reside, the Commission
also considered article 6 of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) which provides
for the right to work. This includes the right of everyone to
the opportunity to gain hisor herliving by work which heor
shefreely chooses or accepts.
2. The Commission further looked at the General Comments of the
Human Rights Committee to article 12 of ICCPR especially in
respect of permissible legal restrictions on these rights
necessary to protect national security, public order or morals
or the rights and freedoms of others and consistent with the
other rights recognized by ICCPR. The Commission also took
into account article 10 of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child which provides for the right of the child with his or
her parents to leave any country, including their own, and to
enter their own country.
1. Freedom of movement and residence in the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea
1. The Commission finds that the authorities in the DPRK severely
restrict its citizens' (as well as foreigners') right to
freedom of movement and residence within the country. This
policy is designed to limit information flows and to uphold
discrepancies in living conditions that favour elites in
Pyongyang and discriminate against people of low songbun who
are concentrated, as a consequence, in more remote provinces.
(a) State-assigned place of residence and employment
1. According to the DPRK's submission to the Human Rights
Committee, while citizens and foreigners are free to choose
and move their residence, they are required "to go through due
legal procedures when they want to move residence".433 These
procedures are laid out in the Law on Registration of Citizens
for DPRK nationals and Chapter 4 (Stay, Residence and Tour of
Foreigners) of the Immigration Law for foreigners.
2. Article 70 of the DPRK Constitution provides for the right of
the people to choose their employment according to their
desire and capability. In practice, citizens are assigned
their place of residence largely based on where they are
assigned to work by the state. The Workers' Party of Korea has
full and exclusive control over all job assignments for the
people. People are assigned their jobs in groups to work in
factories, mines and construction facilities as the Party
deems necessary.434
3. By law, people are also not allowed to move from their
assigned residence to another residence without government
permission. Article 149 of the Criminal Code provides that
anyone who hands over, receives or lends a dwelling place
owned by the state for money or goods shall be punished by
short-term labour for less than two years.435 Since all
immovable property is state-owned, this provision effectively
criminalizes any unauthorized move. According to testimony
received by the Commission, corrupt officials are easily
bribed to look the other way when people illegally sell their
residency rights to another person.
* One witness informed the Commission that no one is free to choose
where they live as the Party allocates where they may live. His
parents' generation were allocated houses and he personally never
saw anyone moving homes. However, as the market economy spread as
a result of the food crisis, it became possible to "buy" state-
owned houses. His parents-in-law were able to buy a second floor
apartment for him and his wife but the housing official needed to
be bribed in order to have the transfer of residence
registered.436
1. In the determination of one's place of work and residence by
the state, one's songbunsocial classification plays a key
role.437 As the Commission heard at the Seoul Public Hearing,
people who are not politically reliable are forcefully moved
to places that are difficult to live in, such as mining and
farming areas.438 Children of those assigned to menial jobs in
marginalized areas are usually assigned to the same work and
place to live.
2. During the purges in the early decades of the DPRK's history,
large numbers of people, who were considered to be of low
songbun but escaped the political prison camps, were forcibly
relocated to more remote areas and reassigned to arduous
labour in farming or mining. As a result, provinces such as
North and South Hamgyong today have a much higher
concentration of people of low songbun than other areas,
especially Pyongyang where mainly only people of good songbun
are allowed to live. According to one submission received by
the Commission, following the reclassification of DPRK
citizens into 51 sub-categories under the 3 classes of
songbun, 70,000 people from 15,000 families who were
classified as belonging to the hostile class were banished to
remote mountainous areas. "Many of the areas they were
banished to became prison camps."439
3. The Commission heard from witnesses who spoke about being
relocated from Pyongyang and other cities to more remote parts
of the country and usually made to work in mines due to low
songbun, resulting from their grandparents or parents having
come from South Korea, having moved to the South during the
Korean War, or having been landlords or Christians. Families
could also be relocated due to a family member having been
charged as a political dissident and sentenced to a political
prison camp (kwanliso).440
* Mr Ji Seong-ho, who provided testimony at the Seoul Public
Hearing, spoke about having been raised in a town near a coal
mine which was surrounded by mountains, and how the majority of
the residents had been exiled from other regions. He described
how the population was particularly affected by mass starvation
in the late 1990s, since they were entrapped without food
deliveries in the marginalized area: "I was born in a mining
area. A lot of people starved to death at the time. For
livelihood, there wasn't much we could do to stay alive. We were
surrounded by mountains. So we had to dig roots and [eat] the
skins of trees and grass."441
* The daughter of a male abductee from South Korea, spoke of how
her family was first exiled to a location in the mountains in the
late 1970s. They were made to relocate again to an even more
remote location about a year or two later following her father's
death from suicide.442
1. The Commission also received accounts of party officials and
their families who, without being duly convicted by a court of
law, were assigned to hard labour in a remote area for
failings in their duty or for lesser political wrongs
committed by the official or a family member. One witness
described how an elderly close relative had died during his
stint of "revolutionizing" forced labour in a mine after
giving unsolicited advice to Kim Jong-il.443 These practices
are on-going, evidenced by an amnesty that Kim Jong-un
reportedly decreed in April 2012 for more than 600 officials
who were undergoing such punishment.444
2. State-assigned employment as described above has a
particularly harsh impact on men. Although men and women are
both assigned places of employment upon completing their
studies or military service, women who typically marry in
their twenties in the DPRK are able to leave their state-
assigned employment within a short time of getting married and
when they have children. Men, on the other hand, are not
released from the workplace designated by the state until the
age of 60.445 Men therefore could not drop out of their state-
assigned place of work as easily as women. This included when
many state-owned enterprises ceased to operate at full
capacity, if at all,446 during the famine in the mid-1990s. As
women and men were not being paid or receiving food rations,
women and men were forced to become creative in seeking
incomes and household supplies. Married women were able to
participate in the emerging underground markets with greater
ease, while men had to find ways of circumventing the rigidity
of the state-assigned employment to be able to engage in
commercial activity on the side. Such engagement in commercial
activity by men is, however, limited to those with both money
to be able to pay a substantial bribe and good connections to
the appropriate person in the organization who can "ignore"
the entrepreneur's absence.
3. The Commission finds that the DPRK's policy of assigning its
citizens' residence and employment and denying them the option
to change them at their own free will violates the right to
freedom to choose one's residence under article 12 of the
ICCPR and the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his
or her living by work which he or she freely chooses or
accepts under article 6 of the ICESCR, in particular to the
extent where such assignment is based on songbunsocial class.
(i)
Banishment from Pyongyang
1. As noted earlier, special circumstances surround the status of
Pyongyang. Only people with good songbun are allowed to live
in Pyongyang. Its residents are specifically issued with
resident cards distinct from the ones issued to non-Pyongyang
residents.447 If a family member commits an act deemed a
political wrong or a serious non-political crime, the entire
family is usually banished to a remote province and reassigned
to other work. The consequences of this practice, which seems
to have no basis under DPRK law, are often drastic. Adult
family members are often reassigned to the most arduous and
dangerous types of work, such as mining, logging or farming.
The family also lose their privileged access to food, medical
care and other public services that Pyongyang citizens
enjoy.448 They usually have no family support networks to make
up for the ensuing shortfalls.
2. A former official, described to the Commission a crackdown in
June 2009 on gambling, which was apparently rampant in the
parks of Pyongyang. His superiors told him about this order
and the creation of a central inspection group composed of the
Security State Department (SSD), Ministry of People's Security
(MPS), Korean People's Army (KPA) and the prosecution office.
As a result of the operation, 700 individuals were reported to
have been arrested and sent away to ordinary prison camps
(kyohwaso) with 400 households expelled from Pyongyang.449
3. In the past, the authorities pursued a strict practice of
prohibiting families who had a child or adult member with a
mental or serious physical disability from residing in
Pyongyang. The policy was apparently motivated by a desire to
maintain the image of a clean capital city whose population
corresponded to the ideal of a pure Korean race.
* Mr Lee Jae-geun related how Kim Il-sung referred to Pyongyang as
the capital of revolution and that there would not be anyone with
disabilities, nor anyone who was against the regime, living
there. According to Mr Lee, if someone was born with a
disability, or became a person with a disability, that person and
their family would be sent away from Pyongyang to the
countryside.450
* Mr Son Jung-hun explained that only people with good songbun
could reside in Pyongyang. He gave an example where if a man from
Pyongyang formed a relationship with a woman from outside the
capital, he would not be able to bring her back to Pyongyang if
she did not have a good songbun. Instead, he would have to live
in the woman's local region if he wanted to marry her. Families
with a member who had a disability would also have to leave
Pyongyang, but since they had not committed a crime and had good
songbun, they would be merely relocated to the periphery of the
city. Mr Son believed the reason for persons with a disability
and their families having to move was because Pyongyang must be
presented as a "sacred place" to foreign visitors. As such, weak
and sick people could not be there, lest this might tarnish the
image of Pyongyang. Mr Son had a friend whose father was a
Central Committee member. However, because his child was "not of
normal height", Mr Son's friend and his family had to move away
from Pyongyang.451
* One witness that the Commission met was responsible for
implementing the orders to transfer people expelled from
Pyongyang. She received the orders and instructions from the
government, and issued certificates for the move from Pyongyang
City to other districts of Pyongyang. She said that if a
citizen's father or mother is not loyal enough, then that
individual is not eligible to live in the capital. That person
must be sent to the local region, and so that person must have a
moving card certified. She also said that persons with
disabilities and their families are simply not allowed to live in
Pyongyang.452
(ii)Situation of street children
1. The mass starvation and deaths resulting from the food crisis
and the breakdown of early childcare, education and other
public services produced an entire generation of children who
were orphaned, abandoned or for other reasons no longer under
the care of their parents. These children often ended up
clandestinely migrating to Pyongyang and other cities. Video
footage secretly filmed by collaborators of Rimjin-gang Asia
Press International453 and provided to the Commission show
these children roaming the streets. Many of those portrayed
appear to be no older than four or five years of age.
2. In light of the starvation and daily struggle for survival
which they endure, these street children are euphemistically
referred to as Kotjebi – flower-swallows. Because of the
restrictions on residence, their presence is not tolerated and
they constantly have to evade capture by the security
agencies. Those captured are brought back to their home
counties where they are forcibly institutionalized in poorly
supplied holding centres or just left to survive by
themselves. A former official who worked in a relevant
government department estimated that there could be hundreds
of thousands of street children in Pyongyang alone.454
* Mr Kim Hyuk, who became a street child at age seven after the
death of his mother, testified about his life before the
Commission: "We were sleeping at night at the Chongjin train
station. We were picking up food around the train station, and,
when we were begging, people were more than willing to give us
food. So, when there are no people around the train station, in
the Chongjin city, there are houses for the officials. And if you
go around the official's housing or apartments, they have food
that they have thrown away so those kind[s] of food we could
eat."455
In 1997, at the height of mass starvation, a special police unit
was assigned to apprehend such children. Those who did not have
parents were forced to go to closed shelters that were not able to
provide them with food: "The shelters had no food to give. So many
children starved to death, even at these shelters. And even the
police said if you go to the shelters, the children die, but if
they were allowed to be street children, they would survive."456
1. Police actions to round up and forcibly transfer street
children are still being carried out.
* A former official recalled that SSD and MPS were assigned by Kim
Jong-un in August 2010 to get rid of street children and
unregistered citizens in Pyongyang. The goal was to make the
capital city neat and tidy for the Central Committee Congress to
be held in September 2010. To carry out the operation, additional
SSD and MPS officials were called in from the provinces to carry
out the operation. An extremely large number of street children
were apprehended and sent to "rehabilitation homes" for street
children in their provinces of origin. Adults were sent to labour
training camps, or, in some cases, ordinary prison camps
(kyohwaso).457
* One witness was arrested and beaten by MPS agents when trying to
catch a train to Pyongyang. Along with other children, she was
sent to a children's shelter. When they first arrived, they were
told to stand on a chair, and were beaten with a thick leather
belt. The children had to live in dark basement rooms and use a
plastic bucket as a toilet. They were fed a small amount of salty
soup with a little bit of radish and flour, two or three times a
day. She remembers always being hungry. Her parents found her
after four months and collected her. Other children had been
there for a year.458
* Another witness, who worked in the health sector in North
Hamgyong Province, described how numerous mothers abandoned or
even killed their babies at birth as they could not feed their
children. She recalls that around 1997, the number of orphaned
and abandoned children was so high that Kim Jong-il issued an
order to the families of soldiers and security agents to adopt
such children. Those that did were considered heroes.459
(b) Liberty of movement within one's country
1. In its submission to the Human Rights Committee in December
1999, the DPRK explained that its citizens are free to travel
anywhere in the country subject to the "Regulation of Travel".
Article 6 of this regulation requires citizens who want to
travel to obtain a traveller's certificate. It was explained
further in the DPRK submission that article 4 states that the
"area along the Military Demarcation Line, military base,
district of munitions industries and the districts associated
with state security are travel restrictive."460 In response to
a related query raised by a Human Rights Committee member, the
DPRK elaborated that only people on official business or those
visiting relatives were allowed to travel to areas described
as "restricted" under article 4. While it was acknowledged
that permits were required for travel within the rest of the
country, it was claimed that such permits could be obtained
without restriction. The permit system was said to be
necessary "to guarantee national security and thwart the
activities of spies and saboteurs".461
* One witness informed the Commission that the ordinary citizen is
not normally allowed to go to Pyongyang. He had understood that
this was a security measure against ROK infiltrators wanting to
enter Pyongyang to harm the Supreme Leader. The reason why it is
difficult to get approval to go to the areas bordering China is
due to concerns of people crossing the border without
authorization. He also explained that permission to travel to
Pyongyang or the border areas would only be granted in
exceptional cases, such as attending a wedding or a funeral of a
relative.462
1. According to the Korea Institute for National Unification
(KINU), citizens can use their citizen card as a form of
travel document within their respective provinces instead of a
travel permit. In applying for a permit to travel to another
province, citizens would normally have to wait about two to
three days for a permit to be approved for travel to non-
restricted areas and up to two weeks for restricted areas. The
permit also provides for the length of travel and generally 10
days are given for a round-trip. Although these permits are to
be issued free of charge, the process tends to be delayed if a
bribe is not paid.463
2. There are guard posts at every province and county where a
travelling citizen would have to produce a travel permit.
There are also security agents on trains checking for such
permits. If caught without a permit, the traveller could be
punished, including by being detained in a holding centre
(jipkyulso) or sent to a labour training camp for 10 days.464
The DPRK's People's Security Control Act allows the People's
Security Agency to exercise control over violations regarding
traveling rules, and those found to have disobeyed this Act
are subject to warnings, fines and penalties such as unpaid
labour.465
3. The Neighbourhood Watch (Inminban)466 is further required to
report the arrival of a traveller in a village or town. The
traveller must also register with the local security agent
upon arrival at the approved point of destination. As part of
the citizen monitoring system breaks down due to economic
hardship, bed check inspections are said to no longer be
strictly enforced, and anyone caught can get away with a
bribe. In practice, people increasingly by-pass the permit
system by paying bribes at check points.467
* One witness, who resided in a non-border area, Chongjin, had used
her friend's citizen card to travel to the border area, Hoeryong,
since her friend resided in a border area and the picture on the
computer-issued card was blurry enough to look like her.468
* Another witness explained to the Commission that because of his
work, he could move around the country. However, in order to
travel officially, he needed approval from four different
entities. When he needed to travel for personal reasons, he would
simply bribe the officers with cigarettes.469
1. Similar to the restrictions on employment, the restrictions on
the right to movement appear to be more limiting for men than
women. The primary reason for this is the requirement for men
to "check-in" with employers, even if their state-assigned
organization is not functioning. Many women who are not
gainfully employed by the state can go undetected for longer
periods of time as compared to men. This is presumed to be one
of the underlying reasons for the disproportionate number of
women able to leave the country.
2. According to the Human Rights Committee General Comments,
restrictions on the liberty of movement are only permissible
under exceptional circumstances. Criteria for restrictions
must be laid down in law and the law may not confer unfettered
discretion on those charged with their execution. The
restriction must be necessary to protect national security,
public order (ordre public), public health, morals or the
rights and freedoms of others. Restrictive measures must not
impair the essence of the right and they must conform to the
principle of proportionality; they must be appropriate to
achieve their protective function; they must be the least
intrusive instrument amongst those which might achieve the
desired result; and they must be proportionate to the interest
to be protected. In particular, the relation between right and
restriction, between norm and exception, must not be
reversed.470
3. The requirement of a travel permit to specific areas, where
restrictions are necessary to protect national security
(notably areas in the immediate vicinity of the Military
Demarcation Line) may be considered a proportional measure.
However, the Commission finds that the requirement of having
to generally apply for a permit to travel to Pyongyang or
anywhere else outside the citizen's home province is a
disproportional measure that violates article 12 (1) of the
ICCPR.471
2. Right to leave one's own country
1. The Commission finds that DPRK citizens are subject to
restrictions on foreign travel that in practice amount to a
virtual travel ban on ordinary citizens, which is enforced
through extreme violence and harsh punishment. This is likely
intended to ensure as little exposure to knowledge which
contradicts information that is propagated through state-
controlled media and other means of indoctrination and
information control.
(a) Total travel ban
1. According to the DPRK's immigration law, overseas travel is
possible with the issuance of a passport or a border area
travel permit.472 By law, citizens are allowed to visit
relatives in China but the personal information of such
relatives including contact details are to be documented in
the travellers' records. An invitation from the Chinese
relatives must also be obtained in applying for a passport. A
river-crossing pass may be issued to a DPRK resident in the
border region who wants to visit China for a short trip. For
those engaged in cross-border trade, a 24- or 48-hour pass can
theoretically be issued immediately upon application, although
this may not happen in reality.473
2. In practice, travelling abroad is a privilege reserved for
those with good class or ideology.474 Witnesses provided
information to the Commission that people who are permitted to
leave the country for official business are thoroughly
examined and that they must have a spotless background. The
responsible officer may even get into trouble for approving an
application for travelling abroad if the person travelling
later "defects". According to witness testimonies, if an
applicant was born abroad, the responsible officer considering
the application would not trust that applicant to not defect
(having been exposed to the outside world and/or capitalist
ways) and would therefore reject the application.475 A failure
to return from authorized travel abroad may also result in
serious consequences for family members of the "defector"
remaining in the DPRK.476
3. The Commission finds that ordinary DPRK citizens usually have
no other choice than to illegally cross the border with China
in order to realize their human right to leave their own
country under article 12 (2) of the ICCPR. This is considered
a serious offence. Article 233 of the Criminal Code considers
any illegal crossing of the border an offence subject to less
than two years of short-term labour, or, in grave cases, up to
five years of reform through labour.477 In practice, those who
illegally cross the border are regularly considered to have
committed "treason against the Fatherland by defection" under
article 62 of the Criminal Code. This crime is punishable by a
minimum of five years of "reform through labour". Illegal
border crossers are alternatively charged under another of the
vaguely defined and political "anti-state or anti-people
crimes".478 The MPS reportedly issued a decree in 2010 making
the crime of defection a "crime of treachery against the
nation"479 This view is taken in particular where persons have
been in contact with Christian churches or ROK and/or US
nationals while in China or make attempts to travel on to the
ROK or another third state.
4. The approach towards considering those who illegally travel to
China and beyond as political criminals is fuelled by official
state propaganda and pronouncements of the Supreme Leader and
other senior officials. Those who fled the DPRK (i.e.
"defectors") and who speak out about their experience are
regularly referred to as "human scum".480 They are "branded as
elements subject to legal punishment in the clean society in
the DPRK for their crimes of murder, robbery, pilferage,
embezzlement of state properties and corruptions [sic]". They
are said to have been manipulated by the ROK and the USA in
the latter's efforts to escalate confrontation with the DPRK
and to topple the social system in the DPRK.481 Two former SSD
agents who served at the Chinese border, indicated that
"defectors" were always considered traitors and less than
human.482 Another former security agent was told by his
superiors that the Supreme Leader had ordered the "merciless"
suppression of "defectors" and other anti-government
dissidents. He has since heard from former colleagues in the
security services, with whom he maintains contact, that Kim
Jong-un issued a similar order upon personal visits to the
headquarters of the SSD and the MPS.483
(b) Patterns of flight from the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea and underlying reasons
1. The Commission has observed that until the end of the 1980s,
very few people appear to have fled the DPRK illegally and
those who did often did so for political reasons. In the
1990s, as a result of the escalating hunger and starvation in
the country, illegal crossing of the border into China to flee
from economic despair and the underlying human rights
violations has become a mass phenomenon notwithstanding its
criminalization. Large numbers of desperate citizens illegally
crossed the border in order to find food and work, to trade
goods, or to obtain assistance from relatives living in the
Chinese provinces bordering the DPRK. They took advantage of
the general breakdown of state control during the period of
the famine.
* Mr Kim Kwang-il described how the only way people survived mass
starvation in the 1990s was by illegally going in and out of
China, and smuggling things in and out of China, in order to feed
themselves. Even though he, like others, knew that it was illegal
to do so and was at risk of being punished severely, Mr Kim
stated that he had no option but to cross the border as the
government was not feeding him and his family.484
* One witness had decided to cross the border in 1998 because he
was starving and planned to seek help from his relatives there.
He had every intention of coming back as he had wanted to
complete his studies at the university. The situation became dire
with the death of Kim Il-sung. In his university, the situation
was so poor that students stole from each other. He travelled in
secret towards the border area and knew he was lucky not to have
been caught. He heard that if he was caught, he could be sent to
a detention facility where those kept there are "not treated as
humans". Such a description of the treatment in the detention
facilities for repatriated persons is consistent with other
testimony received by the Commission.485
1. Although hundreds of thousands of people were starving to
death in the 1990s in the DPRK, the authorities never lifted
the travel ban or allowed citizens from the border regions to
go to China, where many had ethnic Korean relatives or could
have found work to survive. Only in 1999 or 2000, as the
situation was already improving, Kim Jong-il apparently issued
instructions that those who showed that they only went to
China for food and work should be treated with a degree of
leniency.486 However, even during the relative short period of
"leniency", the practice of consistently punishing anyone
forcibly repatriated from China was never fully abandoned.
2. Moreover, later in 2000, after the mass starvation ebbed off
to some degree, orders were again given to "mercilessly
suppress" all "defection" and the state forcefully reasserted
its control over the border.487
3. Nevertheless, the patterns of illegal border crossing that
emerged during the famine continued in the 2000s, despite on-
going efforts to repress escapees from the DPRK and deter any
unauthorized crossing using severe violence and harsh
punishment. Since Kim Jong-un emerged as the heir apparent in
2009 and assumed many functions from the ailing Kim Jong-il,
there has been a push to seal the border.488 This has lessened
outflows into China, evidenced also by fewer DPRK nationals
reaching the ROK.
* Mr Kim Young-hwan, who works in a humanitarian network that has
operations in the China-DPRK border region, informed the
Commission that the number of people fleeing the DPRK peaked in
2009 with a progressive decrease thereafter. He noted an
increased crackdown since Kim Jong-un came to power.489
1. Figures provided by the ROK Ministry of Unification on the
number of DPRK citizens who have entered ROK also show a
growing trend from 2001 up until 2009. The numbers decreased
thereafter with a marked reduction between 2011 and 2012.490
2. The motivations of those who left in recent years have become
more varied. Based on a survey conducted in 2012, the Korean
Bar Association found that the pattern for "defections" has
changed in that recent "defections" have been for political
reasons rather than economic ones. Furthermore, "defections"
by families outnumber individual "defections", and these
"defections" appear to be more permanent than before.491
3. In some cases, people are fleeing to China to escape direct
persecution for political or religious reasons.
* Mr A regularly travelled to China to find food to survive and
also engaged in some trading activities. During these visits he
came into contact with Christian churches. When the MPS
interrogated him under torture about the reason for his visits,
he took the decision to flee to China on a permanent basis.492
* One witness who was a practising Christian from North Hamgyong
Province fled the DPRK in 2011. A fellow Christian gave away her
name under torture before being executed. When agents of the KPA
Military Security Command came to arrest her, she escaped across
the Tumen River.493
1. A large number of DPRK citizens also fled the economic
hardship and lack of food that endured even in the 2000s,
especially in the marginalized areas near the Chinese border,
as a result of discriminatory violations of the right to
food.494 Many of those who fled for such reasons were
suffering socio-economic deprivation as a result of being
classified in a low songbun social class, because the
political loyalty of their forebears was put into question.495
In some of these cases, they planned to go to China for a
limited period to earn money, but were forcibly repatriated.
As a result of repatriation and the punishment that followed,
they were branded as political traitors and lost any remaining
access to job opportunities, housing and other essential
goods.
2. As they received more information about life outside the DPRK,
persons who fled the DPRK increasingly sought to reach the
ROK. Those who were successful in reaching the ROK then sought
to bring other family members and relatives to the ROK.
Clandestine escape networks, some composed of humanitarian
activists and others of professional people smugglers,496
emerged. DPRK citizens often moved from China via Mongolia to
the ROK. Since 2007, the Mongolia route has effectively been
closed because of tighter Chinese border controls there.
Thereafter, DPRK citizens bound for the ROK usually proceed
through Viet Nam, Laos or Cambodia to reach Thailand and from
there the ROK.497
3. According to ROK official statistics, 26,028 persons who fled
the DPRK have become ROK citizens as of November 2013. Of
these, over 80 per cent came from the border regions, i.e.
Hamgyong and Ryanggang provinces, and over 70 per cent were
aged between 20 and 49. A steady increase has been seen in the
number of women and family units among those who fled the
DPRK, with women accounting for around 70 per cent of those
resettled in the ROK. It is therefore also estimated that more
than 70 per cent of those fleeing the DPRK are women, although
a large number remain in China. Sizable numbers of DPRK
citizens have been granted refugee or other permanent resident
status in the United States of America, the United Kingdom,
Japan and other countries.
4. Since those who flee the DPRK generally reside clandestinely
in China, it is very difficult to estimate how many DPRK
citizens currently live there. While estimates vary greatly,
there also seems to be fluctuation over time and a decline
that coincided with the reassertion of control over the
border, coupled with large numbers of forced repatriations
from China in the later 2000s.
5. In 2005, the humanitarian organization Good Friends estimated
that the number of DPRK citizens in the Chinese provinces
along the DPRK border was 50,000. In 2006, the International
Crisis Group estimated the number to be 100,000 based on
interviews with local Chinese and Korean-Chinese interlocutors
and other NGO reports. A 2010 survey, by Professor Courtland
Robinson of Johns Hopkins University estimated the total
number of DPRK citizens in the three north-eastern provinces
of China to be 6,824, with an additional 7,829 children born
to mothers from the DPRK. In 2013, KINU estimated the total
number of DPRK nationals living in the three Chinese border
provinces with an ethnic Korean population to be about 7,500
(at least 4,500 and less than 10,500) adults and 20,000 (at
least 15,000 and less than 25,000) children in 2012.498
(c) Border control measures
1. Since 2009, there has been an apparent renewed push to seal
the border, driven by both the DPRK and China. The latter was
particularly concerned about inflows of undocumented migrants
as well as drug trafficking originating from the DPRK. Fences
and other barriers have been set up by both the DPRK and China
along some stretches of the border, where crossings have most
frequently occurred. In addition to obtaining witness
testimony from recent visitors to the border, the Commission
also reviewed relevant pictures showing such installations.
2. The SSD, MPS and KPA are all deployed in the border region and
closely coordinate their actions to prevent escapes from the
DPRK. After Kim Jong-un assumed power, the SSD was also
assigned to assume the lead on border control, taking over
from the KPA Border Security Command. This move is said to be
driven by dissatisfaction over corruption in the army.
According to one witness, who has worked with DPRK nationals
in China, the authorities frequently switch guards since 2010,
making it harder for guards to be bribed for assistance in
crossing the border.499
3. KINU reported that from 2009, the SSD implemented new measures
against "defectors", including tighter surveillance over
families with members who are missing or have "defected". Even
law enforcement workers were investigated for any relatives
who have "defected", and, if so, they would be removed from
their positions. In 2010, a census survey was reportedly
carried out conducting an in-depth inspection of "defector
families".500 "Banishment villages" were supposedly designated
in remote areas where the "defector families" would be sent
to, although this plan appears to have abandoned.501
4. Following the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011, the DPRK
increased restrictions on the movements of its citizens during
the mourning period, with bed-check inspections being carried
out more intensely and every family along the border region
required to stand guard in turn. Land mines were reportedly
installed along the border in addition to barbed wire fences,
and cameras were set up along major defection routes as well
as spiked panels with four-inch nails along the banks of the
Tumen River.502
5. In November 2013, DPRK authorities were reported to be
increasing their surveillance of families of suspected
"defectors", including through the reporting mechanism of the
Neighbourhood Watch. It was further reported that "Families
with members who have defected or whose whereabouts are
unconfirmed must register with their local People's Security
Bureau … It looks like rising numbers of missing persons and
defectors have led the authorities to try and block anyone
else from defecting by stepping up surveillance and
controls."503
6. Former DPRK security officials indicated that officials may
shoot to kill anyone trying to cross the border, a policy
which dates back at least to the early 1990s and remains in
place.504 A former SSD agent involved in border control
indicated that border guards who shoot at DPRK citizens trying
to flee the country would not be punished.505 Another former
official testified about the killing of a person who illegally
crossed the border in January 2011.506 This was also confirmed
by the testimony of Mr Kim Young-hwan,507 a humanitarian
activist involved in operations to help those who flee the
DPRK, as well as another witness, who engages in similar
operations.508 Shooting directives appear to have been
modified based on superior orders in 2010 or 2011, after DPRK
agents shot and killed a number of persons on the Chinese side
of the border. While DPRK agents are now ordered to take care
not to harm people on the Chinese side, the basic
authorization to shoot and kill those who try to flee remains
in place.509
7. This shoot to kill policy cannot be justified as a legitimate
border control measure since it violates international human
rights law. The DPRK upholds a de facto total travel ban on
ordinary citizens that violates international law and gives
individuals no other option than to cross the border without
authorization in order to exercise their human right to leave
their own country. Furthermore, the intentional taking of life
for the purposes of preventing the unauthorized crossing of a
border is also grossly disproportionate and irreconcilable
with article 6 of the ICCPR, which only allows the use of
lethal force by state agents in self-defence or defence of
others to protect life against immediate threats.510
8. The Commission also found a practice of SSD agents abducting
persons who flee the DPRK from the territory of the People's
Republic of China. Former officials who flee and others who
might give away sensitive information are targeted, along with
humanitarian activists and others who help DPRK nationals
flee.511
(d) Torture, inhuman treatment and imprisonment of persons who
tried to flee the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
1. In an attempt to deter citizens from fleeing the country, the
DPRK authorities subject those who were forcibly repatriated
from China or were caught in the process of trying to reach
China to torture, inhumane treatment and imprisonment.
2. In the 1990s, when the authorities were confronted with the
first cases of citizens fleeing mass starvation, the
authorities often sought to set a deterrent example to the
population.
* Ms Kwon Young-hee spoke to the Commission about her brother who
was arrested in China in 1994 for attempting to "defect" from the
DPRK. He had gone to China in search of food. As an example to
others against committing similar "anti-state" offences, he was
tied to the back of a truck which took him to their home town,
Musan.
"By the time he reached Musan, his face was covered with blood,
his clothes were all torn. And when he fell, they stopped the
truck and rushed him to stand up again. At the time my brother
was discharged [from the army] for malnutrition, and he was
diabetic. My mother tried to treat his diabetes in the hospital
so he was diabetic at the time he went to China. … Even when my
brother collapsed, the truck would go on and theBowibupeople,
when my brother collapsed, would beat my brother up to make him
stand up. Musan is a big city but they drove him around Musan
city three times so that everybody could see him."512
* In 1993, a family fled to China and was forcibly repatriated to
their hometown in Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province. The
whole family, including a boy of five years of age, were paraded
in handcuffs around town. The mother and father were then dragged
around like oxen with rings that had been rammed into their
noses. The entire town, including one witness who spoke to the
Commission (who was 13 years old at the time), was forced to
attend the brutal spectacle. The spectators swore at the victims
and threw rocks at them. The witness did not know what became of
the family.513
* In 1996, another witness saw how the authorities in Musan used a
car to drag a man using a hook pierced in his nose. They
announced by loudspeaker that they had caught a traitor and "had
to pay the Chinese four times the village's budget to get him
back". Little children followed the car and threw stones at the
man. This terrifying experience triggered the witness to flee the
DPRK.514
1. As more and more people fled from the DPRK during the mass
starvation of the 1990s, the DPRK authorities seemed to have
systematized their punishment of repatriated persons. The
process follows very regular patterns and different security
agencies closely coordinate their actions. Based on interviews
with repatriated persons and former officials, the Commission
finds that the actions described below generally reflect the
treatment of DPRK nationals upon repatriation from China.
2. DPRK citizens who leave the DPRK illegally and are arrested by
the Chinese authorities are handed over to the SSD at the
border. There are at least five known border towns through
which repatriated persons are taken to and "processed":
Hoeryong, Hyesan, Musan, Onsong and Sinuiju.515 Initially,
repatriated persons are taken to an SSD interrogation
detention centre near the border, where they suffer repeated
illegal and sexually invasive body cavity searches (see
below). SSD agents then question them on how and why they
fled, including who assisted them in their departure from the
DPRK and what they did in China. This interrogation usually
involves torture of the kind described in section IV.D.2.
3. Depending on the nature of the allegations against them and
their background, the fate of repatriated persons is
determined by the SSD. Persons found to have made contact with
ROK nationals and/or Christian missionaries are sent for
further interrogation at the provincial SSD headquarters. From
there, they are sent either directly to a political prison
camp (kwanliso) without any trial or imprisoned in an ordinary
prison camp (kyohwaso) after an unfair trial.516 In cases
considered to be particularly grave, such as having contact
with ROK intelligence officials, the victim faces execution.
4. Conversely, those found to have solely gone to China looking
for food and/or work are handed over to the MPS, where the
interrogation process is usually recommenced. If the MPS
confirms that the person is only an "ordinary" border crosser,
it commits him or her to detention in a holding centre
(jipkyulso). There, the person remains detained, sometimes for
months, until MPS agents from the person's home county collect
him or her and place the victim, usually without a trial, for
several months to a year in a labour training camp
(rodongdanryundae).
* A former SSD agent, who worked in border security, indicated that
the SSD considered anyone who illegally fled to China to be a
traitor, no matter their reason, and would "not treat them as
human". However, the worst types of "defectors" were those who
were planning to go to the ROK or had contact with ROK
intelligence agencies. People who agreed to spy for ROK
intelligence agencies were always executed. In the case of
Christians, the SSD tried to ascertain how long a person had been
a Christian. They looked at the circumstances, e.g. whether the
person tried to bring Bibles into the DPRK. In such cases, the
persons were typically sent to prison camps without a trial.517
* One former security official indicated that he received orders
from his superiors to classify "defectors" into three groups. The
first group were those who crossed the border only for food with
the intention of coming back to the DPRK – they were to be sent
to labour camps for three to six months. The second group were
those who left the DPRK with the intention of reaching the ROK –
they were to be sent to an ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso). The
third group were those who leave the DPRK with the intention of
going to the ROK using channels provided by Christian groups or
the ROK intelligence network – they were to be sent to a
political prison camp (kwanliso). Public executions of
"defectors" were carried out where politically expedient.518
* Another former SSD agent indicated that people forcibly
repatriated from China were treated entirely differently from
those who returned to the DPRK voluntarily. They were to be
interrogated as to whether they had been in contact with churches
or with ROK nationals, and, if so, they were to be sent to the
SSD provincial headquarters and from there to a kwanliso. The
rest were to be sent to MPS facilities and from there to an
ordinary prison (kyohwaso).519
(i)
Torture and inhuman treatment during interrogation
1. The Commission finds that during the interrogation carried out
by the SSD and MPS, severe beatings and other forms of torture
are systematically used, until the interrogators are convinced
that the victim has stated the truth and confessed to the
totality of his or her wrongdoing. With rare exceptions, every
single one of more than 100 persons repatriated from China who
were interviewed by the Commission were beaten or subjected to
worse forms of torture during interrogations. Inhumane
detention conditions that characterize the interrogation
detention centres of the SSD and MPS exert additional pressure
on detainees to confess quickly to secure their survival.520
2. During the interrogation phase, suspects receive a quantity of
rations that is designed to cause hunger and starvation. In
some interrogation detention centres, inmates are also
subjected to forced labour in farming and construction. This
violates international standards which prohibit imposing
forced labour on persons not duly convicted.521 Inmates who
are not being interrogated or who are not working have to sit
or kneel the entire day in a fixed posture in often severely
overcrowded cells. They are not allowed to speak, move, or
look around without permission. Failure to obey these rules
will be punished by beatings, food ration cuts or forced
physical exercise. Punishment is often imposed collectively on
all cellmates.
* Mr Kim Song-ju said at the London Public Hearing: "As soon as I
set my foot back in North Korea, the treatment of me was [as
though I was] below human... In the course of interrogating me,
they hit me, because they asked me whether I was in contact with
South Koreans, or if I had gotten involved with any religious
acts, but because my answer was no, they tried to frame me of
some sort of crime and they treated me as [though I was] below
human."522
* Mr Ji Seong-ho went to China the first time in 2000 seeking food
to feed his family. He was arrested by the police four kilometres
from the border after re-entering the DPRK. He was questioned and
asked whether he had listened to South Korean radio broadcasts
and if he had met with ROK nationals, whether Christians or media
people, in China. His interrogators, who beat and tormented him,
said that as someone with a disability begging for food in China,
he would bring shame to the DPRK if the foreign press saw him. He
was eventually released under the condition that he never went
back to China.
1. The third time Mr Ji went to China was in 2006, with the
intention of going to the ROK. Mr Ji had wanted to reach the
ROK first to determine whether it would be a good idea for his
father to join him there. Once he resettled in the ROK, he
tried to contact his father. However, he discovered that his
father was arrested during an attempt to cross the border. He
further found out that his father was interrogated and
tortured by the SSD. He was then returned to his home in a
cart, practically dead.523
* Mr A spoke of his sister whom he learnt from his contacts in the
DPRK to have been repatriated and then tortured under
interrogation before being sent to Yodok Camp. He believed she
was treated harshly and sentenced severely because she was a
practising Christian and she had the intention to proceed to the
ROK.524
* The treatment Ms Jee Heon A experienced during her third
repatriation was the worst. She was beaten for simply resisting
to take off her clothes during a strip search. She was questioned
whether she had attended a church or met any ROK nationals. She
knew that she had to answer in the negative, as otherwise she
could be sent to a kwanliso or even executed. She was beaten up
for not confessing to these "crimes". She was then sent to a
jipkyulso before being sent eventually to a kyohwaso.525
* One witness was interrogated for two weeks at an SSD
interrogation centre. She was beaten with a club whenever she was
slow to respond or if her interrogators did not like her answer.
They also kicked her right below the knee to induce a maximum of
pain. She believed that others were suffering the same fate as
she could hear them screaming.526
* Another witness was kept six weeks for interrogation by the SSD
in a holding facility. The SSD officials who interrogated her
beat her to find out if she had been in contact with ROK
nationals or Christians. At this facility, the witness also saw
guards stomping, beating and pulling the hair of a girl of about
18 years old who was apparently known to the guards as she had
been arrested several times before. After six weeks, the witness
was sent to the SSD provincial detention centre where she was
beaten again to get her to confess that she had been in contact
with ROK nationals or churches and to reveal those who had
arranged for her to cross the border. Whenever the witness and
other detainees were not interrogated or made to work at the
detention centre, they had to kneel with their hands behind their
back and keep their heads down. The same posture had to be
maintained even when questioned by a guard. Once, the witness
mistakenly looked up and was kicked with a heavy boot in the
chest by a guard. An old woman who had no shoes and asked for
shoes in order to work was told by the SSD agents that she did
not deserve shoes because the detainees were animals and should
die soon. The old woman was beaten up by the guards and ended up
bleeding.527
* While being held with others repatriated from China at an
interrogation detention centre, a witness saw a young woman who
folded her hands in a praying fashion when the SSD interrogated
her. The SSD suspected therefore that she was a Christian. They
took her to another room and beat her until she confessed. All
inmates of her cell were not allowed to sleep until the woman
confessed. The witness does not know what happened to her after
that. She also overheard the SSD saying to one family that they
would be taken to a political prison camp because they had made
contact with Christians in China.528
1. Several other witnesses gave similar accounts as to their
experiences when interrogated upon repatriation to the
DPRK.529 One witness who was sick with fever during his
detention was accused of faking his illness and was beaten
even more severely.530
(ii)Sexual violence and other humiliating acts against women, in
particular invasive searches
1. Upon arrival at detention centres, repatriated persons are
subjected to exercises whilst nude and invasive body searches.
This treatment is intended to confiscate and steal hidden
money from the victims, rather than to obtain evidence to be
used in court. As such, the searches are in breach of article
143 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows searches
only for purposes of seizing evidence. Especially with regard
to female victims, the searches are carried out in a
deliberately degrading and unsanitary manner
2. Victims are forced to undress in front of other prisoners as
well as other guards, often of the opposite sex, and then
forced to perform numerous continuous "squats" while nude, an
act also known as "pumping". This is intended to dislodge any
items that may be concealed within vaginal or anal cavities.
The Commission heard several accounts of repatriated persons
having to strip naked and perform naked squats in groups while
guards searched their clothes for money and other valuables.
* One witness described there being a very large ditch outside the
detention facility, which was used for the purpose of the strip
searches:
"The prisoners were told to get in the hole and remove their
clothes. We had to throw the clothes to the guards who would keep
them if they liked them. We were forced to jump and do pumping.
Then someone put their hands in everyone's vagina and anus to
check for money or other valuables. We were all together at this
time, males and females. After the body search, we were forced to
kneel in a cell on our hands and knees."531
* Ms P was repatriated after having been detained by Chinese
authorities for 15 days. Upon repatriation, she was strip-
searched and made to squat and stand 100 times by the SSD. She
was questioned and beaten until she fainted.532
* Upon transfer to the DPRK, one witness and other women were
strip-searched by DPRK officials. The women had to hold their
hands behind their head while they were being searched by female
guards. After that they had to do 100 squats while still
naked.533
1. Repatriated women are also subjected to unsanitary vaginal
searches. Ordinary guards, often using the same gloves on
multiple women, or no gloves at all, will insert their hands
into the inmates' vaginas in search of money. In some cases,
such searches are even performed by men. During the entire
time in detention, guards keep detainees under close
surveillance to see whether they have hidden money in any body
cavities. Guards also look for items possibly hidden by the
detainees in their faeces. Detainees were even beaten for not
defecating in order for such an inspection to be carried out.
* Mr Kim Young-hwan, who works with former nationals of the DPRK,
including by providing assistance to them in China, has heard
many testimonies about the inhuman treatment faced by repatriated
persons, particularly women. Women are forced to strip naked and
made to squat several times ("pumping") to ensure that anything
hidden within their bodies can be discovered. For the same
purpose, manual body cavity checks are carried out, including
vaginal and anal examinations. In some instances, male personnel
may carry out such searches and on female detainees.534
* Ms Jee Heon A was rounded up for repatriation with several other
DPRK women, including one pregnant woman. During the transfer to
the border, the pregnant woman went into labour on the bus they
were travelling in and gave birth to a baby who died during
birth. Those repatriated, including the mother, were made to
undergo searches including manual body cavity checks by male
personnel and made to squat and stand up several times. Ms Jee
told the Commission that the searches "made us feel degraded as
women. We were stripped naked when we were arrested, they
searched our bodies, even our vaginas. They made us squat and
stand, repeatedly."535
* Mr Kim Song-ju observed from his cell at the Musan MPS
Interrogation Centre how 10 women who had been repatriated from
China were lined up in a row before a female officer inserted her
hand into their vaginas one after the other. Mr Kim also
recounted how the guards ordered him, in his capacity as
designated cell leader, to monitor the faeces of inmates to watch
out for hidden money. The guards took any money found.536
* One witness recalled how she and other women were searched by
officials who intended to take their money at the SSD
Interrogation Detention Centre in Sinuiju. She described that an
elderly female officer of high rank personally conducted the
searches, using the same glove for each victim, causing the
witness to develop an infectious disease. The high-ranking
officer also verbally humiliated a very young woman while
inserting her hand into the woman's vagina.537
* Another witness also described a single glove being repeatedly
used when a guard at the SSD Interrogation Centre in Onsong
conducted vaginal searches on her and other women repatriated
from China. The women were also subjected to nude squats.538
* Another witness related to the Commission of being physically
abused the moment she re-entered the DPRK. She and others were
taken to a detention facility where women were placed in a room
separate to the men and had all their clothes and belongings
removed and taken away. They were made to lie down on their backs
with their legs spread and an invasive thorough body search was
conducted by the guards who were looking for cash, letters and
phone numbers. A female guard wearing rubber gloves conducted a
search of their body cavities. The witness saw that other guards
were looking and laughing at them through the open windows of the
facility while this search was conducted. The witness heard that
a man who was caught concealing a credit card was taken to a
separate room and severely beaten up. After one month, the
witness was transferred to another detention facility where she
was subjected to another round of thorough body searches. In her
group, there were an elderly woman and a woman at a very advanced
stage of her pregnancy. Both were not spared from physical and
verbal abuse. They were made to squat and stand up 100 times.
When the old woman was too weak to carry this out, female guards
kicked her until she fell, bringing down with her the pregnant
detainee who was standing next to her. The pregnant detainee was
in pain from the fall but the guards simply started cursing her
and shouted that she was carrying a Chinese baby in her womb. The
guards eventually took her to the medical facility of the
detention centre. When the pregnant detainee returned three days
later, she was no longer carrying a child and she informed the
rest of the detainees that she had a miscarriage.539
1. The Commission appreciates that body cavity searches can in
some circumstances be necessary for purposes of gathering
evidence or ensuring security in detention and other
facilities. However, strict standards of legality, necessity,
proportionality and humane process have to be obeyed. In
addition to being duly authorized by law, they must be carried
out with a legitimate purpose and only where necessary and
proportional, in a humane and sanitary manner, and by
qualified persons with appropriate training.540
2. The Commission finds that the type of searches carried out in
the DPRK fall short of these standards. Repatriated persons
are systematically subjected to invasive body searches, which
are conducted by ordinary guards in the presence of other
prisoners and serve the primary purpose of stealing any money
that repatriated persons may have brought back with them. Such
searches are illegal under the DPRK Code of Criminal
Procedure, which only allows searches for purposes of
gathering evidence, and also constitute crimes under the Code
of Criminal Procedure.541 Those who resist are beaten into
submission.
3. The insertion of hands by female, and sometimes male, guards
into the victim's vagina entails a bodily invasion.
International criminal law considers any unjustified coercive
invasion of the genital opening of the victim with a part of
the perpetrator's body as rape.542 Considering the overall
degrading circumstances surrounding the searches, the lack of
legitimate purpose and the failure to respect international
standards on cavity searches, the Commission finds that in
many instances the searches amount to rape, as defined under
international criminal law.
4. In addition to strip searches, the forced continual squats
whilst naked and vaginal cavity searches, repatriated women
have also been subjected to other forms of sexual violence.
* While being repatriated on a truck from China, a witness saw a
DPRK agent groping the breasts of another woman. When the agent
saw the witness looking at him, he slapped her.543
* Another witness told the Commission that in the detention centre
for repatriated persons, women were regularly sexually abused. In
addition to being forced to do naked squats continually and
vaginal searches, women were forced to get naked by guards and
beaten.544
1. Repatriated women are further subjected to inhuman and
degrading treatment by guards at detention facilities. Many
reported being spoken to in a derogatory manner and others
subjected to deliberately humiliating treatment. The
Commission also received testimony of sanitary napkins being
taken from repatriated women when bleeding at the time.545
* Ms Jee recalled the guards asking repatriated women about their
sexual experiences in China.546
* Another witness told the Commission about being berated for
"betraying her country" by leaving, and asked particularly
humiliating questions such as "do you like the taste of Chinese
men?" during interrogations.547
* Another witness heard guards beating a repatriated woman, asking
her "did you enjoy sleeping with a Chinese man?"548
* At the London Public Hearing, the Commission heard from Ms Park
about the humiliating treatment she suffered in detention after
repatriation. Ms Park was strip searched, subjected to an
invasive vaginal search and nude squats. She explained to the
Commission that the guards search for money also involved tearing
clothes and sanitary napkins. As her sanitary napkins were
destroyed, Ms Park used a small piece of towel during her
menstrual period, but was punished by the guards in a humiliating
manner for washing the towel,
"[E]very morning we were given a small container full of water to
wash our face and this particular day I used it to the water to
wash the soiled towel but I was found out and I was punished for
misusing the water. I had to wear the bloody towel over my head,
which was my punishment for the whole day."549
(iii)Conditions at the holding centre (jipkyulso)
1. Once those repatriated have been interrogated and determined
to be regular border crossers, they are often sent to a
holding facility (jipkyulso) to wait to be picked up by the
MPS. They may be held here for days and even months. Sometimes
these centres also serve as the place where the repatriated
persons carry out their sentence. Conditions at the holding
centres are inhuman, and a policy of imposing deliberate
starvation on prisoners continues to be in place.
* One witness told the Commission about having received two
spoonfuls of maize and a bowl of radish pickle soup per day when
she was held at the jipkyulso. She was kept in a cell with about
10 others which measured 2 metres by 2 metres. A hole in the
ground was used as the toilet and the detainees had to ask for
permission from the guards first before using the hole. If caught
using it without permission, the detainee would be dragged out of
the cell and be beaten by the guards. The beating would increase
if the detainee cried or pleaded for mercy. The witness was kept
at a second holding facility for five months before she was
transferred to where she was to serve her sentence.550
* After her interrogation had concluded, one witness was sent to
the Chongjin holding centre. She was detained there for a year
because the MPS officers from her home region did not come to
collect her. Without having been convicted of any crime, she was
subjected to forced labour and daily ideology training. She
almost died from a fever as a result of the conditions in the
lice infested cells.551
* Another witness spoke to the Commission about having spent five
months in the Chongjin jipkyulso. Life there was extremely hard.
The inmates only received five spoons of boiled corn three times
a day, with no vegetables or salt. They also received some hot
water. The witness traded his Chinese-quality clothes with other
prisoners who received extra food sent by relatives. Adults were
forced to work hard for 10 hours a day in brick laying, timber
cutting and farming. If they did not fulfil their daily work
quota they had to work for longer. The witness was spared because
the authorities thought he was still a child. He personally
witnessed 13 men dying during his time in this jipkyulso. Their
bodies were wrapped up and left for days for the other inmates to
see so as to instil fear in them. The guards told them, "This is
what happens when you abandon your country."
When the corpses started to rot, the other prisoners were made to
go to the mountains where they dug a hole and dumped the bodies
without any coffin, ceremony or gravesite marking. The guards also
assigned hardened criminals to ensure discipline among the
detainees. Those who were repatriated were treated more harshly
than ordinary criminals by these "disciplinarians". One night they
beat to death a repatriated man who had been suspected of being in
touch with ROK nationals in China. The witness could hear the
beating going on all night without any intervention from the
guards. The witness assumed the guards did not expect that the man
would be beaten to death. The man who was beaten to death had a 7
or 8 year old son who was kept in the same juvenile cell as the
witness. After being detained for one more month, the child was
sent to an orphanage.552
(e) Forced abortion and infanticide against repatriated mothers and
their children
1. The Commission finds that there is a widespread prevalence of
forced abortion and infanticide against repatriated mothers
and their children, in contravention of domestic and
international laws. Forced abortion occurs when a woman who
wants to carry her pregnancy to full term is required to
terminate it against her will. Infanticide is generally
defined as a mother or other person killing an infant soon
after birth. This only appears to have occurred when attempts
to abort the pregnancy of a woman repatriated from China
failed, or could be conducted because the woman was at an
advanced stage in her pregnancy and the baby was born
alive.553
2. The vast majority of forced abortions and infanticides upon
pregnant women repatriated from China and their children are
conducted when the women are detained at holding centres
(jipkyulso) and interrogation and detention centres
(kuryujang,SSD facilities). In extreme cases, forced abortions
and infanticides upon repatriated women and their new-born
children may occur inside regular prisons (kyohwaso) or in
political prison camps (kwanliso) when a woman's pregnancy has
gone undetected in the gathering, interrogation or detention
centres for repatriated persons. The pregnant woman may have
avoided a forced abortion earlier through bribery or other
means, or because she was at an advanced stage in her
pregnancy at the time of repatriation and was promptly
transferred to a prison before she gave birth.554
3. Witness testimony points to DPRK authorities' disdain for
ethnically mixed children – specifically children conceived to
Chinese men – as the driver of forced abortions upon pregnant
women and infanticide of their babies.555 Secondary sources
and witness testimonies point to an underlying belief in a
"pure Korean race" in the DPRK to which mixed race children
(of ethnic Koreans) are considered a contamination of its
"pureness".556
* Forced abortions are carried out on the premise that all
repatriated pregnant women could be carrying babies conceived by
Chinese men. The women are not asked about the ethnicity of the
father of the child.
* A woman who had been repatriated several times and witnessed two
pregnant women subjected to forced abortions told the
Commission,"if you get pregnant in China, the assumption is that
you have been impregnated by a Chinese man, therefore women
returning to the DPRK pregnant are subjected to forced
abortions."557 If the forced abortions are carried out on the
assumption that all pregnant women are carrying babies conceived
by Chinese men, the authorities are reckless in their assumption
as women are not asked what ethnicity the father of the child is.
* A former SSD official explained to the Commission that the
concept of "pure Korean blood" remains in the DPRK psyche.
Therefore having a child who is not "100 per cent" Korean makes a
woman "less than human".558
* One witness gave testimony to the Commission about the abuse a
pregnant woman received before being forced to abort her
pregnancy. At the Musan County detention facility, alongside
other verbal and physical abuse, guards cursed a pregnant woman
clearly in pain from the abuse, shouting that she was "carrying a
Chinese baby in her womb".559
* One witness saw guards take away the new-born baby of a
repatriated mother at the Onsong County SSD detention facility.
Moments after the baby was born to the mother in the cell –
without medical assistance – guards put the baby in a bucket and
took it away saying "the baby is not human" and "[it] does not
deserve to live because it is impure".560
* Another witness described to the Commission seeing officials at
an SSD detention facility in Hoeryong force chemicals into the
vagina of a pregnant woman to encourage an abortion. Whilst doing
so, the officials said they must exterminate "mixed-race
people".561
* Mr Kim Young-hwan, who works with former DPRK nationals,
including providing assistance to them in China, testified before
the Commission at the Seoul Public Hearing:
"Forced abortion and forced murder of new-borns are carried out.
North Korean defectors who got pregnant in China, if they are
repatriated back, they are blamed for carrying the child of a
Chinese national and they are put to receive forced abortion or,
if they give birth, that child is killed."562
1. The disdain for children who are not of pure Korean blood and
ethnicity is believed to exist in DPRK society in general, not
just among authorities and security agencies. According to the
testimony of a former SSD official, forced abortions are
therefore also conducted for supposedly benevolent reasons,
saving a woman from later discrimination for having an
"impure" child.563
2. Forced abortions are also intended as an additional
punishment for women who have left the DPRK and became
pregnant in China.
* One witness told the Commission that women are subjected to
forced abortions as a form of punishment for treason (i.e. having
gone to China).564
* A former Commissioner of the Women's Group, who herself witnessed
(in her capacity as Commissioner) a forced abortion upon a
repatriated woman, testified that there is a policy on forced
abortions targeting women repatriated to the DPRK. She stated
that women who become pregnant in China, irrespective of the
father's ethnicity, are subjected to forced abortion without
exception. However, this was not done in hospitals. Instead,
security agents beat pregnant women and subjected them to arduous
and strenuous work. The witness personally saw a pregnant woman
being beaten by an SSD agent in a jipkyulso in a northern
province sometime in 2007. Security agents were calling the
pregnant detainee names, and saying that the offspring of Chinese
men cannot be born in the DPRK. The agents verbally and
physically abused her, and she miscarried immediately. The foetus
was discarded.565
* Another former official testified, that while there were no
specific instructions to forcibly abort the pregnancies of
repatriated women (in the years 1996-2000), the investigators who
did so were not punished but complimented.566
1. Witness testimony also reveals that women taken to holding
centres (jipkyulso) and interrogation and detention centres
(kuryujang,SSD facilities) can be forcefully subjected to
blood testing.567 According to an expert who works with people
who have fled from the DPRK, blood tests are now routinely
conducted on all repatriated women. The suggested purpose of
this is to screen for HIV and pregnancy.568
2. The following methods are used to inflict forced abortions
upon victims:
1.
Inflicting trauma to the uterus through physical force to
induce expulsion of the foetus;such as beating, kicking, and
otherwise traumatizing the pelvic and abdominal areas of a
pregnant woman.569The infliction of such trauma can also cause
internal bleeding and damage to organs.
2. Forcing pregnant women to engage in heavy physical work and
other activity, accompanied by poor nutrition, to induce pre-
term labour or premature separation of the placenta from the
uterus.570
3. Use of chemicals and abortifacient herbs, generally inserted
into the vaginal cavity by hand to terminate the pregnancy or
to induce expulsion of the foetus.571The use of herbs or
chemicals in this manner can have serious side effects as they
can be absorbed easily into the bloodstream (causing organ
failure or even death).
4. Forceful physical removal of foetus by reaching or poking into
the vagina with a tong-like apparatus or sharp object to
either remove the foetus from the woman's body or cause its
expulsion.572This type of forced abortion can cause scarring,
adhesions, internal damage and infertility.573
5. The administration of drugs (orally or via injection) to kill
the baby in utero574and/ or artificially induce expulsion of
the foetus, or depending on the stage in the pregnancy, to
induce premature labour.575The prematurely born child usually
cannot survive by itself without medical assistance and dies
shortly thereafter. In some cases, guards have killed babies
prematurely induced.576These cases are considered forced
abortions as the action of the guards to artificially induce
the baby terminates the pregnancy (against the will of the
mother), and the baby subsequently dies without further
intervention by any person (even though it may have been alive
momentarily).
6. Surgical removal of the foetus577("sympathy abortions" carried
out in China ‒ see below) conducted by medically trained
personnel (generally in a hospital or other medical facility).
* Ms Jee Heon A, having witnessed forced abortions and infanticide
upon other repatriated women in an earlier period of detention
after repatriation, was herself subjected to a forced abortion in
detention after her third repatriation. At the Seoul Public
Hearing, she testified before the Commission: "I was found to be
pregnant, three months pregnant at that time. I was so surprised
that I was pregnant. And I remember in 1999 when the baby was
born in the prison, I thought I was going to go through the same
thing [having to watch the baby subjected to infanticide], but
they said that they were going to make me get an abortion, and
what they meant by abortion was instead of giving me a shot, they
make me lie on a table, and get a surgery right away. There was a
lot of bleeding … I could not stand straight." 578
Ms Jee was subjected to the forceful physical removal of the foetus
in her womb by someone reaching into her uterus whilst she was
restrained on a table. The bleeding was so profuse it gave rise to
concerns of internal damage. Afterwards, she was immediately sent
to a kyohwaso. She suffered so much bleeding that the responsible
officer decided to release her from the kyohwaso.
* Another witness told the Commission that she was well aware that
she would be subjected to forced abortion as she was pregnant.
However, she thought she would be made to undergo a similar
procedure experienced by her cellmate who had been nine months
pregnant. The cellmate was apparently given an injection to
induce labour, and when the baby was delivered, it was suffocated
to death by having its face turned down. However, the witness was
subjected to a forced abortion without anaesthetic, by a woman
using her hands and rusty equipment. The witness described
screaming in pain during the operation and being told to stop
screaming. Afterwards, she saw blood everywhere and the aborted
foetus in a bucket. She became infertile after this. On the same
day as the forced abortion, she was made to work even though she
was suffering from back pains and cramps. She remained in the
jipkyulso for three months before she was transferred back to her
home town for her sentence to be further determined.579
1. A witness before the Commission saw seven pregnant women at
Chongjin jipkulso subjected to forced abortions. The women
were made to lie down and given an injection to induce a
miscarriage.580
2. When a repatriated mother is able to carry her baby to full
term, she is not provided with any medical assistance before,
during or after childbirth. However, other women in the same
cell are able to assist the mother in labour through to the
birth of her child. In most cases, guards at the detention
facilities in which repatriated persons are held force either
the mother581 or a third person582 to kill the baby by
drowning it in water583 or suffocating it by holding a cloth
or other item against its face or putting the baby face down
so that it cannot breathe.584
* Ms Jee Heon A also recalled watching a mother forced to suffocate
her child moments after giving birth: "…there was this pregnant
woman who was about 9 months pregnant. She worked all day. The
babies who were born were usually dead, but in this case the baby
was born alive. The baby was crying as it was born; we were so
curious, this was the first time we saw a baby being born. So we
were watching this baby and we were so happy. But suddenly we
heard the footsteps. The security agent came in and this agent of
the Bowibu said that… usually when a baby is born we would wash
it in a bowl of water, but this agent told us to put the baby in
the water upside down. So the mother was begging. ‘I was told
that I would not be able to have the baby, but I actually got
lucky and got pregnant so let me keep the baby, please forgive
me', but this agent kept beating this woman, the mother who just
gave birth. And the baby, since it was just born, it was just
crying. And the mother, with her shaking hands she picked up the
baby and she put the baby face down in the water. The baby
stopped crying and we saw this water bubble coming out of the
mouth of the baby. And there was an old lady who helped with the
labour, she picked up the baby from the bowl of water and left
the room quietly. So those kind of things repeatedly happened.
That was in the detention centre in the city of Chongjin of
Hamgyong Province."585
* Based on the testimonies his organization collected from women,
Mr Kim Young-hwan also provided testimony at the Seoul Public
Hearing about the horror of mothers having to watch their
children being killed:
"… if the child is born, then the child is put to death
immediately. Sometimes, the mouth and the nose are covered with a
wet cloth leading to the suffocation of the baby. We have several
testimonies. Sometimes, the baby is put face down, so that the
baby cannot breathe, and this is one way of killing the baby, and
within a few minutes or within a few hours, the baby would cry in
pain because it cannot breathe. Regardless, the mother of the
baby is made to witness this next to [her] baby."586
1. The Commission finds that pregnant women are detained in
contravention of domestic law, which prohibits the detention
of women three months before or seven months after giving
birth.587 Moreover, in the course of forced abortions and
infanticide, women are in fact not afforded any kind of
protection under the law.588
2. Forced abortions violate the women's right to physical
integrity and security of the person as well as their sexual
and reproductive rights.589 Directed against women's
reproductive capacity, forced abortions and infanticide also
entail discrimination and persecution on the basis of gender.
The forced abortions and infanticide carried out by DPRK
officials, which are based on gender and racial
discrimination, regularly subject women to a level of
intentional and severe mental and physical suffering that
satisfies the threshold of torture as defined under article 7
of the ICCPR.590 The documented cases of infanticide
constitute particularly egregious cases of extrajudicial
killings in violation of article 6 of the ICCPR.
(f) Forced repatriation and refoulement of citizens of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea by China
1. Despite the torture, arbitrary imprisonment and other gross
human rights violations awaiting forcibly repatriated persons
in the DPRK, China pursues a rigorous policy of forced
repatriation of DPRK citizens who are in China without proper
documentation.
2. Numerous witnesses testified that they were arrested by
Chinese officials when it was discovered that they were DPRK
nationals and could not present valid papers. In a number of
cases, there seemed to be targeted operations to find and
apprehend DPRK nationals. Humanitarian activists who worked in
the provinces bordering China also indicated that China
encouraged its population to denounce DPRK nationals and
punished those who harboured them. In March 2013, the Chinese
police was reported to have issued a crackdown order in
Yanbian on illegal border crossing. This included monetary
rewards for information provided to find illegal border
crossers, as had apparently been done on previous occasions.
The faster the information is provided and the greater the
number of illegal border crossers that the information relates
to, the higher the supposed reward.591 Reportedly, the Chinese
security agency further hired DPRK citizens to inform on other
DPRK nationals planning to flee to the ROK.592
3. China also seems to have been taking active measures to ensure
that DPRK nationals cannot get access to foreign embassies and
consulates to seek protection or asylum.593 In the case of
preventing access to the ROK Embassy or Consulates, this meant
DPRK nationals are not able to avail themselves of the
opportunity to seek protection from the ROK and be considered
for ROK citizenship in accordance with the ROK Constitution
and laws.594
4. Those apprehended are usually detained in police stations or
detention facilities in military installations. Repatriated
persons generally report that their treatment in Chinese
detention was better than the systematic and gross human
rights violations experienced in the DPRK. However, instances
of serious human rights violations involving sexual and
physical violence by Chinese guards have been reported.
* In 2006, one witness was incarcerated in a detention facility in
Tumen, China for seven months. During this time her interrogators
beat her and other DPRK citizens with their hands, chairs and
clubs in order to obtain the name of the broker who took them to
China. Upon her forced repatriation to the DPRK, she was
subjected to even worse torture and sexual violence leading her
to take the view that "Chinese prisons are heaven compared to
DPRK prisons".595
* Another witness, who was arrested within a week of reaching
China, was initially sent to an army prison in China. She and
other captured women from the DPRK were stripped of their clothes
and searched. Female guards conducted the search, but two male
guards were also present. Some of the women, who refused to strip
naked, were verbally abused and beaten with clubs until they
complied.596
* A witness was arrested in Shanghai after he unsuccessfully
attempted to seek protection from the ROK Consulate. In
detention, when he tried to deny being from the DPRK, two Chinese
guards turned him upside down against a wall and kicked him in
the head. This made him admit to his nationality.597
* Another witness was lured to China on the pretext of working on a
farm to earn money but was trafficked and sold to a Chinese man
who held her captive for three years. She got arrested after
escaping from her Chinese "husband". At that time, she was seven
months pregnant. She told the Commission that sexual violence was
rife in the Chinese detention facility: "All the guards would hit
your breasts as you walked by. If someone who is more attractive
is caught, then they would be treated as a sexual play thing.
Some girls get pregnant in the prison." The witness herself was
raped by a guard in a detention facility in Tonghua County. She
also saw guards taking away other women who were then raped and
brought back to the cell. Guards also placed their hands in
women's vaginas to seek money they could steal.598
1. Those apprehended might be in detention in China for any
length of time from a few days to several months, depending on
how long their interrogation takes. Only when a sufficient
number of DPRK citizens has been gathered are they taken by
force across the border and handed over to the DPRK
authorities.
2. Witness testimony also indicates that Chinese officials tasked
to implement the repatriation policy are normally aware of the
human rights violations that repatriated persons face in the
DPRK. In some cases, officials even seemed to show sympathy
towards captured DPRK citizens, but had to comply with the
repatriation policy nonetheless. Officials appeared to be
aware of the conduct of forced abortions on pregnant women
repatriated from China.
* One Chinese officer of Korean ethnicity told one witness that he
was often so distressed over the numerous people who are
repatriated that he ended up berating those who were facing
repatriation for allowing themselves to be caught.599
* A witness had observed a guard at a detention centre in China
suggesting to a pregnant woman to have an abortion in China
instead of being subjected to forced abortion once repatriated to
the DPRK. The witness who saw the pregnant woman later no longer
carrying a child concluded that it was probably "better for her
to have it in China, as the sanitary conditions are much
better."600
1. In 2005, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human
rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and five
other Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council conveyed
concerns about forced repatriations from China since
"Democratic People's Republic of Korea citizens face detention
under cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions, ill-treatment
and torture as well as, in extreme cases, summary execution in
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea".601 In response,
the Chinese Government assured the Special Rapporteurs that
they guarantee the lawful rights and interests of foreign
citizens within its territory.
2. Contrary to these assurances, China has maintained its policy
of forcibly repatriating DPRK nationals. In May 2013, nine
DPRK citizens, aged 15-23 years, were forcibly repatriated by
the Lao People's Democratic Republic via China. Both the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the High Commissioner for
Refugees conveyed their concern to the Governments of China
and Laos, reminding them of the prohibition on non-refoulement
under international human rights and refugee law.602
3. The obligation not to expel, return (refouler) or extradite a
person to another state where there are substantial grounds
for believing that he or she would be in danger of being
subjected to torture emerges from article 3 of the Convention
against Torture, ratified by China on 4 October 1988. Contrary
to article 33 of the Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees, to which China is also a State party, repatriation
typically also places DPRK citizens in a position where their
life or freedom would be threatened on account of their
religion and/or membership of a particular social group or
holding of a political opinion. The obligation not to expel
persons to other states where there are substantial grounds
for believing that the person would be in danger of being
subject to gross human rights violations also emerges from the
requirements of customary international law.
4. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) has a small presence in Beijing serving the
East Asia and the Pacific sub-region. It conducts refugee
status determination under its mandate for individual asylum
seekers as a temporary measure until the Government of China
creates its own state structures. The Commission finds that
China disregards its agreement with UNHCR to allow UNHCR
personnel unimpeded access to asylum seekers including those
from the DPRK.
5. When the Standing Committee of China's National People's
Congress adopted the new Administration Law on Entry and Exit
in July 2012, it added to domestic law for the first time
provisions regarding the treatment of refugees ( article 46).
The new rules were to enter into force in July 2013, and were
expected to result in the adoption of a comprehensive national
refugee framework, including provisions relating to refugee
children.603 The Commission is not aware of any progress in
the effective implementation of this law in accordance with
China's international obligations under the Refugee
Convention, in particular in relation to DPRK nationals.
6. From the body of testimony and other information gathered by
the Commission, it finds that many of the DPRK citizens who
cross the border into China do so owing to a well-founded fear
of being persecuted for reasons of religion or political
opinion. For others, persecution takes the shape of severe
socio-economic deprivation because they are members of a low
songbun social class. In addition, persons forcibly
repatriated to the DPRK are regularly subjected to torture and
arbitrary detention and, in some instances, also to rape,
enforced disappearance, summary execution and other gross
human rights violations. They are also likely to be considered
as having committed "treason against the Fatherland by
defection" under article 62 of the Criminal Code or under
another of the vaguely defined and political "anti-state" or
"anti-people" crimes.
7. The Commission therefore finds that many DPRK nationals,
deemed by China as mere economic illegal migrants, are
arguably either refugees fleeing persecution or become
refugees sur place,604 and are thereby entitled to
international protection.
8. There are also reasonable grounds indicating that Chinese
officials provide the DPRK authorities with information about
persons from the DPRK whom they apprehend, including
information about the circumstances and place of their
apprehension and contacts they had in China.
* Mr Kim Song-ju, who spoke at the London hearing, said: "When I
was repatriated to the DPRK to China, the DPRK agency had already
obtained the report provided by the Chinese police, because my
escape was planned towards South Korea, if I said anything
against the report provided by China, I would be hit; I would be
beaten again."605
1. A former official, who worked on border security, stated that
when the Chinese authorities repatriate DPRK nationals, they
also provide the DPRK authorities with documentation regarding
the living circumstances of the repatriated persons in China.
The documentation indicated whether the DPRK nationals had
simply lived with their "spouses" or have had contact with
Christians or ROK nationals including with ROK intelligence
agents. Such information was used by the DPRK authorities in
determining the fate of those repatriated persons. Those
believed to be working with ROK intelligence were executed in
the DPRK, whilst those involved with Christian missionaries
would be sent to DPRK prison camps without trial.606 The same
witness also indicated that Chinese officials used differently
coloured stamps on the documentation handed over to the DPRK
authorities based on whether the repatriated persons planned
to reach the ROK or not.607 Another witness also indicated
that the Chinese authorities provided their DPRK counterparts
with a document concerning her case upon handing her over.608
2. A humanitarian activist, who worked extensively on a
clandestine basis in both China and the DPRK and spoke to the
Commission, indicated that Chinese authorities provided
information to their DPRK counterparts and might receive
deliveries of lumber in exchange for this information.609
3. The reported exchanges of information seem consistent with a
protocol concluded between the DPRK's Ministry of State
Security and China's Ministry of Public Security in 1986 and
revised in 1998. Its stated purpose is to maintain national
security and social order in the border areas between the DPRK
and China. Article 5 of the protocol sets out the agreement
for mutual cooperation "on the issue of handling criminals".
It provides, among other things, for each side to be informed
of any danger regarding people who disrupt national security
and violate social order escaping into the other's side of the
border. Both sides are to provide the other any information or
materials received regarding the safety and social order of
the other's side border.610
4. In a letter dated 16 December 2013 from the Chair of the
Commission addressing the Chinese Ambassador in Geneva, the
Commission raised the above concerns with China. The
Commission particularly expressed its concern regarding
China's continued policy of repatriating DPRK nationals
without affording them the opportunity to have their refugee
status determined. This is carried out despite many of them
having crossed the border into China owing to a well-founded
fear of being persecuted for reasons of religion, and/or
membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
The Commission also highlighted how persons forcibly
repatriated to the DPRK are found to be regularly subjected to
torture and arbitrary detention and, in some instances, also
to rape, enforced disappearance, summary execution and other
gross human rights violations. The Commission further informed
the PRC of numerous allegations of forced abortions and
infanticide regarding children believed to have been fathered
by Chinese nationals. 611
5. The Commission further sought clarification regarding any
measures taken by China to ensure that repatriated persons
would not be subjected to such violations upon their return to
the DPRK. In reference to the border control-related
agreements concluded between China's Ministry of Public
Security and the DPRK's Ministry of State Security, the
Commission conveyed its concern about allegations of
information exchange which further aggravates the risk that
repatriated DRPK nationals would be subject to torture,
enforced disappearance and summary execution, in particular
where information conveyed relates to alleged contacts that
DPRK citizens may have had with Christian churches or ROK
nationals or any attempts they may have made to travel onwards
to the ROK.
6. In its letter of reply dated 30 December 2013, China
reiterated its position that "DPRK citizens who have entered
China illegally do it for economic reasons", and that they are
not refugees. Accordingly, their "illegal entry not only
violates Chinese laws, but also undermines China's border
control". As such, China claimed that it "has the legitimate
rights to address those cases [including other illegal and
criminal acts committed by some] according to law". It also
claimed that, since DPRK citizens who have been seized by the
Chinese public security and border guard authorities have
repeatedly entered China illegally, the allegation that
repatriated DPRK citizens from China face torture in the DPRK
is therefore not true.612
(i)
Trafficking in women and girls
1. Trafficking in persons, as defined by the United Nations
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons,613 remains one of the gravest human rights abuses
against DPRK women and girls.
2. Because of tight border control, persons who wish to cross the
border typically have to rely on organized help to make it
across undetected. There is a spectrum of persons engaged in
such activities. On the one hand of the spectrum are
humanitarian activists who are driven by a motivation to help
those wishing to flee the DPRK. There are also commercial
people smugglers, generally referred to as "brokers", who help
those who voluntarily wish to cross the border in exchange for
payments that reach several thousand US dollars according to
more recent accounts. On the dark end of the spectrum, there
are also traffickers, generally disguised as brokers, who
target mainly women and girls and apply force or deception to
bring their victims into situations of exploitation.
3. The Commission estimates that a large percentage of women and
girls who cross the border from the DPRK to China
unaccompanied become victims of trafficking in persons, mainly
for purposes of exploitation in forced marriage and forced
concubinage. A number of women and girls are also forced to
work in prostitution under conditions of control by others.
4. Article 6 of CEDAW obliges Member States to "take all
appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all
forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of
women". Article 34 of the CRC further requires states to
protect children from sexual exploitation. The Commission
finds that both the DPRK and China are failing to provide
these protections to vulnerable women and girls from the DPRK
in China. The Commission received information that both China
and the DPRK apply stiff criminal sentences to apprehend
traffickers, including in the DPRK's case the death penalty.
However, China's refoulement practice and the DPRK's torture
and punishment of repatriated persons effectively render
victims without protection. Most victims are afraid to
approach the authorities for help and would rather endure
their current situation than the gross human rights violations
they may face in the DPRK.
5. In 2005, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its
causes and consequences, the Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea and four other Special Rapporteurs informed China
that traffickers systematically target DPRK women, who are
usually hungry and desperate. The traffickers did so by
approaching the women in the border region and promising them
food, shelter, employment and protection before forcing them
to "marry" or become the concubines of Chinese men. The
"marriage" is not a legally approved relationship, but a de
facto status which was forced on women who have been
trafficked or paid for, and who are consequently not under the
protection of the law. The Special Rapporteurs on violence
against women, its causes and consequences emphasized that the
Chinese practise forced repatriation made the women extremely
vulnerable to trafficking and that traffickers are well aware
of this policy and often manage to subdue their victims by
threatening to report them to the authorities if they
resist.614 In a detailed response, China acknowledged that
offences involving trafficking in women and children were
starting to occur in China and emphasized that the Chinese
public security authorities took the issue very seriously and
cracked down on illegal trafficking.615 However, the response
by China did not address the causal links between the illegal
repatriations and human trafficking. The Special Rapporteurs
conveyed the same concerns to the DPRK, which dismissed them
as "fabricated contents". 616
6. The reasons for the large numbers of women leaving the DPRK in
comparison to men are varied. Women are pushed into leaving
due to the difficulties that women particularly face inside
the DPRK, especially during times of famine, as well as
ongoing challenges as a result of the political system.
Furthermore, women have relatively more freedom of movement
and can go undetected for longer periods as surveillance on
men is generally stricter (see above). Opportunities for women
to leave the DPRK are also greater as brokers are more willing
to assist the travel of a woman with the intention of selling
her to a Chinese household, or into prostitution once in
China, with or without the woman's knowledge and/or consent.
As the primary caregivers in Korean society, women are also
more likely to go in search of food or economic opportunity to
sustain their families. A final potential reason is that the
human rights situation within the DPRK is worse for women,617
causing more women than men to flee from abuse and human
rights violations.
7. There is also a demand for unmarried women in Chinese
society.618 As the Chinese economy grew, and its cities
developed, urbanization began. The nation's industries,
thriving after the market economy was introduced, provided
many opportunities for rural women to work in the cities.619
The migration of rural women to work in the cities, coupled
with the decrease in the women to men ratio associated with
the one child policy, has created a gender-imbalance amongst
working age adults in the Chinese countryside.620
8. DPRK women unaccompanied by their families usually travel to
China in a number of ways. Some seek out a broker to help them
escape and arrange for relatives abroad to pay the broker.
Brokers also approach women in the marketplace inside the DPRK
offering such services. Women who do not have options to make
payment may also agree to enter into an arranged unofficial
"marriage" with a Chinese man and the broker will extract
payment from that man. Others are lured by deceptive promises
that they can "work off" their brokerage fee in China, where
the broker would provide them work in a restaurant or factory.
Once in China, dishonest brokers reveal themselves as
traffickers and make arrangements to sell the woman instead of
connecting her with the persons or work they had agreed to
undertake.
* One witness was lured to China on the pretext of working on a
farm, but found herself in the hands of traffickers: "In 2003, a
broker who came regularly to the market convinced me I could work
in China and earn a lot of money growing ginseng. Brokers came on
a daily basis to the market to get women out of the DPRK. I know
a lot of women who left this way. I went with the broker on the
impression I would be going to a farm, but once in China I
realized I was being trafficked, and sold by the broker. I was
with 8 other women, when we got to […] location in China 4 or 5
men were waiting for us in a car. I later learnt I was sold for
8,000 North Korean won."621
1. Some women are also approached by a trafficker disguised as a
broker who convinces the women that they can obtain well-paid
agricultural work in another province in the DPRK, and then
agree to travel to the province with them. Due to the
restrictions on the freedom of movement in the DPRK, some have
never seen outside their own village or city, let alone other
provinces, so victims in this category realize they have been
lured to China only after they have been taken to China.
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, the Commission received testimony
from Ms C, who had lost her entire family to starvation, and upon
becoming ill herself was trafficked to China. Ms C was deceived
about an opportunity to earn money in another province of the
DPRK and only realized later, when she was taken with two other
women to cross a river, that they had in fact crossed the border
into China. The DPRK broker who took the three of them across the
river then handed them to a Chinese broker who in turn sold her
to a Chinese man: "I was sold to that house. I was not sold as a
worker, but in China there were a lot of unmarried men. They were
short of women so he bought me to be his wife. So I wasn't paid.
In China, at least I didn't starve but I was hungry when I was in
North Korea."622
* Ms Jee Heon A was lured by traffickers who had told her there was
work in another province of the DPRK, but instead took her to
China. At the Seoul Public Hearing, she testified before the
Commission: "[A man] told us, me and the girls who lived in my
neighbourhood, that we could get money [selling grass] in Gosari
[in the DPRK]. I left my 9 year old brother behind. But when we
arrived we found that we were in China. … We were taken to a
house and there were five traffickers there. They were all men
inside a green house. We spent about a week there. … We had no
idea that the brokers were going to sell us to old Chinese men
who were unable to get married."623
1. Once in China, regardless of the terms on which the women went
with the trafficker, they are forced into one of two options,
to "marry" a Chinese man or work in sex-related industries. In
China, these women and girls become vulnerable as they have to
hide from the Chinese police and are unable to access
information and services due to the language barrier.
Traffickers capitalize on this vulnerability and put women
under pressure by systematically using the threat of forced
repatriation to their advantage and telling the women that
because their Chinese is poor and they have no legal standing
in China, they will not be able to get a job or move around
freely (including attempting to travel overland to the ROK).
Traffickers pose the options of cohabitation with Chinese men
and sex-work as the only way the women and girls can have a
safe haven and learn Chinese "for a year or so" before
attempting to travel to the ROK. Traffickers may also tell the
women that they now owe a certain amount of money, and as they
cannot work in paid employment, they must be sold to a Chinese
man in order to pay the debt, or engage in sex work to repay
the debt. In extreme cases, traffickers may hold women against
their will in locked locations until they agree to either
"marry" a Chinese man or engage in prostitution. In some
circumstances, the "broker" may arrange the forced marriage or
enforced prostitution themselves. However, the women are
usually transferred to the custody of an intermediary
trafficker. Those who choose to do sex work are sold to agents
in sex industries, rather than being able to conduct their own
job search.624
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, the Commission received testimony
from Mr Kim Young-hwan, who provided assistance to DPRK nationals
in China. Mr Kim told the Commission about the established
network of traffickers that arose as a result of the food crisis
and the DPRK's policies:
"If you look at the human trafficking pattern that occurred in
the past, there are people who look for these women inside North
Korea and there are brokers in China so these people who collect
these North Korean women in North Korea, after they collect women
they send them to China to the brokers [traffickers] and in
China, these brokers [traffickers] sell these women to the
Chinese in return for money. … Trafficking peaked six or seven
years ago. Women are victimized through human trafficking. Some
are aware they are being sold [and go through with it] so that
they can provide food for their family, but some are lied to, are
lured to be sold."625
* One witness explained that she knowingly sought assistance from
North Korean traffickers to go to China as she and her daughter
were starving. The witness, who was about 27 years of age at that
time, was sold to a Chinese man in his 50s. When she refused sex
with the man after she first arrived, he threatened her with a
knife.626
* A witness, who works with DPRK nationals in China, said that a
large number of forced marriages occur due to China's one child
policy and ensuing sex ratio imbalance. The witness has also
intervened in several cases where DPRK women were trafficked into
prostitution. He further stated that while China prohibits
trafficking, related laws are not being enforced strictly.627
1. Women who have travelled to China without the assistance of a
broker, or who have escaped from traffickers or the men who
have paid for them, are vulnerable to being picked up by
traffickers and (re-)sold into "marriages" or sex work.
* For example, one witness, having escaped from her traffickers,
went to a telephone service provider to make a call. Whilst
trying to use the telephone, another trafficker came and took
her, she suspects as a result of the telephone service manager
contacting the trafficker.628
* Ms Jee Heon A further testified about being captured on the
streets in China by traffickers after having escaped from the
Chinese police. "Every place we went, we met brokers. If we
noticed that … they looked like North Korean men, they were
brokers. They asked us where we were from in Chinese, but we
could not answer them because they were speaking to us in
Chinese. Then they would switch back to North Korean, and we were
asked if we were from North Korea. … We got arrested again, we
met brokers again. And by the brokers, we were sold at Yun Yun
Sung. I was sold for 20,000 or 30,000 Chinese yuan."629
* Mr Kim Young-hwan also spoke about the activities of these "human
hunters", actively looking for DPRK women in China to capture and
sell against their will: "There are these ‘human hunters' that
live around these border areas that target North Korean women.
These ‘human hunters' wait for the women to cross the border and
they catch [them] and traffic them in China."630
1. Women are usually sold a minimum of two times before being
sold into forced marriages, as traffickers buy and sell the
women from each other. The trafficker bringing the woman to
the DPRK, or picking her up in the DPRK, usually sells the
woman to an intermediary trafficker who facilitates the
"marriage" by reselling the woman to a rural family. Often
this process involves holding women in locked locations for
prospective buyers ("husbands") to inspect them.
* Ms P chose to go to China to earn a living there as the food
situation was so dire in the DPRK. However, she ended up being
trafficked. The Commission heard how she found herself
transferred from one person to another before being sold to a
Chinese man with whom she lived with for about seven years before
she was arrested and repatriated: "[At the time crossing border
was not easy], but at least it is better than just doing nothing
and dying in North Korea. I thought at least if I went to China I
would have the means to survive. For example, at least earn some
money, but things did not turn out the way that I had expected …
We were sold to China, it happened in North Korea. … I did not
know I was being sold. People just handed me over to people."631
* In London, Ms Park Ji-hyun told the Commission of the time her
mother, who had been struggling to find somewhere for them to
live in China, encouraged her to get married in China only to
learn that she was actually being sold. Ms Park testified about
being entrusted to a Chinese woman to find her a "husband": "I
stayed with a Chinese woman for about a month to arrange the
"marriage". I felt like an animal in a zoo as many men came to
see me, young and old, to see if I would be a suitable bride."632
1. Once sold into forced marriages, women have been be forcefully
kept at locations (including under lock and key) until they
are deemed submissive enough to stay of their own volition and
subjected to sexual exploitation. The women are expected to
submit to sexual activity and are often subjected to violence
if they refuse to have sex with their "husband". In extreme
cases, women are also sexually exploited by other occupants of
the house such as brothers, fathers and sons. The women are
often also subject to forced labour, such as domestic and
agricultural work, and often subjected to domestic violence.
* Mr Kim Young-hwan told the Commission, from his experience of
working with victims of trafficking in China, about the human
rights violations women and girls trafficked in/ into China
suffer:
"… these women are sold to [men in] rural areas in China and are
given subhuman treatment. Women who are sold to these rural areas
in China suffer from very serious abnormal living conditions. Only
20 to 30 per cent of them said they were able to fare to some
extent, but most received inconceivable subhuman treatment.
Sometimes they are exploited as sex slaves or are chained ‘24/7'
and detained. Or for example, if this woman was sold to the son,
the men in the entire family – the father, the uncle, and the
brothers would take advantage of this woman and she would be
sexually abused by the men in the entire family."633
* A survivor of trafficking informed the Commission:
"I was sold off to a man with disabilities. Despite having a
disability, he beat me often. He did not speak Korean and I did not
speak Chinese, we communicated in body language. I was locked
inside the house for 6 months and did not know where I was. After 6
months, I was finally able to convince him I would not run away,
that I would work, then I was able to leave the house. I was
expected to sleep in his bed, and have sex from the first day. I
begged every time not to have sex, but was beaten when I tried to
resist. He used to hit me with anything until I was bruised and
bleeding. I tried not to get pregnant by avoiding sex during my
fertile periods by saying I was sick. I do not know if he wanted
children because I could not communicate with him. I lived with the
man for 3 years, in the same area the other eight women I was
trafficked with lived."634
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Ms C gave evidence to the Commission
about the treatment she received from the man she was sold to:
"My ‘husband' was 11 years older. He was a heavy drinker and
whenever he was drunk he would beat me. There was a lot of
beating going on."635
* In London, the Commission received testimony from Ms Park about
the conditions of her "marriage":
"Two other Korean women were sold to men in the same village; one
was shared by two brothers. Although the man had paid for us to
marry, I thought I would lead a normal life, but suffered
humiliating experiences every day. The villages treat the Korean
women like animals, we could not move freely as everyone in the
village kept a close eye on us. They would tease us. The family I
lived with would not provide sanitary napkins for me because they
thought I would run away if I had them. I was forced to work in the
rice paddies every day, effectively enslaved to the home."636
1. The Commission heard many accounts of vulnerable women who had
been forced into "marriages" in the foregoing ways. The
phenomenon of forced marriages appears to be quite known in
China, at least in the border areas. On some occasions, men
who have paid for a trafficked woman or girl, have paid a
second time for the same person after she returned to China
following forced repatriation to the DPRK.
* One witness was "married" to a Chinese man the first time she
left the DPRK for China in 2010. She was later arrested and
repatriated to the DPRK in 2011, and after going through
interrogation and detention, she managed to escape following a
bribe provided by her family. When she fled back to China, she
was captured by traffickers and sold again. Upon contacting her
first "husband", he paid for her release from her second
"husband".637
* Another witness and her daughter experienced, on different
occasions, being sold to Chinese men after having left the DPRK
for China to search for work. The forced marriage of the witness
occurred after her daughter's, and it was the daughter's
"husband" who paid for the release of the witness from her own
"husband".638
1. The Commission finds that undocumented DPRK nationals in China
remain in constant fear of being detected, arrested and
repatriated to the DPRK. They cannot move freely around the
country nor access vital services. They live in constant fear
of a disgruntled family member or neighbour of their new home
tipping off authorities to their existence. This is a
particularly prevalent problem for women and girls who have
been trafficked into forced marriage or forced concubinage and
prostitution under coercive circumstances as they live under
the effective control of people who have paid for them and
consider them second-class beings.
* One witness spoke to the Commission about the domestically
violent man she was sold to. Despite fearing for her life and
trying to run away, she could not. She described "I had to stay
with the man for three years. I tried to collect money and leave,
but the father of the man with disabilities [i.e. the ‘husband']
reported me to the police."639
* A Chinese Korean man who had moved to the DPRK with his Chinese
family during the Cultural Revolution in China provided evidence
to the Commission about the experience of living without legal
papers in China (his Chinese registration was revoked after
living in the DPRK for many years).
"If you are arrested, you are usually held at a police station
for two days, then sent to a detention facility. But I was sent
to the detention centre in just one day so I was suspicious. I
later found out that two of my cousins had conspired to report
me, and had gone to the police several times, but had been
refused to be heard by police officers there who knew my family.
I think I was sent straight to the detention facility so that I
could not utilize my connections in the police station to get
out. I was held at the detention centre for three months. The
Chinese guards sympathized with my position and said to me ‘live
more inland next time' and ‘be careful of people around you'."640
1. Trafficked women and girls suffer severe violations of their
human rights, as they are largely subjected to sexual,
physical and mental violence, rape and confinement during and
after trafficking. They are treated as commodities and suffer
inhuman and degrading treatment. Without the protection of the
law, DPRK nationals have nowhere to turn when they suffer
injustice. Many women in forced marriages suffer from severe
domestic violence and fear being killed. They cannot seek the
help of the police or state security when they are subjected
to domestic violence or become victims of a crime (such as
trafficking). Such lack of protection and lack of access to
vital services places them in a very vulnerable position,
allowing them to be easily exploited.
* A witness explained to the Commission: "Even if you die in China,
you have nowhere to be buried. You have no rights there. Because
you are unregistered, even if your ‘husband' beats you to death,
there is nothing that can be done. If this happens, your friends
will take the body and bury it for you. This happened to one of
my friends."641
1. In addition to these fears, DPRK nationals in China cannot
access basic health services. Women cannot access much needed
health services during pregnancy, nor obtain assistance during
childbirth or through the post-natal period. Despite being the
primary (and often only) caregiver for their children, they
cannot take their children for immunizations or other medical
needs.
(ii)Situation of children born to mothers who flee or are
trafficked from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
1. A 2010 survey by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea
gives an estimate of 20,000 to 30,000 children born to women
from the DPRK living in China.642 As the majority of DPRK
women in China reside there without permits, their children
are unable to be registered upon birth according to Chinese
practice. Moreover, many of these children are fathered by
Chinese men, including those born in forced marriages or
concubinage. They are in fact entitled to Chinese nationality
under the Nationality Law.643 However, most children born to
mothers who fled the DPRK are in practice denied this right,
because registering their birth would expose the mother's
status as an undocumented migrant and make her liable to
refoulement. These children are therefore effectively rendered
stateless. These practices violate article 7 of the CRC, which
provides that every child has the right to a legally
registered name and nationality.
2. According to its Compulsory Education Law, China provides for
nine years of compulsory education to all children living in
the country irrespective of nationality or race. However,
there is a requirement for children to be entered on a family
register in order to be enrolled in school. As submitted by an
NGO for the second cycle of China's UPR, "Because of the
danger posed to the refugee parent(s) by China's policy of
forced repatriation, many children are not entered on the
family register, to avoid discovery of the parent. The
children are thus unable to receive an education in cases
where the school requires the family register for enrolment".
The NGO submission noted earlier that "children of Chinese
fathers and mothers who are refugees from a neighbouring
country (or those of two refugee parents) are in an extremely
vulnerable position because of the policy of non-recognition
by the Chinese government, which chooses to consider them
economic migrants instead."644
3. In addition to being effectively stateless and denied basic
rights such as health and education contrary to articles 24
and 28 of the CRC, children born to mothers who came from the
DPRK also face separation from their mothers if the mother is
arrested and refouled to the DPRK. This is contrary to the
right of the child not to be separated from his or her
parents, unless it is in the child's best interest, under
article 9 of the CRC. The Commission is deeply concerned about
the welfare of these children.
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr Kim Young-hwan testified before
the Commission about the serious situation that children of DPRK
women born in China face: "North Korean women sometimes give
birth to children in China, and the human rights of these babies
are neglected today. China does not recognize the marriage of
Chinese men with North Korean defectors as legal because the
protection of these North Korean women is illegal in China, and
often the marriages are not registered with the Chinese
authorities. Therefore, the birth of these children is
illegitimate in China which leads to these children not having
access to education and so forth. If the mother, the North Korean
woman, is arrested by the Chinese public security and is sent
back to North Korea... if the child is separated from the North
Korean woman, these children receive no protection or no
recognition from the Chinese authorities. There are lot of
children like these cases. And these children of North Korean
women who have defected are not recognized as legitimate by the
South Korean government."645
1. Reportedly, some women who left the DPRK illegally were able
to obtain resident permits after a prolonged stay in China,
while in other cases children born to women from the DPRK have
also been granted resident permits. Apparently, in some
regions, resident permits are attainable through bribery.646
One witness spoke of her daughter who had a child with a
Chinese man. At some point, he purchased a Chinese identity
card for her daughter.647 However, for the majority of women
and their children, this is simply not possible.
* When Ms Park Ji-hyun first got pregnant in China by the "husband"
she had been forcibly married to, the village head had told her
that she would be better off getting an abortion because if she
had a child, that child could not be registered properly and
would not get proper medical treatment.648 She explained to the
Commission: "When North Koreans are sold to China and give birth
in China, the children cannot be registered officially with the
family because in China the register is kept by the mother's name
and since North Korean women's children could not be registered
properly, they could not go to school, they could not have any
individual rights there."649
1. In addition to the lack of rights of these children in China,
they are also vulnerable to being separated from their
mothers, who are susceptible to being arrested and forcibly
repatriated. As those who fled the DPRK are aware of the harsh
treatment they will face if repatriated, they usually have no
choice but to leave their children behind if repatriated to
save them from ill-treatment or even death.
* Ms Park was faced with such a dilemma. Ms Park also explained how
reuniting with the child she left behind was also not easy. In
her case, it took several months for her to reunite with her son.
She recalls that when she collected him, he looked like a street
child. He was thin, dirty and scrounging for food on the ground.
Although he had remained with his father and paternal
grandparents, she believes her son had been starving as his
grandparents rarely fed him.
Ms Park considered herself to be very fortunate to have been able
to reunite with her son, and understands others face great
difficulty in reuniting with their children: "Children born to DPRK
mothers do not have ID, so they cannot go to schools. When their
mothers are arrested and sent back to the DPRK, they become
literally homeless. When mothers go to [the] ROK and try to take
their children, some men use the children to blackmail their
mothers for money. [They say] ‘if you send this much, I will send
the child', but they never do. Women can't go there themselves for
fear of being arrested and repatriated."650
* Ms C, who gave testimony before the Commission at the Seoul
Public Hearing, gave birth to a child with the Chinese man she
was sold to and had to leave behind the child when she was
arrested and repatriated. She was separated from the child
throughout the time she was detained in the DPRK and served her
sentence. She was only reunited with her child after she managed
to flee from the DPRK the second time. After several months in
China, she decided to make her way to the ROK but had to leave
behind her child again as the father did not want to give up
custody of the child. Unless she convinces the father to also
come to the ROK or give up the child, she is not certain when she
would be reunited with her child.651
1. In response to the Commission's concern regarding this issue,
expressed through the letter dated 16 December 2013, the
Permanent Mission of China in Geneva responded that "the
Chinese Government has not found cases related to DPRK women
and their children in China mentioned by the Commission". The
Commission finds that many such cases exist and that they
would become apparent by an investigative process on the part
of the Chinese officials.
3. Right to return to one's own country and right to family
1. The right to freedom of movement also entails the right to
return to one's own country. According to the Human Rights
Committee, the scope of "one's own country" as provided in
article 12(4) of the ICCPR is broader than the concept of
one's country of nationality. The scope encompasses, at the
very least, an individual who, because of his or her special
ties to or claims in relation to a given country, cannot be
considered to be a mere alien. There are few, if any,
circumstances in which deprivation of the right to enter one's
own country could be reasonable and hence not arbitrary.652
2. Hundreds of thousands of persons born in the territory that is
today the DPRK but living in the ROK have never been granted
an opportunity to revisit their homes in the DPRK. According
to the 1955 Population and Housing Census conducted by the ROK
Central Statistical Office, 735,501 persons among the total
population had come from the North (before and during the
Korean War). Those in the ROK who claimed to have been born in
the North numbered 403,000 in 1995, 355,000 in 2000 and
161,605 in 2005. KINU noted that many of them died of old age
particularly after 2000.653 The same fate has been experienced
by those who came from the South to the North before or during
the Korean War. At the end of 2013, the Unified Information
Center for Separated Families (established and operated
jointly by the ROK Ministry of Unification, the Korean Red
Cross, and the Committee of Five North Korean Provinces) had
on its register of "separated families" 129,264 persons
(71,480 alive, 57,784 deceased).
3. The Commission finds that, in violation of the right to family
protected by article 23 of the ICCPR, entire families
separated between the North and the South have had no
opportunity to see each other, exchange letters or speak over
the telephone for more than six decades.
4. Negotiations on brief temporary reunions of the separated
families commenced in 1971 between the Red Cross of both the
DPRK and the ROK. Since then the ROK has placed great
importance upon advancing these talks, without this desire
being reciprocated by the DPRK. The first official family
reunions took place in 1985, whereby 50 people from each side
crossed the border for visits with relatives.654 Talks
thereafter stalled until the momentous 2000 summit between Kim
Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il. From 2000 to 2010, there were 18
family reunion meetings involving 4,321 families.655 The
reunion programme was then suspended with the worsening of
inter-Korean relations resulting from the shelling of the
ROK's Yeonpyong Island by the DPRK in November 2010.656
5. In August 2013, it was announced that the programme would be
revived following weeks of apparently improved relations
between the DPRK and the ROK with the newly installed ROK
President Park Geun-hye. The reunions were set for 25-30
September, immediately after the Korean Thanksgiving Day
(Chusok), for 100 people from each side to meet at the Mount
Kumgang resort in the DPRK.657 Just days before the reunions
were set to take place however, Pyongyang issued a statement
announcing the indefinite postponement of the reunions,
putting the blame on Seoul.658 Following the 2014 New Year's
address by Kim Jong-un urging for Seoul and Pyongyang to
create a favourable climate towards improved relations,
President Park responded by proposing, among other actions, to
resume the separated families reunion programme.659
6. Such family reunions have always been emotionally charged
events. Even with the suspension of the programme, the Red
Cross continues to receive applications. As of December 2013,
71,480 people are on the waiting list for an opportunity to
meet their separated loved ones. Out of this number, only 100
would be selected at a time via a lottery to have the chance
to meet briefly (in some cases only via video) under the
glaring media spotlight, accompanied always by minders, never
to meet again afterwards. With 79 per cent of those registered
with the Unified Information Center for Separated Families at
the end of 2012 aged 70 and above, each passing year that the
reunion programme is suspended means fewer and fewer family
members are able to be temporarily reunited, if ever.
7. Even leaving aside clear-cut obligations under international
law, the Commission concludes that basic principles of human
decency and respect towards the wishes and needs of an elderly
generation require that such family reunions not be delayed on
unrelated political grounds.
4. Principal findings of the commission
1. The systems of indoctrination and discrimination on the basis
of state-assigned social class are reinforced and safeguarded
by a policy of isolating citizens from contact with each other
and with the outside world, violating all aspects of the right
to freedom of movement.
2. In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the state
imposes on its citizens requirements as to where they must
reside and work, in violation of the freedom of choice.
Violations are subject to criminal punishment. Moreover, the
forced assignment to a state-designated place of residence and
work is heavily driven by discrimination based on songbun.
This has created a socio-economically and physically
segregated society, where people considered politically loyal
to the leadership can live and work in favourable locations,
whereas families of persons who are considered politically
suspect are relegated to marginalized areas. The special
status of Pyongyang, reserved only for those most loyal to the
state, exemplifies this system of segregation.
3. Citizens are not even allowed to leave their province
temporarily or to travel within the country without official
authorization. This policy is driven by the desire to maintain
disparate living conditions, to limit information flows and to
maximize state control, at the expense of social and familial
ties. This regime of control had a particularly calamitous
effect on access to food, livelihood and basic services during
the height of the food crisis in the 1990s.
4. In an attempt to keep Pyongyang's "pure" and untainted image,
the state systematically banishes entire families from the
capital city if one family member commits what is deemed a
serious crime or political wrong. For the same reason, the
large number of street children who had been migrating
clandestinely to Pyongyang and other cities – principally in
search of food – have been subject to arrest and forcible
transfer back to their home provinces, experiencing neglect
and forced institutionalization upon return.
5. The state imposes a virtually absolute ban on ordinary
citizens travelling abroad, thereby violating their human
right to leave the country. Despite the enforcement of this
ban through strict border controls, nationals still take the
risk of fleeing, mainly to China. When they are apprehended or
forcibly repatriated, DPRK officials systematically subject
them to persecution, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention
and in some cases sexual violence, including during invasive
body searches. Repatriated women who are pregnant are
regularly forced to undergo an abortion, a practice that is
driven by racist attitudes towards persons from China, and to
inflict punishment on women who have committed a serious
offence by leaving the country. Where a baby is born, it is
then killed by the authorities. Persons found to have been in
contact with officials or nationals from the Republic of Korea
or with Christian churches may be forcibly "disappeared" into
political prison camps, imprisoned in ordinary prisons or even
summarily executed.
6. Despite the gross human rights violations awaiting repatriated
persons, China pursues a rigorous policy of forcibly
repatriating DPRK citizens who cross the border illegally.
China does so in pursuance of its view that these persons are
economic (and illegal) migrants. However, many such DPRK
nationals should be recognized as refugees fleeing persecution
or refugees sur place. They are thereby entitled to
international protection. The Commission is of the view that
in forcibly returning DPRK nationals, China has violated its
obligation to respect the principle of non-refoulement under
international refugee and human rights law. In some cases,
Chinese officials also appear to provide information on those
apprehended to their DPRK counterparts to the known danger of
those affected.
7. Discrimination against women and their vulnerable status in
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as well as the
prospect of refoulement, makes women extremely vulnerable to
trafficking in persons. A large number of women are trafficked
by force or deception from the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea into China or within China for purposes of exploitation
in forced marriage or concubinage, or prostitution under
coercive circumstances. An estimated 20,000 children born to
Democratic People's Republic of Korea women are currently in
China effectively deprived of their rights to birth
registration, nationality, education and healthcare because
their birth cannot be registered without exposing the mother
to the risk of refoulement to the DPRK under the present
Chinese policy.
8. The Commission further finds that the DPRK has repeatedly
breached its obligations to respect the rights of its
nationals who have special ties to or claims in relation to
another country, in this case the Republic of Korea, to return
there or otherwise enjoy a facility to meet long separated
families. In an age where people everywhere take for granted
the opportunity to travel and to converse using modern
technology, the severe impediments that the DPRK unreasonably
places on its people to prevent contact and communication with
each other is not only a breach of DPRK's obligations under
international human rights law. It is arbitrary, cruel and
inhuman and, particularly, in the circumstances of the
cancellation of arrangements previously agreed in relation to
reunions of separated families for wholly unpersuasive reason,
especially given the advanced ages of the persons concerned.
D. Violations of the right to food and related aspects of the right
to life
1. The human right to adequate food is enshrined in article 25 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 11 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR), and articles 24 and 26 of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC), amongst other international human
rights treaties.
2. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
describes the right to food "realized when every man, woman
and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and
economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its
procurement."660 The Special Rapporteur on the right to food
described this right as:
The right to have regular, permanent and free access, either
directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively
and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding
to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer
belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual
and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear.661
3. The right to food has been defined by the ICESCR through the
elements of 1) availability, 2) economic accessibility, 3)
physical accessibility and 4) adequacy. Availability of the
right to adequate food refers to "the possibilities either for
feeding oneself directly from productive land or other natural
resources, or for well-functioning distribution, processing
and market systems that can move food from the site of
production to where it is needed in accordance with
demand."662 Accessibility requires economic and physical
access to food to be guaranteed. Economic accessibility
(affordability) implies that personal or household financial
costs associated with the acquisition of food for an adequate
diet should be at a level such that the attainment and
satisfaction of other basic needs are not threatened or
compromised. Physical accessibility means that food should be
accessible to all, including to the physically vulnerable,
such as children, the sick, persons with disabilities or the
elderly, for whom it may be difficult to go out to obtain
food. Access to food must also be guaranteed to people in
remote areas and to victims of armed conflicts or natural
disasters, as well as to prisoners. Adequacy means that the
food must satisfy dietary needs, taking into account the
individual's age, living conditions, health, occupation, sex,
etc. For example, if children's food does not contain the
nutrients necessary for their physical and mental development,
it is not adequate. Food should be safe for human consumption
and free from adverse substances. Adequate food should also be
culturally acceptable.
4. The "fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger" is
enshrined in article 11 (2) of the ICESCR. Article 6 of the
ICCPR recognizes every human beings inherent right to life,
which also requires the state to increase life expectancy,
especially in adopting measures to eliminate malnutrition.663
These two rights are closely linked including in the context
of children's rights.
5. The right to food is an inclusive right. This right cannot be
limited to a discussion of the minimum calories, proteins and
other specific nutrients required. Equally, the right to food
is not solely about access to a given commodity. For these
reasons, discussions about "famines" also cannot be limited to
consideration of the shortage of food and technical ways
through which it can be remedied.664
6. The information received by the Commission points to the fact
that starvation in the DPRK started at the end of the 1980s,
peaked during the 1990s and continued after the 1990s. In line
with its mandate, the Commission has focussed its attention on
the human rights issues associated with the right to food,
namely why people are suffering and dying of hunger, and
whether someone is responsible for this situation. For the
present report, the Commission uses the terms "famine",
"hunger" and "starvation" synonymously, defining them as the
lack of access to adequate food,665 which can lead to physical
harm and death. The use of this terminology permits the
examination of a range of international obligations related to
the rights to life, to adequate food and to the highest
attainable standards of health.
7. The Commission is mindful of concerns relating to the
reliability of the data and statistics produced in and about
the DPRK, as discussed below.666 The Commission has referred
to such data and statistics produced where it found an
adequate level of corroboration on the basis of testimonies,
expert opinions and cross-referencing.
1. Availability, adequacy and affordability of food in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(a) Situation up until the early 1990s
1. The DPRK economy has been built on the principle of the
state's ownership of the means of production,667central
planning668 and the Juche idea of economic self-
sufficiency.669 Article 25 (3) of the DPRK Constitution
declares, "The state provides all the working people with
every condition for obtaining food, clothing and housing."
2. For geographical and historical reasons, agriculture tended to
be concentrated in the south of the Korean Peninsula, where
the climate is more favourable and the majority of arable land
is located. The northern part of the Peninsula, which is
colder, less fertile, and more mountainous, was originally the
site of most of the industrial activity.670 After the Korean
War, the DPRK pursued a strategy of ensuring food security
through self-sufficiency. To attain self-sufficiency, the
government adopted three core strategies: 1) expanding
cropland; 2) shifting output from traditional food crops such
as tubers, millet, and potatoes to higher-yield grains,
namely, rice and corn; and, most importantly, 3) adopting an
industrial approach to agricultural production.671 During the
1960s, Kim Il-sung announced a framework for the agricultural
development of the country based on four principles:
mechanization, chemicalization, irrigation and
electrification. The agricultural conditions of the DPRK are
not favourable for food self-sufficiency. Only 14 per cent of
the 12 million hectares of land is arable and 80 per cent of
the country is mountainous. Moreover, the DPRK lacks the
industrial components necessary for the type of agriculture it
opted for, such as tools and fuel and had to import them from
abroad. Therefore, from the outset, and despite claiming self-
sufficiency, the DPRK adopted a system heavily dependent on
external assistance.
3. The vulnerability of the DPRK's economic system was apparent
before its collapse in the mid-1990s.672The first signs of the
food shortage in the DPRK started in the late 1980s. Beginning
in 1987, with its own economy in disarray, the Soviet Union
began to cut all forms of aid, trade, and investment in the
DPRK, causing a shift in the DPRK's economic situation.673 The
trade with the Soviet Union had not only accounted for three-
fifths of the DPRK's total trade in 1988, it was also based on
concessionary terms. Soviet coal and oil exports to the DPRK,
for instance, were provided at substantially less than the
global market price.674
4. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the DPRK had to pay
standard international prices for oil and coal, in hard
currency. Having defaulted on its international loans,675 the
DPRK found itself with limited access to foreign currency.
Therefore, it could not buy the fuel, fertilizers, chemicals
and spare parts needed for implementing its agricultural plan
and maintaining sufficient levels of food production.
5. In the absence of Soviet aid, the flow of inputs needed for
the DPRK's agriculture diminished, and the DPRK's food
production decreased. For a time, China filled the gap left by
the Soviet Union's collapse and provided the DPRK with
significant aid.676By 1993, China was supplying the DPRK with
77 per cent of its fuel imports and 68 per cent of its food
imports.677 Dependence on China had effectively replaced
dependence on the Soviet Union. However, in 1993, China faced
its own grain shortfalls and need for hard currency. It
sharply cut aid to the DPRK.678 In 1992 and 1993, Chinese
grain shipments to the DPRK reportedly averaged nearly 800,000
tons. In 1994, they fell to under 280,000 tons as a result of
China's reluctance to continue financing major grain shipments
to the DPRK on "friendship terms".679
(b) State food distribution system
1. Article 25 (3) of the DPRK Constitution declares: "The state
provides all the working people with every condition for
obtaining food, clothing and housing." Since the entire
economy is state-owned, this implies that the state has an
obligation to provide each and every citizen in the DPRK with
enough adequate food.
2. The DPRK food rationing system consists of two sub-
institutions: the Public Distribution System (PDS),and the
food rationing mechanism in cooperative farms.In theory, all
non-farm households are entitled to state food rations
provided by the PDS. The Administration and Economy Committee
in each province is responsible for providing food for the
population and organizes the rationing procedures
independently. However, the central government sets up
national rationing norms and arranges provincial food trade in
order to enforce the norms in all provinces.680
3. People working in cooperative farms do not have access to the
PDS. Cooperative farms were established to incorporate all
farm households, land and other agricultural and social
properties in a village. Member households are the formal
owners of the cooperative farms. Member households do not
receive a salary from the government. Instead, they
shouldreceive food rations that are taken from the farm's
outputs. The state agricultural agency at county level, the
County Management Commission, makes all decisions relating to
a cooperative farm, including crop selection, output
distribution and farm marketing.Like the PDS, cooperative
farms define a standard ration for each farm household: the
ration for an adult farm labourer usually corresponds to the
PDS ration for a heavy industrial worker. The rationing
mechanism in cooperative farms supplied farm households with
annual rations in one single distribution, carried out shortly
after the autumn harvest was completed, whereas the rest of
the population was supposed to receive rations twice a month
from the PDS. The system was designed so that if a farm
household was given more grain than the standard ration, the
cooperative farm can sell the difference to state procurement
agencies, and when grain distribution is lower than the
standard ration, the farm provides the difference in the form
of either grain loans or aid from communal funds.681
4. The theoretical calculation of rations under the PDS depended
on work and other factors. For instance, an average working
adult received a grain ration of 700 grams a day, a housewife
was given merely 300 grams, and a person doing heavy physical
work (for example a miner) was eligible for the highest daily
ration of 900 grams.682 The ratio of rice to other (less
nutritious) grains in a ration depended largely on one's place
of residence. The more important the work was for the state,
the higher the ratio of grain that the worker received.683
5. The public distribution system progressively failed to meet
its ration targets even before its collapse in the mid-1990s.
The chart below summarizes the decreases in the food ration
amount since 1955. While in the 1970s, the rations may have
been enough to feed a normal adult, the rations steadily
decreased from 1987.
Ration
for
Official
Norm Worker
1955 Basic Formula: from 900 grams of daily rations for 700 grams
heavy industrial workers to 300 grams for children per day
256
kilograms
per year
1973 Deduction of four days rations from monthly 608 grams
rations for so-called "war-time grain reserves" per day
(average 13 per cent deduction) 222
kilograms
per year
1987 10 per cent deduction for so-called "patriotic 547 grams
grain" per day
200
kilograms
per year
1992 10 per cent deduction from adult rations 492 grams
per day
179
kilograms
per year
Figure 1.Changes in food rations in theDemocratic People's Republic
of Koreabefore 1994684
1. The end of the 1980s can be considered as the beginning of the
period of starvation in the DPRK. In 1987, the PDS rations,
stable since 1973, were reduced by 10 per cent.685 The
distribution became increasingly unreliable in the 1990s.
* One witness stated that he first saw starvation in 1987 in Rason.
"A woman died from starvation. The Party said that she died from
a heart attack."686
* Another witness stated that until the beginning of the 1990s,
people received a steady ration, which was distributed every 15
days. One ration consisted of brown flour, corn and potato. The
amount varied depending on the status of the recipient – for
example, a working man got 700 grams, a student 500 grams, and
dependents 300 grams.687
* Another witness testified that he first started experiencing food
scarcity in 1991-1992.688
1. In 1991, the DPRK authorities launched a "Let's eat two meals
a day" campaign in an attempt to get the population to accept
further ration cuts.689 Except for the army and heavy
industrial workers, a further 10 per cent was cut from the PDS
rations for the population in 1992.690
* A former military officer stated that food for the military
became scarce in the early 1990s. In 1991, a patriotic rice
donation campaign was launched, asking every household to save 10
kilograms of rice and donate it back to the government to feed
the military.691
(c) Hunger and mass starvation in the 1990s
1. The food situation continued to deteriorate. Reportedly, food
riots took place in 1993.692 Diplomatic negotiations were
opened by the DPRK with countries in Asia to obtain emergency
food shipments.693 From 1994, state actions became
increasingly harsh towards specific parts of the population.
The PDS was suspended in four northern provinces, North and
South Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Kangwon.694 In addition, a
campaign was launched to re-collect 5 kilograms of grain that
had already been handed out to farmers as part of their annual
ration.695 As a result, an increasing number of DPRK citizens
went to China and Russia in search of food.696
2. The DPRK authorities initially denied the existence of a
problem that it could not resolve without international aid.
Faced with the undeniable reality of mass starvation, this
attitude slowly changed.697 In February 1995, the DPRK
authorities announced the receipt of food aid from an
international NGO. In May 1995, the President of the ROK, Kim
Young-sam, made a public offer of unconditional food
assistance to the DPRK. Later that month the government of the
DPRK admitted that the country was experiencing a food
shortage. It asked the ROK and Japan for food assistance. An
appeal for aid was also made to the United States of America.
3. Natural disasters exacerbated the availability of food.
Between 30 July and 18 August 1995, torrential rains caused
devastating floods in the DPRK.698 On 31 August 1995, the
United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs stated that,
for the first time, the DPRK sought their assistance.699 There
were more floods in 1996, followed by "the longest spring
drought in recorded history".700 As a result of the natural
disasters, the United Nations reported "major devastation for
the agricultural sector" and a total of 1.5 million tons of
grain lost.701 Additionally, the transportation system was
critically affected, hindering the distribution of food to a
large part of the population.
4. However, the foregoing chronology of events contradicts the
DPRK's often reiterated argument that the floods were the main
cause of the food crisis. Starvation was already a problem
before the 1995 floods. Japan's Acting Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Mr Shimanouchi Ken underlined in September 1995:
"Before the flooding, on 30 June 1995, the Japanese Government
decided to supply a total of 300,000 tons of rice to [the
DPRK] from a humanitarian point of view, in response to a
request from [the DPRK], which was suffering from a serious
food shortage."702
5. The Commission received a large number of testimonies from
people who suffered starvation and witnessed the death of
their relatives and children during this period. People
undertook desperate acts to survive. Some made porridge out of
the roots of grass or cooked the inner bark of young pine
branches. When the harvest was over, some picked the roots of
rice plants, mixed and ground them with corn to make noodles
out of them. People eating such rough food substitutes,
suffered from constant indigestion and diarrhoea, and in the
most severe cases, death.
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mrs C testified: "My father, because
of malnourishment, passed away early in the morning of the 16th
of February 1996… In April 1997 my older sister and my younger
sister died of starvation. And, in 1998, my younger brother also
died."703
* At the Washington Public Hearing, Ms Jo Jin-hye described the
malnutrition experienced by her and her family during the famine
in the 1990s. Her two brothers and her grandmother died of
starvation:
"When my younger brother was born… my grandmother actually wanted
to kill [him] because my mom was very undernourished and she was
not able to lactate. [My mother] begged my grandmother saying,
‘Please do not kill the baby.' … I had to take care of this baby
brother. So I was piggybacking him around the town and sometimes
my grandmother had to carry him around to make him stop crying.
But as I mentioned, because there was no food, he was not able to
stop crying. … [My] baby brother died in my arms because he was
not able to eat. And because I was holding him so much, he
thought I was his mom. So when I was feeding him water, he was
sometimes looking at me smiling at me."704
* At the London Public Hearing, Mr Choi Joong-hwa stated: "Within
five months from when I came back from the army in the 1990s my
older brother died and, the next year, my younger brother died.
My third brother died of malnutrition … later on."705 When he had
to bury three of his brothers who died from starvation he thought
that there was something wrong in the DPRK: "My brother survived
the war in the fifties and why he had to die [in the 1990s]? Why
did my brothers have to die in peacetime?"706
* A woman described the food situation in South Hamgyong Province
after 1995. Her father died in February 1995. Her two sisters
suffered from malnutrition. The witness stated: "My [older]
sister's dying wish was to eat noodles, but there was no money to
buy even one bowl of noodles. She died in 1997. My younger sister
died just one month later. Her dying wish was to eat a slice of
bread. My younger brother had been working at the Koowon coal
mine from 1995, but he was so weak he was fired. He died of
malnutrition on the train on the way back home. I found his
body."707
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Ms P said that five sons of her
neighbour died of starvation and that some people looking for
food in the mountains died because they ate toxic mushrooms.708
* Mr Kim Gwang-il described the "great famine" at the Seoul Public
Hearing:
"It's as vivid as if it happened yesterday. In the 1990s,
especially in Hamgyong region, the famine began in 1994. … in one
day, 80 people from [my neighbourhood] died. So many people died
that we didn't have enough coffins so we borrowed [traditional
burial boards] to give them burials. We didn't have any wood to
even give tombstones. That's how many people died."709
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr A described the period between
1997 and 1999 as the "great famine", the most difficult time. He
said that the distribution of rations stopped during those
years.710
* Mr Ji Seong-ho described how he lost his left hand and part of
his left leg in March 1996. Hehad been starving and was looking
for food or money to buy food. He had got on a moving train to
collect coal to sell, but as he had not eaten for many days, he
fell off the train and the train ran over him, cutting off his
left arm and leg. Mr Ji said that in the winter of 1990 there was
nothing for him and his family to eat: "We would eat tree bark,
and we would get the roots of the cabbage under the ground, but
that was just not enough. As time passed, our grandmother and
other weak people were just not able to move at all."711
1. At the beginning of 1996, the DPRK authorities made an
official announcement that the PDS would stop providing food
rations until May of that year. Reportedly, by 1996, wild food
accounted for some 30 per cent of the population's diet.712 By
1997, the PDS was estimated to be supplying just 6 per cent of
the population. In 1998, the state was not supplying anyone
for large parts of that year.713 In January 1998, there was an
official announcement that individual families were henceforth
obligated to assume responsibility for feeding themselves
rather than relying on the PDS.714 The country's rapidly
deteriorating food situation was reflected in a nutritional
survey conducted by the United Nations, which was released in
December 1998 and showed that 16 per cent of children were
acutely malnourished and 62 per cent were suffering chronic
malnutrition.715
2. Many interviews described how people were not receiving food,
leaving them with no choice but to try to obtain it from other
means, including begging or engaging in activities deemed
illegal by the authorities.716
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mrs C said that in South Hamgyong
Province the provision of rations through the PDS stopped in
1994.717
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr Kim Kwang-il described the food
distribution in South Hamgyong Province: "I realized the need for
freedom in 1996….All I had to do was work because the government
was giving me the rice and food. And that's what I did up until
1996 but the rations stopped in 1996. And people started doing
business, committing crimes, people started stealing."718
* When the PDS stopped in 1995, one witness started trading by
selling items on markets. She also sometimes went to the parents
of her husband's students' to ask for food.719
* Another witness testified that people in the DPRK were selling
all sorts of things to survive, including drugs and copper stolen
from state businesses. The witness described the predicament the
population found itself in as follows:"Obeying the rules in the
DPRK, you will not be able to survive. However, if you are caught
breaking the rules, you can get arrested and have your life taken
away."720
* At the Tokyo Public Hearing, Ms Saito described selling wire
around the country to survive. The illegal business required
inconspicuously transporting the wire on trains. Ms Saito sewd
the wire into her clothes, making them heavy and difficult to
wear, but usually preventing detection by train guards. She told
the Commission of the desperate measures she saw one young woman
take:
"[Ï]n front of me, a lady who was around her 20s was there standing
with her baby on her back. I think she was also there for some kind
of transaction and she was on her way back. In that sense, a lot of
people in North Korea really suffered from food shortages, but then
North Koreans were really kind, they have kindness in their heart.
This lady with the baby on her back; she was standing in front of
me, and she was trying to make sure that her baby is not crushed.
People would be helping her out saying that ‘Make sure the baby is
not crushed'."
Ms Saito and the young woman with the baby were taken off the train
by police. Ms Saito knowing she was carrying wire understood why
she was asked to follow the police, however she could not
understand why the young woman was also asked.
"She only had a baby on her back and she had a very small bag in
her hand, and I was wondering why she was caught. But I was waiting
and the police came back – this time, he was with nobody. It was
just me and the woman. I asked her, ‘Don't you want to feed your
child; it's been a long time.' She said, ‘It will be okay.' I was
really wondering why the baby was so quiet even after 6 hours or 7
hours ride on the train….
After my interrogation was over, the police told the woman to put
the baby on the desk, and suddenly the woman started to cry and I
was wondering why. The woman did not put the baby down, she just
kept crying and the police also was wondering why. The woman was
using a cloth, a wide band to tie the baby on her back, and she
took the baby off and laid it on the table, but then I suddenly
realized that the baby was probably 18 months old or less than 2
years old; it was a boy. I saw red blood around the stomach, and
the police asked what this was all about. The woman was simply
crying and the police suddenly ripped the baby's torso apart and
about 2 kilograms of copper wire was found inside the baby's
stomach. This just told me that this is how far you have to go in
order to keep living here in North Korea."721
(d) Seeking alternatives to State distribution
1. The failure of the PDS forced people to find their own coping
mechanisms to avoid starvation. The informal markets were
spontaneously established by the population, without this
being a state policy choice. The jangmadang (market place)
started as "farmer's markets", where people sold agricultural
produce they had grown in small gardens and other plots of
land around their houses. Collective farms also set aside a
portion of the rice they produced in order to exchange it for
agricultural supplies they needed for the following season,
because they knew the state would fail to provide such
supplies to the farms. They sold or exchanged this stored rice
in the newly emerging markets. The rudimentary jangmadang
economy, which developed naturally with no laws or
regulations, was at first an illegal, or black market.
However, by the late 1990s it had reached all parts of the
DPRK. In 2008, it was estimated that informal economic
activities accounted for 78 per cent of the total income of
DPRK households.722
2. Testimonies received by the Commission confirm that people
engaged in market activities, by selling videos, cigarettes
and other items, to earn money to buy food and complement
whatever insufficient rations they still received through the
PDS.
* One witness said that in the 1990s the food rations were halved.
Therefore, his family had to supplement the ration through the
market and trading with China.723
* Another witness also underscored that food became scarce in the
1990s. Food smuggling and black markets for rice emerged as a
consequence. Before the food became scarce, there were no proper
market places. When Kim Il-sung died, even the distribution of
food rations stopped totally and market places became the only
places to obtain food. 724
* From 1992, one witness, then a teenager of 14 years, engaged in
business by selling videos on the black market. Because he
engaged in this business, he was often arrested.725
* Another witness claimed that the food situation was good until
1995. In 1996, his family started selling belongings from their
house. After all their belongings ran out, the witness tried to
sell cigarettes and vegetables in the market.726
* One witness described the development of the "Talligi economy" in
the 1990s. He explained that "Talligi", which literally means
"running" in Korean,refers to the work of procuring goods in a
small city and transporting them to the countryside to profit
from price differentials. People usually sold products coming
from Rajin-Sŏnbong (Rason Special Economic Zone). Most of the
goods were made in China.727
* A married father with two children said that the food ration was
never enough for his family of four. His wife had to conduct
illegal activities in order to get more food for the family. She
did some farming and sold liquor and beans to make tofu
covertly.728
1. The development of markets had a profound impact on the
economy of the DPRK. Markets became an alternative to the PDS.
They also provided opportunities for some groups of the
population to increase their revenue, for instance through
trade. Various elements determined whether one can benefit
from the markets including place of residence; occupation;
ability to engage in corrupt practices; and access to foreign
currency (through official employment, nonofficial economic
activities or remittances from relatives in China, Japan and
the ROK).729 Some officials benefit from the markets, by
diverting food to make a profit and/or by obtaining bribes in
relation to market activities. Previously marginalized groups
have become even more vulnerable in this context.
2. Markets continue to have a big impact on the physical and
financial accessibility of food. People without financial
resources or the capacity to trade are effectively shut out
from the market.
* One witness from Nampo in South Pyongan Province, said that rice
was 500-600 won per kilogram in the market and the witness could
not afford it.730
* Another witness stated that in 2010-2011, no food was
distributed. She estimates that 40 per cent of the population
could not afford buying any food when she left.731 The witness
emphasized: "Those who do not have money, will starve."
* In the Tokyo Public Hearing, Mr Ishimaru Jiro of Rimjin-Gang, a
media unit of Asia Press which maintains a network of undercover
journalists in the DPRK, noted that the current price of the rice
on the market is around 5,000 won per kilogram. Mr Ishimaru
highlighted that the average salary of public servants is 2000-
3000 won per month. According to him, the problem in the DPRK is
access to food. There is a lot of food sold in the market, but
people cannot afford it.732
* In one confidential interview a woman stated that in 2012, the
price of rice soared and most people could no longer afford it.
"The poor and the weak die of hunger", she added.733
(e) Persistence of hunger and starvation after 2000
1. While the number of deaths from starvation seems to have
fallen since 2000, reports and studies indicate that large
portions of the population are still facing hunger and
malnutrition.734 According to the Food and Agricultural
Organization of the United Nations, the number of people
suffering from malnutrition in the DPRK was 8.4 million in
2000-2002 (representing 36.6 per cent of the population); 8.6
million in 2005-2007 (36 per cent of the population); 9.7
million in 2008-2010 (40.2 per cent) and 7.6 million in 2011-
2013 (30.9 per cent).735 Instances of deaths from starvation
continue to be reported.
2. In the winter of 2000 and spring of 2001, the DPRK experienced
drought which severely affected wheat, barley and potato
crops. The drought also led to an acute loss of soil moisture,
the depletion of reservoirs and the crippling of irrigation
systems.736 According to a source from the ROK, 15,000 DPRK
soldiers deserted due to food shortages in 2001-2002.737
3. In 2002, the DPRK introduced the "7.1 Economic Management
Improvement Measures" (7.1 measures). This new policy was
introduced to maximize profit in a changing environment,
whilst at the same time preserving the socialist ideology. The
DPRK pursued the following objectives: 1) to restructure some
loans and make official prices correspond to real market
prices; 2) to increase managerial discretion afforded to state
companies and encourage independent management; 3) to shut
down the black market, which had continued to grow; and 4) to
shift consumer goods distribution back to the government
system. The 7.1 measures envisioned the establishment of
"general markets".738 There were some characteristics that
showed a sense of reform, such as a demand for profitability
of state businesses, but this did not mean a fundamental
reform of the nation's planned economy system. Because the
authorities tried to close the black markets while not having
sufficient means to rebuild the public rationing system, the
measures caused hyper-inflation and ended in failure. In order
to handle this situation, the authorities decided to legalize
the black market in April 2003.739 For decades rice had been
"sold" in the DPRK within the PDS at a purely token price.
After the reforms, the official price increased by a multiple
of 550, from 0.08 to 44 won per kilogram, approximating the
market price at the time. Accordingly, many DPRK citizens
suffered from unintended side effects of the reforms.
4. In 2005, the DPRK signed an agreement to eliminate its nuclear
programmes in exchange for aid and security assurances. In the
same year, the World Food Programme (WFP) representative
reportedly stated: "What the government is able to provide the
people now, these 250 grams a day, is a starvation ration."740
One witnesss said that her second granddaughter, born in 2005,
suffered from the lack of food and developed health issues:
"Even today, although she gets better food, she is not all
well."741
5. In July 2006 and August 2007, new floods hit the DPRK. The
United Nations reported that the summer floods decimated
domestic food production, placing the vulnerable population at
risk of rising malnutrition during the winter months.
6. The worsening humanitarian situation reportedly forced people
to take desperate measures. The Korea Institute for National
Unification reported: "Though there were testimonies of
the sale of human meat during the period of the Arduous March,
such testimonies almost disappeared after 2000. However, in
2006 there was a re-emergence in testimonies of cannibalism
attributed to the economic breakdown and food shortages."742
7. The DPRK continues to operate the PDS and has tried on various
occasions to re-launch it while cracking down on the "informal
economy".743 According to the FAO and the WFP, the Government
tried to revive the PDS in October 2005. This led to some
improvements but before long it reverted back to pre-revival
levels.744 Various factors including low food production, high
fuel prices and infrastructure damage caused food distribution
to be irregular. Between 2003 and 2007, less than a quarter of
PDS households and only two-thirds of farmers received their
food rations, and even those who did rarely received their
full entitlement. Various attempts by the government to
relaunch the PDS failed. Between 2004 and 2008, food rations
ranged from 150 grams per person per day to 350 grams. In
2008, rations decreased from 350 grams at the beginning of the
year to 250 grams in May. They stood at 150 grams – about one
quarter of the minimum nutritional requirement - from June to
September, before increasing again to 300 grams in October.745
As shown in the figure below, the Government target of 573
grams per day has not been attained since 2008.
Figure 2. Average monthly PDS rations, 2008-2013 compared to
Government target746
Figure 3. Public Distribution System ration 2011-2013 (grams/
person/day)747
1. In 2008, the WFP reported that the DPRK was experiencing acute
food shortages.748 The FAO/WFP food and security assessment
published during the same year found that compared to the
2003-2005 period, the consumption of wild foods in the DPRK
had increased by nearly 20 per cent:
Diarrhoea caused by increased consumption of wild foods was
reported to be one of the leading causes for malnutrition amongst
children under 5, particularly in urban areas. Most hospitals and
child institutions had limited ability to effectively treat
malnutrition due to lack of fortified food for infants.749
Figure 4. Vulnerability to food insecurity750
1. On 30 November 2009, the government announced that it would
exchange new currency for old currency at the rate of 100:1.
DPRK citizens were given only one week to exchange their old
notes for the new currency. Strict limits were imposed on the
amount of currency they were allowed to exchange.751 According
to state-controlled media, the official purpose of the reform
was to "defend the interest of the people by stabilizing and
improving their lives."752In particular, the government aimed
first to combat inflation and second to reduce the role of the
market, restoring the centrally planned economic system.753 A
former professor in the DPRK, Mr Cho Myong-chol, now at the
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul,
said, "After failing to shut down private markets in North
Korea, currency reform was probably the only option left to
neutralize the wealthy merchant class."754 Mr Cho added that
the currency reform was aimed at restoring the ruling Kim
family's hold on power. He said that the DPRK's new class of
wealthy merchants are not the traditional elite and include
many people who are not "ideal" communists and could become
threats to the current leadership.
2. The result of the currency reform appears to have caused
further starvation. By 2009, the market price for rice was
fluctuating around the 2,000 won. The number of street
children began to increase again after the 2009 currency
reform.755 Less than two months after the currency reform,
Premier Kim Yong-il, reportedly apologized directly to the
representatives of the people of each region.756 This was
followed by the dismissal – and reported execution - of the
head of the Finance Department of the Central Committee of the
Workers' Party of Korea, Pak Nam-gi.757 Some commentators
stated that such an unprecedented admission of failure was
probably due to the general discontent even among supporters
of the leadership. The DPRK took a further step against the
markets by banning the use of foreign currencies on 28
December 2009.758 An official decree entitled "On severely
punishing those who use Foreign Currency" was announced.759 In
addition, the authorities shut down the general markets. These
actions had a major effect on people's access to food. They
particularly affected those who made a living trading and
selling goods in private or free markets. The extreme
inflation that resulted from the currency reform decreased the
food purchasing power of ordinary citizens and rendered
people's savings almost worthless.760
3. Although the authorities shut down the markets, they failed to
properly restart the PDS. This contributed to mass starvation
in various parts of the country.761 There was vast discontent
among the population and riots reportedly took place.762
4. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the delegation of
the DPRK claimed in its Universal Periodic Review of December
2009 that "the issue of serious malnutrition is a thing of the
past."763
5. The non-governmental humanitarian organization Good Friends
reported the death by starvation of thousands of people in
Sunchon and Pyongsong between mid-January and mid-February
2010. Statistics of the Workers' Party of Korea in Sinuiju
cited by Good Friends indicated that, after 20 February 2010,
about three hundred people died, while more than 1,000
households did not have food and were at risk of
starvation.764 Reportedly, in May 2010, the Workers' Party of
Korea stated that there will be no immediate government
support and announced that the government "cannot take any
immediate measures due to the worse than expected food
situation."765 As a measure of last resort, the authorities
lifted restrictions on private markets again in 2010.766
6. In October 2011, the DPRK allowed the filming of children who
were severely malnourished in rural areas of the DPRK. WFP
reported that the PDS was distributing 200 gram rations, one
third of an adult's normal daily requirement.767 In 2011, the
United Nations reported that more than 6 million people in the
DPRK were in urgent need of food aid.768 The situation of
farmers remains critical in terms of food security.
* A farmer testified that in 2011, the manager of the collective
farm told the farmers that they have not met their quota and that
"the farm had no obligation to feed them."769
1. Testimonies to the Commission submitted by persons who have
fled the DPRK in the more recent past, including in 2013,
describe the current economic and food hardship. Malnutrition
remains a significant concern, especially in rural areas. Food
may be available in the markets, but the price of items
effectively excludes a large portion of the population.
Ironically, in a country that has forcefully denounced
capitalism, affordability continues to be a major issue for
the poor and their situation appears to have worsened. The
graphic below shows the evolution of the price of rice in the
DPRK.
Figure 5. Price of rice in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea between August 2009 and April 2013770
1. Alarming reports continue to emerge from the DPRK. In 2012,
more than 10,000 people reportedly died of hunger in North and
South Hwanghae Provinces.771 These reports confirm information
AlertNet, a humanitarian news service run by the Thomson
Reuters Foundation, reported after visiting these provinces in
2011.772 The information is further corroborated by
testimonies of people who have recently departed the DPRK.
* One witness saw 12 people die of hunger in her region in 2012.
One of them was a man who had nothing but grass to eat.773
* Another witness from Chongjin testified that in 2012 she did not
receive any food rations. In 2013, she received one kilogram of
rations in January and another kilogram in March. She stated that
the food situation has become worse since Kim Jong-un came to
power.774
1. In 2013, the DPRK authorities reportedly provided rations of
400 grams per day between January and May, and 390 grams per
day in June and July, leading to an average ration size of 397
grams per day for the entire period from January to July 2013.
It was also reported that some of the distribution included
emergency stocks of rice ordinarily intended for wartime
distribution.775 According to the Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) "PDS rations in 2013 are
following a similar pattern to 2012. Although supply is higher
than in 2011, it remains well below the target of 573 grams
per person per day."776 Additionally, the ration size varies
markedly depending on a person's age, as seen in the table
below.
Figure 6. Ration sizes by age group and average ration sizes777
(f) Impact on various groups
1. The failures of the PDS and the period of mass starvation have
profoundly impacted the lives of many people in the DPRK. The
Commission focuses on three specific groups because of the
wider implications of their suffering.
(i)Impact on children
1. In its country report to the Universal Periodic Review in
2009, the DPRK government reported that "The state has
invariably maintained, ever since the early days of its
founding, the principled stand that children are the future
and the ‘Kings' of the country."778 However, children have
been among the most affected by the dire food situation. World
Bank statistics indicate that infant mortality in the DPRK
increased from 45 per 1000 live births in 1990 to 58 per 1000
live births in 1999.779 The DPRK declared in 2002 that the
infant mortality rate increased from 27 per 1000 live births
in 1993 to 48 per 1000 live births in 1999.780
2. Apart from killing many children, hunger and starvation also
have the severe negative impacts on the long-term development
of infants and children. According to FAO:
Malnutrition is especially serious for infants during the first
1000 days of life (from conception through the age of two), and for
young children and has largely irreversible long-term effects on
the ability of children to grow and learn, and to develop into
productive adults later in life. This can restrict the development
potential of whole societies and nations, and create a costly and
continuing health and humanitarian burden for the country.781
1. The 1998 United Nations nutritional survey showed a 62 per
cent rate of stunting among children under 9 years old.782
This level of stunting is considered "very high" according to
the WHO classification (see below, figure 7). The high
stunting rate indicates that starvation started at the end of
the 1980s, as the 9-year olds among the children found to be
stunted in 1998 had probably faced chronic malnutrition since
1989.783
Figure 7.WHO classification for assessing severity of malnutrition
by prevalence range among children under 5 years of age784
1. In 2002, with cooperation from the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme, the government of
the DPRK conducted a survey of 6,000 households with children
younger than seven years using multiple-stage sampling
methods. Data was collected on socio-demographic variables,
use of WFP food aid, and anthropometric measures of the
youngest child in the household. Although the prevalence of
wasting785 had decreased between 1997 (16.5 per cent) and 2002
(8.2 per cent), the prevalence of stunting had not changed
(38.2 vs. 39.4 per cent).786
2. The country suffered from serious economic difficulties
starting from the mid-1990s, causing serious deterioration of
people's health, in particular that of women and children.
Supply of nutritious foods, nutritional and medical
caresignificantly improved the situation from the early 2000s,
the DPRK claimed before the Human Rights Council.787 However,
information collected by the Commission contradicts this
claim. According to a 2009 UNICEF report, DPRK was one of 18
countries with the highest prevalence of moderate and severe
stunting among children aunder the age of five years. Between
2003 and 2008, 45 per cent of children under five in the DPRK
were stunted. For the same age group, nine per cent were
suffering from wasting and seven per cent were severly
underweight.788 The most recent UNICEF-financed nutritional
survey concluded that 27.9 per cent of the country's two year
olds are afflicted by stunting and 8.4 per cent of all
children in that age group are severely stunted.789 The rate
of stunting therefore remains high according to the WHO
classification.
3. The Commission understands from nutritionists that retarded
growth and development in the youngest years cannot be later
regained or compensated for. Chronic malnutrition increases
with age and reaches a plateau from three years of age but is
irreversible after two years of age.790 The incidence of
stunting is not only concerning subject of grave concern from
the standpoint of survival and physical growth but also for
the overall development of children.791 Chronic malnutrition
leading to stunting can also have long-term effects on
cognitive development, school achievement, and economic
productivity in adulthood and maternal reproductive
outcomes.792 The intergenerational effect of stunting also
needs to be considered. A woman of short stature and low
weight is at greater risk of giving birth to a child of short
stature and lower weight.793
4. Chronically malnourished children are also more susceptible to
a variety of diseases.According to various reports, including
the DPRK's own report to various international organizations
such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the
International Federation of Red Cross Societies, over 60 per
cent of DPRK children under the age of five suffered from
acute respiratory infections and over 20 per cent suffered
from diarrhoea in 2002. During that period, the death rate
from these diseases reached almost 80 per cent. Some 40 to 50
per cent of children visiting clinics were suffering from
diseases caused by contaminated water. During the monsoon
season the rate shot up to 60 to 70 per cent.794
5. The dire food situation in the DPRK also caused a very high
number of children to become homeless (the so-called
kotjebi).795 Some lost their parents; others were abandoned in
the marketplaces or in the waiting rooms of railroad stations
because their families had no means to feed them and received
no support from the state. According to article 20 of the
Convention on the Rights of Child, "A child temporarily or
permanently deprived of his or her family environment shall be
entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the
state." In May 2002 the DPRK government declared in its second
report to the CRC that it was taking measures to provide
family environments for children who had lost their parents
and that it was paying great attention to child rearing at
both the familial and societal levels. The government claimed
that most orphans are sent to institutions where they can
benefit from government protection.796
6. The Commission heard that there were different types of
orphanage-like structures for children in the DPRK: a system
of regular orphanages known as ilban; institutions called
gyebumo (literally "step-parent") and guhoso facilities for
street children.797
7. In 1997, facilities called "9-27 camps" were established in
every county to crack down on the unauthorized movement of
people and in particular children searching for food.798 It is
also reported that "the custody facilities which serve the
purpose of protecting street children resemble in fact a
detention facility, rather than a protection facility for
children, and children accommodated in the centres are
deprived of education and exploited for labour".799
Humanitarian agencies have never had access to these
facilities.800
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr Kim Hyuk described the situation
in the orphanage where he was placed by his father in 1995. He
said that in 1997 "twenty four out of 75 orphans passed away
fromstarvation… internally there was no food subsidized to the
orphanages. So what we ate at the time was the remainderof the
corn. We dried it and we grinded and turned it into a powder.
That's what we got, but it does not contain any nutrition and
because of that, we got constipation…. There was nothing to eat
in the orphanage. In 1996 and 1997,the orphanages tried to
release asmany children as possible because they didn't have
anything to give to the kids. So they thoughts that kids were
better off begging in the streets. It would be better that
starving to death sitting in the orphanage."801
* One witnesswas 11 years old when she was caught and sent to a
guhosoin Gandong with six other children. She said that children
who did not have enough food during the Ardous March or who were
left behind by fleeing parents were put in that detention
facility. In the guhoso, she met children who had been there for
one year. When they first arrived, they were told to stand on a
chair, and were beaten with a thick leather belt. Children were
put in underground rooms with small windows at the top of the
walls. The witness was put in a cell with three boys (between 14
and 15 years old) and a 12 year old girl. The children must sit
all day, they were not allowed to play, and were only allowed to
go outside to empty the toilet once per week. Children tried to
make themselves sick by eating sand or swallowing spoons in the
hope they will be permitted to leave. They were fed with a small
amount of salty soup with a little bit of radish and flour, two
or three times a day. She remembers always being hungry.802
1. Access to public services and in particular health services by
kotjebi is very concerning.
* A former nurse from North Hamgyong Province saw many kotjebi die
in the hospital in which she worked as they could not afford
basic necessities. She told the Commission: "I saw a lot of
kotjebi die. I was responsible for assisting them in the hospital
and trying to improve their hygiene, but because they did not
have clothes to keep warm in, they would sleep next to the stores
of used coal [from the hearth] and get crushed and suffocate
under the coal as it slid down from the pile."803
1. Since the 2009 currency reform, the economic situation
worsened in the DPRK and the number of kotjebi has reportedly
increased.804
* A former high level official testified that inAugust 2010, Kim
Jong-un issued an order to SSD and MPS to get rid of kotjebi and
homeless adults in Pyongyang before holding the Third Conference
of the Workers' Party of Korea that took place on 28 September
2010 and prepared his succession to become the Supreme Leader.
SSD and MPS brought in additional units from the provinces and
organized them into a shock crackdown unit. Based on the
severeness of their wrongdoing, those caught were to be sent to
ordinary prison camps, short-term forced labour detention
facilities or "rehabilitation homes" for kotjebi in their
provinces of origin. After the operation SSD and MPS reported
back to Kim Jong-un that a very large number of kotjebi and other
unregistered citizens had been arrested and sent back to their
home provinces for detention in the said institutions.805
* The Commission also reviewed secretly filmed video footage
showing child homelessness. The video depicted kotjebi in
Pyongyang markets in 2012 and in a different province in 2011,
rummaging for food.806
1. The Commission is concerned about the DPRK's continued
obstruction of access by humanitarian agencies and non-
governmental organizations to children in all regions. In
addition, when access is granted, humanitarian organizations
are generally prevented from conducting a standard assessment
of children in institutions and hospitals.
(ii)Impact on women
1. The DPRK is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which also
incorporates specific obligations regarding rural women.807
2. As noted above,808 despite the implementation of laws to
engender equality between the sexes, gender equality in the
DPRK has not been realized, especially at work and in the
family. Traditionally, the responsibility of obtaining and
preparing food for the family has been borne by women alone.
During the famine this gendered role remained unchanged.
However, finding food became more difficult.809
3. The economic burden on women also increased during the 1990s
as a result of the economic decline and the strict
requirements on men to report to their state-assigned
workplace even if it was not functioning or salaries and
rations were reduced or no longer being paid.810Due to the
reduced rations and salaries from state employment and
limitations on men, women were required to take on additional
economic activities aside from their usual chores. At the same
time, the domestic burden on women dramatically increased, as
mechanisms that had been put in place to alleviate domestic
work were significantly reduced because the social welfare
system collapsed. For example, the operating hours of
childcare facilities and education institutions were
shortened, or the services ceased to exist all
together.811Women, already bearing the increasingly difficult
burden of finding adequate food for their family's survival,
were also faced with increased economic, domestic and physical
workloads.
4. Many women began their own economic activities to acquire the
goods they required. The private market became the main means
of obtaining food to support their families when food rations
and wages were unavailable. At the same time, the state put in
place strict measures in order to limit the market
activities.812 State enforced restrictions that only women
over 40 years old could trade on the markets left the majority
of young women in a very difficult situation in terms of
access to food. This is thought to have driven the increase in
prostitution in the country as transactional sex became the
sole means of survival for young women, shut out from state-
employment and unable to work in the private market.
5. Women also faced physical challenges in accessing the markets.
Trading often required transporting heavy loads. However due
to restrictions on transportation, women were often forced to
carry 30 to 50 kilogram loads on their backs, traveling
between markets and homes or even different provinces to sell
their goods. As women started to move their goods on bicycles,
the state also began to restrict the use of bicycle by women
and imposed fines on women for doing so or for wearing
trousers.813
6. The food crisis has also caused many women to leave the
DPRK.814 Because women have the primary role in obtaining
food, they have represented the majority of DPRK nationals
leaving the country since 2002 as they have gone in search of
food and job opportunities in China.
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Ms P described her experience of
being repatriated 4 times from China: "crossing the border was
not an easy thing to do, but at least, it's better than
just…dying in North Korea. If I went to China I thought I would
have the least means to survive."815
1. Women's activity in the underground economy during the food
crisis has been a crucial factor in increasing their economic
independence and self-reliance. However, as a result of the
male-dominant, patriarchal family culture,816 women in the
DPRK, particularly mothers in the family, have experienced
severe deterioration in their health, largely because they
either skipped or reduced portions of their meals for the
benefit of other family members. As mothers fed their families
first, they typically ate barely one meal per day.817
(iii)Impact on low-ranking military
1. The DPRK has long been unable to provide its oversized army
with an adequate level of food.818 Officers have, however,
been prioritized in the provision of food.
2. Food shortages affecting ordinary soldiers began in the late
1970s and became even more apparent in the early 1990s.
Several witnesses described soldiers starving to death because
of insufficient ration allocations to the army.
* At the London Public Hearing, former KPA soldier Mr Choi Joong-
hwa testified:
"In 1987, I myself suffered malnourishment. People in the military
wondered what had happened to their food supply and other
necessities. They were told that it was because North Korea was
being isolated by other members of the international community."819
* A former KPA officer stated that food for the military became
scarce in the early 1990s. In 1991, a patriotic rice donation
campaign was launched, asking every household to save 10
kilograms of rice and donate it back to the government to feed
the military. He estimated that at the time there was a 3-4 per
cent malnutrition rate among soldiers.820
* At the London Public Hearing, Mr Kim Joo-il, who used to be a
captain in the KPA, explained that soldiers faced ration cuts:
"The rations provided to soldiers was 800 grams per day. After Kim
Il-sung died and Kim Jong-il came to power, he reduced that amount
to 600 grams and this meant the bowl of rice we got would rise
slightly over the rim of the bowl, not like a large mountain but
like a small mound."821
1. Access to food for ordinary soldiers was further impacted by
what Mr Andrew Natsios calls the "militarization of
agriculture".822 Starting in 1997, the central authorities
dispatched soldiers to the state farms in order to increase
able-bodied labour and to prevent hoarding as the famine swept
across the country.823 Farmers used to bribe the military with
food. Therefore, the soldiers' food situation varied depending
on whether they were serving in rural or urbanized areas.
Soldiers were not allowed to engage in market activities or
other coping mechanisms that could have allowed them to
compensate for their insufficient rations.
* At the London Public Hearing, Mr Choi Joong-hwa said that
soldiers like him "starved because we did not have the freedom to
take care of ourselves, the government was the only thing we
could look up to."824
1. The rations designated for the ordinary soldiers were often
taken and diverted by corrupt high-level officers for their
own personal gain.
* Former KPA captain Mr Kim Joo-il described the patterns of
corruption he experienced: "Because of the corruption … when a
certain amount was given to the higher ranking officers, by the
time the low bottom soldiers would receive the rations, the
rations given would be almost nothing."825
* At the Tokyo Public Hearing, Mr Ishimaru Jiru said that high
level officers embezzled food to sell it in the market for their
own benefit:
"At the very top of the hierarchy, the brigade leaders will take
whatever they want and then leave the rest to the lower level … the
rank and file will only get very limited amount of food."826
1. Starvation within the military has also affected civilians'
right to food. Starting in the early 1990s, hungry soldiers
began to steal food from farms and private homes in order to
compensate for the poor food rations provided by the
government.827
* The Commission heard from Mr Kim Joo-il that stealing food from
the population was a common practice and that officers even
encouraged their troops to do so. He stated:
"Soldiers had to steal in order not to die… Before entering the
army, I had been indoctrinated to think that soldiers carry out
honourable work and protect the population. But I soon discovered
that this was far from the truth…. The standard practice of
soldiers having to steal their food and supplies has made me
question whether the army was really there to protect the people.
The army was more like pirates."828
* Mr Choi Joong-hwa stated that because of the lack of food,
soldiers started working against the people and did anything to
get food. During the night, soldiers went to civilian houses and
stole food, including livestock. He described that on one
occasion, soldiers from a KPA unit stopped three civilian women
traveling with their market goods at night. The soldiers ordered
them to put down their goods, strip naked, turn around and sing a
song. By the time they finished, the soldiers had run away with
the goods and the women's clothes. Mr Choi said that high-level
officers received official instructions from above that soldiers
who stole food had to be severely punished and that soldiers were
not allowed to leave their bases. However, it was clear that such
instructions could not have suppressed the problem of looting:
"But even though they tried to have full control over us,
restricting us from leaving the military base, we couldn't just not
leave. They once talked about putting barbed wire on top of the
wall [surrounding the barracks], but our attitude and our response
was that nothing will stop the starving soldiers from escaping,
going over the fence."829
* One witness described that the military was already preying on
civilians in the 1980s in Chongjin (North Hamgyong Province):
"Even if you worked all year on the communal farms, you wouldn't
have enough food as the military would come and take it."830
1. The DPRK government recognized long ago that it lacks the
capacity to feed its huge army. In a speech given in December
1996, Kim Jong-il reportedly stated the following:
"The People's Army is not being properly supplied with food. Seeing
that we face temporary difficulties, the enemies rave that our
socialism will fall as well, and they are looking for every
possible chance to invade us. If they knew we did not have military
provisions, the US imperialists might immediately raid us."831
When the Supreme Leader of the DPRK expressed his fear that
the West might invade if they knew that even soldiers were
suffering, "the famine was transformed from a nutritional
crisis into a national security matter."832
1. At present, food rations provided to the military continue to
be grossly insufficient. This problem was graphically
illustrated by secretly filmed video footage of starving
soldiers, which was recently taken in the DPRK and shown to
the Commission by Mr Ishimaru Jiro at the Tokyo Public
Hearing.833 The DPRK government is still not capable of
feeding its military. This has a direct negative impact on
civilian access to food, since the government is forcing the
general population to donate food for the military.
* One witness claimed:
"Soldiers go hungry to bed and can't sleep… In March 2013, there
was a quarrel about food in Regiment 27 based in Musan, North
Hamgyong Province. A soldier was caught eating leftover rice during
the night. He was beaten by others soldiers. He was enraged to be
treated like this because he was hungry. He used his gun and killed
several soldiers."834
2. Consequences of geographic segregation and discrimination
1. The right to adequate food, as any other human rights, must be
implemented without discrimination of any kind as to race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Any discrimination in access to food, as well as to means and
entitlements for its procurement, constitutes a violation of
international law. The principle of non-discrimination applies
to state food distribution systems as well as the distribution
of international humanitarian aid.
2. As pointed out by the Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights,
Even where a state faces severe resource constraints, whether
caused by a process of economic adjustment, economic
recession, climatic conditions or other factors, measures
should be undertaken to ensure that the right to adequate food
is especially fulfilled for vulnerable population groups and
individuals.835
In this context, deprioritizing vulnerable populations
constitutes a human rights violation.
3. Since its inception, the Songbun system of social
classification has heavily impacted the lives of all DPRK
citizens. People with lower songbun were discriminated against
in terms of the quantity and composition of rations
distributed by the PDS.
4. As described above,836 the Songbun system is also crucial in
determining education and employment opportunities. In turn,
one's type of work determined the amount of rations received
from the PDS. For example, those employed in special security
functions were allocated 800 grams of food per day while
regular labourers were entitled to only 600 grams.837 In
practice, the differences are even more pronounced and people
of high songbun have privileged access to food.
* Andrew Natsios told the Commission at the Washington Public
Hearing:
"The caste-based system gives greater access to resources for
people of upper castes, and for the people of lower castes, they
are discriminated against."838
* A former DPRK official who worked in agricultural research
described the system of production and distribution of food in
the DPRK:
"As far as the public distribution system is concerned, that was
more a worker compensation system and not a social service
system. As a ruler of society, if you have a limited quantity of
food, you would give the food first to the most important people.
The government kept most of the products for the central areas,
the People's Army, the Party. The rest is distributed to
others."839
* A witness from Hyesan (Ryanggang province) stated that people in
high-ranking positions got three times more food compared to the
ordinary people.840
1. Once food became scarce, the authorities decided to prioritize
those people whom they considered crucial for maintaining the
political system and its leadership at the expense of those
deemed to be expendable. Testimonies confirm that food has
been channelled towards the Party, critical industries,
important military and security officers and the capital
Pyongyang. Allocations differ not only with regard to the
amount of food, but also in the quality of food, with rations
including higher proportions of preferred grains, such as
white rice.
* A former official from Pyongyang said: "The famine did not have
any impact on us. We obtained everything as before." The official
emphasized that instructions were given to prioritize
distributions to party cadres in political committees and
people's committees, SSD officers and workers in munitions
factories.841
* A former researcher in Pyongyang described that, "during the
famine there were no dead bodies in Pyongyang. I saw them when I
visited relatives in the countryside. Seeing the dead bodies, I
started distrusting the regime."842
* A former agent of the KPA Escort Command, an elite force assigned
to guard the Supreme Leader and his family, stated that, even
during the famine, people in the Escort Command received "good
rations". They were provided with three meals a day and with meat
twice per week.843
* A former SSD agent acknowledged that he had many privileges. In
particular he received rice of a very good quality even during
the famine. According to that official, most of the food rations
went to Pyongyang, the military and the security services. He
used to get 1 kilogram of food rations (including pork, fish, oil
and rice).844
* One witness who studied in Pyongyang, stated that life in the
capital was much better than in her home province. "The
government thinks that the city of Pyongyang should survive even
if the rest of the country starves. The food rations in Pyongyang
were much more than what I received in my home province of South
Hamgyong. The quality of food was also better, even though the
best food was of course reserved to the top cadres."845
1. Given that people with lower songbun are concentrated in
certain geographical areas, this gives the food situation in
the DPRK and its underlying discrimination a geographic
dimension.
2. Some areas, such as Pyongyang, benefit from a privileged food
situation, because the elites are concentrated there.
Conversely, the remote northeastern regions have traditionally
been areas, to which people were banished, including prisoners
of war and groups purged in the 1950s and 1960s.846 It is not
surprising that they were the first to be abandoned by the
state. As noted above, in 1994 the four provinces in the
Northeast that were highly dependent on the PDS, namely North
and South Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Kangwon, were cut from the
distribution system.
* One expert described the concern as follows:
"The Great Famine was driven by an absolute shortage of food, but
also by inequalities in distribution. Differences in distribution
priorities followed the Songbun system. The ‘royal families' in
Pyongyang were fed, while less or no food was sent to North
Hamgyong were mostly people of lower songbun live."847
1. The Commission received a large amount of testimony and
information pointing to the fact that once the DPRK finally
requested international aid, the authorities wanted this aid
to be focused only on Pyongyang and specific regions.848
Access to northeastern regions was denied to humanitarian
organizations.
* In the Washington Public Hearing, Andrew Natsios stated:
"During the famine, we have substantial evidence, in the research I
did and evidence from the World Food Programme, that the northeast
region of the country was triaged. They actually did not allow any
food to go into that area because the whole area has a very low
songbun status in the system. It is where political dissidents even
during the imperial period of the kingdoms in the nineteenth
century, that is where dissidents were sent. There were uprisings
there before so it has always been viewed as a seditious area of
the country and rather dangerous, and the WFP, the NGOs, the ICRC,
were not allowed into the three north-eastern provinces for almost
two years during the famine."849
1. T
he Commission acknowledges the role played by geographical,
climatic and other elements in the decline of food
availability in the DPRK. Nevetheless, the aforementioned
patterns of discrimination find clear reflection in the
following maps, which show large disparities between regions
with regard to the prevalence of stunting and acute
malnutrition.
Figure 8. Stunting prevalence by province850
Figure 9. Global acute malnutrition
851
3. Awareness and concealment
1. Despite being aware of the worsening food situation, the
authorities concealed relevant information from the outside
world and their own population. This aggravated starvation in
three respects. Firstly, by hiding the reality of starvation
in the country, the DPRK violated its own population's right
to information and hindered the people's ability to develop
their own coping mechanisms at an early stage. A number of
witnesses underscored that people starved to death in their
homes, because they were waiting for the ration distributions
to recommence. Secondly, concealing information led to a delay
in obtaining international food aid that cost many lives.
Thirdly, the secrecy relating to data has made it very
difficult for the international community to provide targeted
humanitarian and development assistance in the country.
2. According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, violations of the ICESCR occur when a state fails to
ensure the satisfaction of, at the very least, the minimum
essential level required to be free from hunger. In
determining which actions or omissions amount to a violation
of the right to food, it is important to distinguish the
state's inability to comply with this obligation from its
unwillingness to comply. Should a State party argue that
resource constraints make it impossible to provide access to
food for those who are unable to secure such access, the state
has to demonstrate that every effort has been made to use all
the resources at its disposal in an effort to satisfy, as a
matter of priority, those minimum obligations.852 A state
claiming that it is unable to carry out its obligation, for
reasons beyond its control, needs to prove a) that this is the
case and b) that it has made all efforts to obtain the
necessary international assistance and does not impede the
delivery of such assistance.
3. The authorities in the DPRK were well aware of the country's
deteriorating food situation long before appealing for aid in
1995. State actions such as the reduction of rations, or the
launch of campaigns such as "Let's eat two meals per day",
shows that the authorities preferred to take steps that deeply
affected the right to adequate food in the country to asking
for international assistance.
4. In his memoirs, former high-level DPRK official Mr Hwang Jang-
yop wrote: "People in North Korea were also starving in 1994,
however, there wasn't any news that people starved to
death."853 In fact, all allegations of food shortages were
categorically rejected by the DPRK. In January 1994, the
spokesperson of the DPRK Agricultural Commission condemned the
reports of hunger in the Western media as a "wicked deception
to degrade the socialist image of the DPRK".854 He argued that
the DPRK had accumulated a large amount of grain stocks as an
important strategic resource.
5. According to former DPRK officials who have given testimonies
to the Commission, the highest level authorities in Pyongyang
knew about the details of the famine. Each province had to
regularly submit statistics on how many people had died from
starvation and how many people were missing from their homes.
Those documents were kept confidential.855
* At the Washington Public Hearing, Andrew Natsios argued that the
system of measuring the height and weight of every child in
school once a year was another source of information the state
has at its disposition. He also noted that the decision to lower
the minimum height requirements for an 18-year-old boy to enter
the DPRK military was based on this type of data.856
1. The Commission finds that there was awareness about the famine
situation all the way up to the Supreme Leader. Former
officials stated that the provinces submitted detailed reports
about the situation to the capital. Kim Jong-il also visited
numerous locations in the country as part of his "military
first" and "on-the-spot guidance" visits.857 On these
occasions, he could not have missed what was happening in the
country.
* At the London Public Hearing, former KPA officer Mr Kim Joo-il
told the Commissioners how Kim Jong-il paid a visit to his
military unit and was made aware of the lack of food suffered by
the soldiers:
"In 1996, Kim Jong-il had visited Cholwon-gun in Kangwon Province.
He came to inspect the battalion himself and he asked to see the
food that was being provided to the soldiers. So they showed Kim
Jong Il a bowl of porridge. When they turned the bowl upside down
there were only three grains of rice."
Kim Jong-il became very angry and divested the battalion commander
of his rank and sent him to a detention centre. However, the food
situation for the unit did not improve.858
1. The practices of the authorities to conceal information have
obstructed the development and delivery of targeted and
efficient international assistance programmes to address the
needs of the most vulnerable.859 Human rights treaty bodies
have also repeatedly requested the DPRK to provide them with
reliable data and indicators.860Data, indicators and figures
emanating from the DPRK and its authorities have been widely
considered to be unreliable.
2. The data published by international organizations must be
treated with caution.861 The unreliability of the data comes,
amongst other things, from the inability to perform random and
free sampling and to freely access a large portion of the
DPRK's territory. Therefore, the data published is generally
an extrapolation to the whole country, based on data gathered
in a limited portion of the country in very controlled
settings.
4. Actions and omissions of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea
(a) Reluctance to change
1. Human rights law does not prescribe any specific type of
economic system or nutritional food production strategy.
However the national choices must allow the fulfilment of a
state's obligations under international human rights law. The
Commission shares the view of the Committee on Ecomonic,
Social, and Cultural Rights:
Every state will have a margin of discretion in choosing its own
approaches, but the Covenant clearly requires that each State party
take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that everyone is free
from hunger and as soon as possible can enjoy the right to adequate
food. This will require the adoption of a national strategy to
ensure food and nutrition security for all, based on human rights
principles that define the objectives, and the formulation of
policies and corresponding benchmarks. It should also identify the
resources available to meet the objectives and the most cost
effective way of using them.862
1. Regarding the right to adequate food, the Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural rights formulated a set of human
rights based principles that national food strategies must
comply with:
The formulation and implementation of national strategies for the
right to food requires full compliance with the principles of
accountability, transparency, people's participation,
decentralization, legislative capacity and the independence of the
judiciary. Good governance is essential to the realization of all
human rights, including the elimination of poverty and ensuring a
satisfactory livelihood for all.863
1. During the 2009 Universal Periodic Review, the DPRK government
reported the following:
Dissolution of the socialist market in the early 1990s and the
tremendous financial and economic losses and depletion of material
resources owing to the successive natural disasters that started in
the mid-1990s brought the gravest difficulties to the economic
development of the country. The most serious difficulty was the
worsening of the condition of food supply. In 1996 alone, 3,180,000
tons of food was in short supply, thus causing a sharp decrease in
the amount of provisions. Consequently, health condition of people
in general deteriorated; infant and child mortality rate increased
and diseases like infants' diarrhoea, respiratory tract infection
and tuberculosis broke out.864
1. While factors beyond the state's control had an impact on the
food situation, in attributing the famine solely to these
factors, the DPRK grossly ignored the responsibility of its
leadership, which imposed a system on its population that
proved inadequate to fully implement the right to adequate
food. More importantly, the authorities maintained this system
despite its manifest insufficiencies.
2. As described above,865 the DPRK chose to heavily industrialize
its agriculture which made it dependent on industrial inputs
and fuel. This made the country's agriculture reliant on
external inputs, most of which it received on the basis of
subsidized imports from friendly foreign states until the
early 1990s. On the basis of an econometric analysis of DPRK
agricultural production, scholars Heather Smith and Yiping
Huang concluded the following:
The dominant triggering factor in the crisis was the sharp loss of
supplies of agricultural inputs following the disruption of the
trade with the socialist bloc from the late 1980s…. The
contribution of climatic factors to the agricultural crisis, as
stressed by the DPRK's policymakers, was at most a secondary
cause.866
1. The DPRK is subject to heavy annual rainfall and typhoons. A
number of experts interviewed by the Commission pointed out
that the agricultural policy has exacerbated the effects of
these regular natural events. To obtain more arable land,
forests were destroyed and mountains transformed into terraced
fields. To counter the lack of fuel, trees were cut down to
generate wood as a source of energy. This situation has
exacerbated the propensity of heavy rains to cause landslides.
Erosion has led to riverbeds becoming silted, which means that
flooding can occur even after relatively little rain.867 The
intensive use of land and fertilizers has also had a negative
impact on the quality of the soil. The Commission received
evidence from experts on how the overuse of chemical inputs
increasingly diminishes the quality of arable land in the
DPRK.868
2. The DPRK is responsible for these decisions. However the
greater responsibility of the state lies in its decision to
maintain this course, including the highly collective
agricultural system, in the face of its overwhelming failure.
Little was done to reform the system and to promote incentives
for farmers to produce more.
3. Andrei Lankov, an well-known expert on the DPRK, made the
following observations on the DPRK agricultural system:
The forced switch to state farms was a common feature of
nearly all Communist states, but the North Korean state farms
had some peculiarities. Most significantly, farmers were
allowed only tiny private kitchen gardens. In Stalin's Soviet
Union, a farmer usually had a private plot whose size might
exceed 1,000 m², but in Kim Il Sung's North Korea private
plots could not exceed 100 m², and not all farmers were
allowed to have plots even of such small size. The assumption
was that farmers, being deprived of any additional source of
income and calories, would have no choice but to devote all
their time and energy to toiling in the fields of the
state.869
4. In a recent article, Mr Lankov notes:
If the government of the DPRK had conducted land reform along the
lines of that which occurred in China during the 1990s, not one
single North Korean would have died from starvation. In the late
1970s, China divided all land owned by the state between farmers.
It dissolved all state-run farms which, incidentally, were similar
to DPRK's cooperative farms. Ultimately, when Chinese farmers began
to work on the land they owned themselves, the country's
agricultural yield increased rapidly. Within five to six years of
implementing the land reform, China's food production increased 1.3
times.870
1. A very similar conclusion was presented by agricultural expert
Dr Kim Young-hoon at the Seoul Public Hearing. He noted that
the DPRK's highly collectivized farming system is inefficient
as there are no incentives for farmers. Mr Kim concluded that
it needs to be reformed.871 Much of the testimony that the
Commission received from former DPRK citizens, including
former farmers, point in the same direction.872
2. Despite the fact that some government-led reforms have been
introduced – such as increasing the area of individual farming
plots – the basic principles of the system have largely
remained unchanged.873 The DPRK government did not profoundly
restructure the system in order to improve the food situation.
Instead, the focus has generally been on managing particular
emergencies and keeping the situation under governmental
control. Improvements in the economic and food situation in
the DPRK since the worst period of mass starvation can be
mainly attributed to spontaneous efforts of the population
rather than reforms initiated by the state. Even the formal
establishment of general markets may be seen as an attempt to
recover control over the informal markets that were created in
the mid 1990s. One expert observed that "markets are one of
the regime's greatest domestic dilemmas—it loathes them and
probably fears them, but it cannot close them down."874
3. Underlying the unwillingness to radically reform the system is
an apparent fear of losing control over the population. A
reported quote from Kim Il-sung that was related by Andrew
Natsios during the Washington Public Hearing encapsulates the
political calculation made by the authorities:
"Once the famine started they knew what was going on, and they
chose not to take action to protect the population… There are
reports of Deng Xiaoping telling Kim Il Sung that he needed to open
up to the West, to move to a market economy, to reform his economy,
and the apocryphal response from Kim Il-sung was ‘if you open the
window the flies will come in…. If we let them in, then the economy
will get out of control. We will lose the control'."875
1. Subsequent pronouncements by Kim Jong-il also show that the
DPRK prioritized calculations of political power and ideology
over the reality of the suffering of people. In a 1995
treatise, published while mass starvation was already underway
in the DPRK, Kim Jong-il underscored the primacy of ideology:
If the ideological bulwark falls down, socialism will be unable to
defend itself no matter how great its economic and military power
may be. On the other hand this proves how great a role ideology
plays and how important ideological work is, to accomplish
socialism.876
1. In a subsequent speech, delivered in December 1996 at Kim Il-
sung University, Kim Jong-il explicitily justified his refusal
to undertake structural reforms with the need to protect the
political system and its leadership and prevent the type of
popular uprising that occurred in Eastern Europe. Kim Jong-il
said:
In a socialist society, the food problem should be solved by
socialist means. If the Party lets the people solve the food
problem themselves, then only the farmers and merchants will
prosper, giving rise to egotism and collapsing the social order of
a classless society. The party will then lose its popular base and
will experience meltdown as in Poland and Czechoslovakia.877
1. During the 2009 Universal Periodic Review, the DPRK government
stated:
The state pursues the policy of assuming responsibility for the
supply of food to all population. The state has, in accordance to
the Law on Food Administration, the labour law and the regulation
on Distribution of Food, provided a cheap, timely and equitable
supply of food to the workers, office employees and their
dependents. However, the considerable decrease in the grain output
due to serious natural disasters that repeatedly hit the country
since the mid-1990s adversely affected the people's living in
general, and in particular, the exercise of their right to adequate
food. The Government, while meeting the pressing demands with a
large amount of food obtained through its appeal for international
humanitarian assistance has taken measures to solve the food
problem on its own through the increased agricultural
production.878
1. In June 2012, the DPRK government reportedly adopted a new set
of economic reforms. The Commission has received only limited
information about these reforms. The main concept of the
officially called "Economic Management System in Our Style" is
to shift management powers from the state to individual
factories, enterprises and farms.879 As far as the
agricultural sector is concerned, farmers should give 70 per
cent of the total harvest to the state and keep 30 per cent
for themselves. In the past, the state collected a certain
amount of food regardless of the year's harvest. Under the new
plan, the state's share was based on the five-year average
harvest collected from each farm. Accordingly, farmers will
receive a larger share when the harvest is plentiful, and less
when the harvest falls short.880 The Commission is not able to
assess the results of the reforms or their actual level of
implementation.
2. In his 2014 New Year's message, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un
called for "decisive improvement in guidance and management of
economic projects". However, measures for agricultural reform
and opening the economy were not mentioned in his speech.881
* Agricultural expert Dr Kim Young-hoon, who studied the
aforementioned economic reform on the basis of information
available outside the DPRK, was sceptical whether it would lead
to marked improvements: "The Kim Jong-un regime will also
experience the same kind of capital shortage [as Kim Jong-il] and
the system reform will not go forward… I am predicting that the
situation will not get any better."882
* Another agricultural expert, who used to be a researcher at
Pyongyang University, noted that even under the new system,
farmers still have to hand over 70 per cent of their harvest to
the state, which limited their incentive to produce more.
Moreover, given the isolation of the DPRK from the world economy,
farmers lack access to new technologies that are necessary in
order to effectively increase the production.883
1. Andrei Lankov suggested that the reforms are fraught with
uncertainties, but that first results are quite encouraging.
He noted that Chinese experts who had recently visited the
DPRK have claimed that the reforms have produced an immediate
30 per cent increase in output.884
(b) Preventing and punishing alternative views
1. Instead of opening up a dialogue and engaging in a
participatory approach with the population, in particular
farmers, to find a solution to the food situation, the DPRK
has used ideological indoctrination to preclude criticism
throughout the years of crisis.
2. In 1991, the government launched the "Let's eat two meals a
day" campaign. Later on, the Arduous March rhetoric was put in
place to supposedly help people endure increased economic
privations and keep them from thinking about and openly
discussing alternative economic systems.885 In this context,
any critical remarks about underlying political reasons of the
situation were considered a political crime and therefore
harshly punished.
* One witness testified that the government kept promising that the
population would eventually receive food and that even the
Supreme Leader did not have enough food. The population was
forced to attend periodic official lectures about the food
situation, while the actual distribution of food was postponed.
The content of these lectures was in particular focused on the
fact that the Supreme Leader could not sleep well because of the
lack of food for his population.886
* Another witness said that during the famine, compulsory lectures
and education classes to boost the morale of the population were
often imposed on the starving population."People were told that
it was the Arduous March and everybody had to endure it. No one
could complain. Otherwise they were sent to political prison
camps."887
1. The DPRK government also blamed outside forces, especially the
ROK and the USA, for the hardship the country was enduring.
* A high level official said he was aware that people were
starving, but he did not do anything about it. He himself
believed everything the Party said, including that the DPRK faced
food shortages "as a result of sanctions by capitalist countries
against them."888
* At the London Public Hearing, Mr Kim Joo-il stated that near the
demilitarized zone between the two Koreas, soldiers often found
packages containing radios, rice and candy from the ROK that were
sent by balloons that ROK citizens launched near the border. Mr
Kim explained that soldiers received indoctrination training, and
they were told that eating any of these ROK goods would make them
sick and that their flesh would "start to rot".889
1. Alternative views on policies and programmes could not be
freely expressed. The Commission received testimony from
several people who were aware of the grave inefficiencies of
the system and the need for reform but were not allowed to
discuss the issue. Most did not even try to do so because they
were aware of the possible consequences for them and their
families.
* A former researcher of Pyongyang University stated that
government officials knew that the collective farming system was
not working but no real reform was initiated. He was frustrated
with the stagnant situation and wrote a letter directly to the
Supreme Leader. In his letter, he compared the productivity of
collective farms and private farms, which was five times higher.
He attached documents with his research results to corroborate
his arguments. In response, he was threatened:
"A central party person came to me after three months. He said that
I had to deal with science and not with politics."890
(c) Confiscation and dispossession of food
1. In various circumstances, ordinary people have been
dispossessed of their means of survival. Harvests were taken
away from farmers without legal basis. Citizens were robbed of
their food or dispossessed of international aid intended for
them. Testimony given to the Commission confirmed the practice
of soldiers looting food:
* According to one former soldier,
"In the DPRK army, everyone had to take turns cooking for the other
soldiers. When it was my turn, my commanding officer provided me
with some rice, but with nothing to make sauce or side dishes. The
night before my cooking assignment, one of the most senior soldiers
in his unit woke me up. Other soldiers were already up. The senior
soldier gave us bags and told us to go to the village and steal
what we could. The looting was so good that I managed to make 6
side dishes. The next day, I was praised for this achievement in
front of the whole unit."
The witness stated that stealing from the population did not stop
after the famine, but continued throughout his time in the army. As
far as he is aware, it continues up to this day.
891
* One person who used to work as coal miner stated that during the
harvest season they received an order from the Party to give 70
per cent of their total harvest to the military.892
1. Witnesses confirmed that these practices are still ongoing.
* A farmer stated, "In 2012, we were told that we could keep 90 per
cent of the harvest. ... But when it was harvest time, the
military came and took everything." The same person reported
death by starvation in her village during the same period.893
1. Testimony received by the Commission, in particular from
former army officials and soldiers, confirm a pattern of
diversion of international food aid by the military.894
Civilians interviewed by the Commission had, in the vast
majority of cases, not seen any humanitarian aid.895 Some
donors insisted on the presence of international observers
during the distribution of food aid. Several witnesses who
fled the DPRK mentioned that after the international monitors
had observed the distribution and left the area, the
authorities forced the population to give back the majority of
the food distributed to the authorities.
* One witness stated:
"Food provided through humanitarian assistance was given to the
authorities. I had to buy the food aid that was sold in the market.
The food that had been distributed to the population had to be
handed back to the authorities. They left the population with 500
grams of food instead of the 5 kilograms that were originally
distributed."896
* A former high level DPRK official estimated that 80 per cent of
the food was taken back after the international monitoring took
place.897
* One witness testified that while he was at a military academy in
Pyongyang, he and his colleagues received an order one day to
remove their military clothes and insignias. They were then asked
to put their fingerprints on a document stating that they would
not reveal anything they were going to do. They were taken to the
Nampo port and had to open 40 kilogram sacks of rice with United
States and ROK logos, pour them into a machine and fill the rice
into 50 kilogram sacks with no logos. They loaded the new sacks
onto 30-40 unmarked trucks.898
* Another witness stated:
"From 1996 to 1998, a lot of aid (food and fertilizer) came into
the country via the Nampo port. From my house, I could see cars
line up to collect the aid goods, usually marked with USAID and ROK
labels. Military personnel would put on civilian clothes and paint
over their vehicles' military number plates, so that they did not
look like the military and could get the food. Military officers
sold the rice and supplies to the black market in order to buy
alcohol and cigarettes. They also came to our house and insisted we
buy these items from them."899
* One witness described the same modus operandi in another part of
the country. "Because of my job, I saw food coming at the
Chongjin port in 1998-1999, including aid coming from the United
Nations. The North Korean guards used to wear plain clothes and
pretended to be civilians in order to get food."The witness said
that he remembers boats with 20,000 tons of food approaching the
Chongjin port.
"When the United Nations officials left, the food was given to
the military. The monitoring group of the United Nations usually
wanted to check that the food was distributed. They had to pre-
notify the field visit. The North Korean authorities used to take
the United Nations officials to the food distribution centre.
Once the United Nations officials left, the North Korean
authorities took the food back from the population. At the time
when all this was happening, you could see dead bodies on the
streets, people who had died from starvation."900
* A former high level official was told by colleagues of Department
No. 2 (Military Affairs) of the Central Committee of the Workers'
Party of Korea how they proceeded when NGOs insisted on
monitoring the food distribution. The authorities gave strict
instructions to the population not to eat the food aid received.
Instead, they were to give it secretly back to the authorities.
The population was told that the rice distributed was needed to
secure the survival of the military. People complied, because
most families had a family member serving in the military.
Families had to return the 20 kilograms of rice they received
from NGOs in exchange for 1 kilogram of inferior corn provided by
the government.901
(d) Criminalization of coping mechanisms
1. According to the WFP, food insecure households employ four
types of consumption coping strategies.
* First, households may change their diet. For instance, households
might switch food consumption from preferred foods to cheaper,
less preferred substitutes.
* Second, households can attempt to increase their food supplies
using short-term strategies that are not sustainable over a long
period. Typical examples include borrowing or purchasing on
credit. More extreme examples are begging or consuming wild
foods, immature crops, or even seed stocks.
* Third, if the available food is still inadequate to meet needs,
households can try to reduce the number of people that they have
to feed by sending some of them elsewhere (for example, sending
the children to a neighbours' house when those neighbours are
eating).
* Fourth, and most common, households can attempt to manage the
shortfall by rationing the food available to the household
(cutting portion size or the number of meals, favoring certain
household members over others, or skipping whole days without
eating). 902
1. In times of food shortage, some of these coping mechanisms
were encouraged by the DPRK authorities. This included the
consumption of wild foods, despite the medical risks
associated with that strategy. However, the authorities
prohibited the population from resorting to the most efficient
coping mechanisms, such as movement in search of food, trade
and other similar activities, in order to preserve their
control over the population.
(i)Freedom of movement
1. During periods of food shortage, it is usual for people to
move in search of food. However, the strict restrictions on
freedom of movement imposed in the DPRK, which were maintained
even during the worst period of mass starvation, denied the
population the opportunity to effectively pursue this
option.903
2. In the DPRK, any travel within the country requires a travel
permit delivered by the local authorities. Persons traveling
without a permit are subject to arrest, repatriation to their
home county and punishment.904 When the PDS was working, even
with inadequate rations, people tended to remain in their
place of residence in order to access PDS rations. However,
when the PDS collapsed the authorities were unable to exercise
the same level of movement control as before. Desperate people
started moving around the country in search of food in order
to survive. Instead of abolishing internal travel
restrictions, people were still prohibited from leaving their
home province without a permit during the famine. In December
1996, Kim Jong-il warned that the incipient population
movement was causing chaos and disorder in the country and
ordered the government to immediately take all necessary
actions to prevent it.905 Authorities established a network of
ad hoc detention facilities to deal with illegal internal
movement, including the movement of street children and
children orphaned by the famine.906
3. The famine also created a surge of desperate people fleeing to
China that started in the mid-1990s. Many DPRK citizens sought
help from ethnic Korean relatives living in Chinese provinces
bordering the DPRK. Others sought to work in China for food or
money, which they used to buy for themselves and their
families.907 Instead of facilitating such coping mechanisms,
the government used punishment and violence to deter people
from crossing the border.
4. The Commission collected a large amount of testimony from
people who went to China in search of food and were
subsequently repatriated and imprisoned.908
* Ms Jo Jin-hye told the Commission that her father and pregnant
mother were going back and forth to China looking for food. They
were arrested, detained and tortured shortly after Kim Jong-il
publicly called for stricter enforcement of the prohibition on
crossing the border with China.
"My mom and dad went to China together about two times and
successfully got food for us such as rice and bean paste and
cooking oil, etc. So I remember having a very good meal after they
got back from China. And on their third trip on the way back home,
they got caught. At that time, there were a lot of other North
Koreans who got caught while going back and forth between North
Korea and China. And it was not really a crime that would get us
killed but at that time, Kim Jong-il made some announcements saying
that we need to reduce the number of North Koreans going back and
forth between North Korea and China. And to do that, [Kim Jong-il
said] ‘we need to make the gunshot sound loud'."909
Ms Jo's father was tortured in detention. He died during his
subsequent transfer to another detention centre. "During the
process of being transferred [between detention facilities], he was
not able to eat and he was not provided any water to drink. He was
also tortured in the previous detention facility and he had a lot
of wounds on his body, so that basically killed him."910
* Mr Kim Gwang-il described how he secretly travelled to China to
sell pine mushrooms since this was the only way for him to
survive. Upon his forced repatriation from China, he was detained
and tortured by the Ministry of People's Security. Based on an
unfair trial, he was imprisoned at Ordinary Prison Camp
(kyohwaso) No. 12 at Jonggo-ri.911
1. Despite the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people during
the late 1990s, the authorities continued to apply criminal
punishment for cross-border movement. Border guards were
allowed to shoot to kill anyone crossing the border illegally,
a policy that remains in place.912 Especially harsh treatment
was reserved for DPRK citizens who approached citizens of the
ROK or Christian churches for help while in China.913 Periods
of imprisonment for people crossing for food varies from two
to five years. Reportedly, in 2000, when the famine had
already peaked, Kim Jong-il issued a decree to treat those who
only crossed the border in need of food with a degree of
leniency. However, this decree was only in force for a few
months. Even during that time, people forcibly repatriated
from China were still subject to arrest and punishment.914
2. The Commission notes that the DPRK Government apparently never
contemplated pursuing the option of requesting the ROK to
temporarily open the inter-Korean border so as to allow its
starving citizens to cross into the ROK, where many could have
received help from relatives and fellow Koreans.
(ii)Other coping mechanisms
1. For a long period, the DPRK government failed to officially
acknowledge the economic changes occurring in the country
including the de facto marketization. At most, officials
described them as temporary emergency measures.915 This
position explains the DPRK government's repeated attempts to
limit or even criminalize market activities. The government
has been reluctant to accept the development of the markets
despite their importance for people in need of food,because
this was a mechanism in the country that fell outside its
control.
2. In the 1999 Criminal Code, the chapter on "Offenses against
the management of the Socialist Economy" comprised only eight
articles. In 2004, the chapter was renamed "Offences against
the management of the Economy" and expanded to 74 articles.
Article 110 was introduced into the Criminal Code making it an
offense to gain large profits by engaging illegally in unfair
commercial activities. The offense is subject to two years of
imprisonment in a labour training camp. In 2007, a series of
"additional clauses" were introduced by way of a decision
issued by the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly.916
That decision introduced offenses such as the crime of illegal
business operations. Extremely grave cases of smuggling
jewellery and precious metals and illegally selling the
state's resources were made subject to the death penalty.
3. The DPRK penal system has played a central role in the
government's response to the coping strategies that DPRK
citizens adopted in order to address the severe shortage of
food. During the famine, the DPRK established an extensive
system of detention facilities known as labour training camps
(rodongdanryundae).917 These and other short-term forced
labour detention facilities were used to incarcerate those
caught crossing the border into China, those involved in
internal movement without permits, and those involved in
market activity. The 2004 reform of the Criminal Code
regularized these facilities. It established "labour training"
for up to two years as the punishment for a growing number of
economic and social crimes.
* One witness commented that people were trapped in an impossible
situation. Those who only did their work following the state's
directions died from malnutrition. Those who tried to do
something else to survive – such as engaging in market activities
– likely got arrested.918
1. One aspect of the command-and-control response to the famine
and its aftermath was the use of the police and the military
to reassert authority over both the cooperative farms and the
industrial workplace. In August 1997, the authorities issued a
decree on the hoarding and theft of food. This decree
stipulated the execution of any individual involved either in
stealing grain or trading in it. Military units were deployed
to farms to make sure that hungry farmers did not divert part
of their farm's production in order to secure their own
survival.
* One woman testified that she witnessed five public executions
during the famine. The officials announced how much food had been
stolen or wasted by the victim concerned. Then, the person was
shot in the head.919
* Another woman testified that her husband was arrested for trading
oil in 1996. He was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment in an
ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso). While he was in prison, she did
not have money to bring him food. He died after a year in
detention from hunger and hard labour. Subsequently, the
witness's child starved to death, followed by the witness's
mother and father. In December 1997, she crossed to China to find
food and was sold into a forced marriage with an ethnic Korean
Chinese man.920
1. The authorities also maintained strict control over
communications during the famine. They prohibited people from
contacting their relatives abroad for assistance. This
prohibition remains in place. However, many DPRK citizens
circumvent it by illegally contacting relatives abroad through
so-called "brokers" or by using Chinese mobile phones that
work in the proximity of the Chinese border.921 Through
brokers, people can also illegally receive remittances from
relatives abroad. Pursuing help in this manner is extremely
risky, and those caught are subject to severe punishment.
* One man testified that, in 2009, he was caught by the State
Security Department (SSD) while calling abroad from his Chinese
mobile phone. He was accused of spying, beaten and tortured. He
stated that the SSD uses sophisticated electronic devices to
trace mobile phones.922
5. Obstructing humanitarian assistance and access to the most
vulnerable
1. In accordance with articles 2 (1) and 11 (2) of the ICESCR,
each State has the obligation to ensure freedom from hunger
individually and through international assistance and
cooperation. If a State is unable to provide its population
with adequate food, it must take all possible steps to ensure
that people in its territory are free from hunger, including
through proactively seeking external assistance. According to
the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a State
claiming that it is unable to carry out its obligation of
ensuring freedom from hunger for reasons beyond its control,
has the burden of proving that this is the case and that it
has unsuccessfully sought to obtain international support to
ensure the availability and accessibility of the necessary
food.923
2. In this regard, States are also under an obligation not to
arbitrarily reject humanitarian assistance. A number of
parameters can be used to determine an arbitrary rejection of
humanitarian assistance. States fail to respect their
obligations if they reject assistance offered without
providing any reasons, or if the reasons provided are based on
errors of fact (for example, a denial of humanitarian needs
without a proper assessment). States also act arbitrarily if
they deny access for reasons that are not in line with their
international obligations, for example, if a state rejects
assistance offered in line with the humanitarian principles of
humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence despite
being unable to ensure the necessary assistance through other
sources.924 Any diversion of international food aid contrary
to the principle of distributing aid without discrimination
based on humanitarian need also constitutes an arbitrary
denial of aid and hence a violation of human rights including
the right to food.925
3. Since the arrival of the first relief agencies in the mid-
1990s, international organizations and non-governmental
organizations have been working in extremely difficult
conditions imposed by the DPRK authorities.926 The Commission
finds that the DPRK government has imposed movement and
contact restrictions on humanitarian actors that unduly impede
their access and are not justified by legitimate humanitarian
or security considerations. Moreover, the authorities have
deliberately failed to provide aid organizations with access
to reliable data, which, if provided, would have greatly
enhanced the effectiveness of the humanitarian response and
saved many lives.
4. DPRK authorities resisted initial requests from international
relief organizations to provide assistance to the northeast
part of the country. World Food Programme aid did not reach
the east coast before 1997. During the late 1990s, only one-
fifth of the WFP's total aid went to feed the people of an
area that contains one-third of the DPRK's total
population.927 The Commission received various explanations
for this phenomenon, including the location of political
prison camps and sensitive military installations in some of
the affected counties.928 However, the Commission also notes
that humanitarian access was denied to an entire area, where
populations of low songbun are concentrated.929 Exhibit W-2,
displayed below, shows that, in 1995-1996, the DPRK government
denied humanitarian access to most of the northeastern
provinces where people were dying in very large numbers from
hunger and starvation. The four provinces with no access to
humanitarian aid (North and South Hamgyong, Ryanggang and
Chagang) also correspond to those where the PDS distribution
was first stopped.930
F
igure 10.Accessible and restricted counties 1995-1996931
1. The political implications for the DPRK of accepting foreign
assistance, especially from countries considered as "enemies"
were frequently considered to outweigh the plight of the
population.
* At the Washington Public Hearing, Andrew Natsios told the
Commission about problems relating to the delivery of aid
provided by the United States of America.
"The big controversy was over taking down the American flag on the
vessel delivering the aid to a DPRK port. In the first shipment
that went in, WFP told me the story [that] the ship sat in the port
for three days because the captain refused to take the American
flag off the vessel. It had to do with images; no one had gotten
any shipments in that port from the central government in two
years. People were dying in the streets, and the notion that the
United States was going to save all these people was very offensive
to the political authorities."932
1. The restrictions imposed by the DPRK on humanitarian actors
have contravened, and continue to contravene, the basic
principles of humanitarian engagement. Between 1998 and 2000,
a number of reputable humanitarian organizations, including
Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Oxfam, CARE and Médecins du
Monde, stopped their operations in the DPRK, because they
considered their engagement to be unsustainable under the
conditions imposed by the DPRK authorities. In 2002, Fiona
Terry, then research director of MSF, summarized the reasons
why humanitarian organizations like MSF had stopped their
operations in the DPRK:
None of the characteristics of humanitarian space exists in North
Korea today, rendering it impossible to know whether food aid
entering the country is helping to alleviate the slow-motion famine
or is sustaining the political project of the lst Stalinist
dictatorship on earth. It is hard to defend the "humanitarian"
nature of aid to North Korea either in its intention, which for
major government donors is to prevent the sudden collapse of the
regime to avoid destabilizing the region, or in its methods.933
1. The lack of physical access to populations in need in the DPRK
has prevented humanitarian actors from properly assessing the
situation so as to carry out their operations most
effectively.934 Faced with the problem that aid apparently did
not reach the most vulnerable populations, a number of
humanitarian agencies adopted a "no access-no aid" policy,
which led to some improvement regarding the access given to
agencies to monitor aid distribution.
2. The number of counties the WFP could access has changed over
time. The latest map produced by the WFP in March 2013 (see
figure below) shows it can access 82 of about 200 counties.935
The entire Chagang Province which has the highest level of
acute malnutrition and stunting (alongside Ryanggang
Province), is not covered by WFP operations.
Figure 11. Operational coverage by the World Food Programme936
1. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women,
the Committee on the Rights of the Child have all called on
the DPRK to providevulnerable groups, including rural and
economically disadvantaged women and children, access to food
aid and other international assistance.937 In the context of
the DPRK, pregnant and lactating women, children, and elderly
people are considered to be especially vulnerable.938
Information received by the Commission, however, indicates
that food aid and other humanitarian assistance failed to
reach targeted groups in many cases. In particular the
Commission received information from former DPRK citizens,
former humanitarian staff deployed to the DPRK and other
sources that aid often did not reach those children who are
most in need of assistance, including street children.
2. In 2000, Action Against Hunger (AAH) decided to stop its
programme to provide humanitarian aid to children in the DPRK,
because the authorities denied them access to the most
vulnerable children. It explained its decision as follows:
The number of children present in the facilities [that
received AAH aid] was less than the quoted official figures,
even though all AAH visits were announced in advance. The
malnutrition detected in these facilities was around 1 per
cent, although the nutrition survey conducted by UNICEF, WFP
and the European Union showed 16 per cent of malnutrition
amongst children. Most of the malnutrition cases witnessed by
our team were amongst children with no access to any
facilities. Those who were especially hard hit were the
"street children", many of whom were between 3 and 4 years
old, and found wandering alone, while visibly very weak and
fighting to collect food. Confronted with this situation and
convinced that the aid channelled through government-run
facilities did not reach the most vulnerable, Action Against
Hunger negotiated with the authorities to set up soup
kitchens, outside the official facilities, targeting the most
high risk group of children. But the conditions to implement
this programme have been refused by the North-Korean
authorities. We are convinced that the international aid
flowing into North-Korea is not reaching the people most in
need. We were denied authorization to visit the poorest
families, where we suspect that children are confined to their
homes, cut off from any assistance and essentially condemned
to death. This is extremely revolting as the lives of these
children could be easily saved with access and appropriate
assistance."939
In September 1998, Médecins Sans Frontières discontinued its
operations in the DPRK citing a "high level policy change to
further restrict and limit effective humanitarian aid, which
makes it impossible to deliver aid in a principled and
accountable manner." MSF had sought to target particularly
vulnerable groups such as homeless and orphaned children. Instead
the DPRK authorities insisted that the most effective type of
medical and nutritional assistance was for "MSF to pay deep
attention to provide pharmaceutical raw materials."940
1. Testimony received by the Commission from humanitarian staff,
who had worked in the DPRK at different points in time,
indicated that there were strong doubts that the people and
children presented to them were those most in need, even in
the areas they were allowed to access. Some pointed out that
these visits were "well staged performances".941 Others stated
that despite the large amounts of international aid given to
the DPRK, the most vulnerable were not reached.942
2. The DPRK authorities have continually prohibited effective
monitoring of humanitarian assistance by the international
providers of assistance. For humanitarian organizations who
decided to continue working in the DPRK, it was very difficult
to understand the situation inside the country. In addition to
the lack of physical access, international relief
organizations, such as the WFP, were not allowed, to have any
Korean speaking staff. Instead, local Korean interpreters were
provided by the DPRK authorities. Apart from raising obvious
questions about the independence and impartiality of such
staff, this also affected the quality of humanitarian work,
since the local staff provided did not have the specific
technical abilities to manage an aid effort.943 United Nations
requests for permission to conduct a random nutritional survey
of children in the DPRK were repeatedly denied.944
* At the Washington Public Hearing, Andrew Natsios, who served as
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
administrator from 2001 to 2006, described the work of USAID in
the DPRK in the 1990s:
"The North Koreans early in the famine did not let us measure any
of the children ourselves; they insisted on doing it. They
determined where the ‘sentinel surveillance' sites would be, which
means it is not really an accurate survey. It is better than
nothing, but is not accurate because it can be easily
politicized."945
1. Reportedly, local officials have been removed from their posts
for being too cooperative with international agencies.946 In
1998, MSF stated that the DPRK's priority was "more to
preserve the self-sufficient ideology than to provide
effective and accountable assistance to those who need it
most."947
2. Some observers have claimed that the situation in terms of
access and monitoring inside the DPRK has improved over the
years for humanitarian organizations. Some humanitarian
agencies have been able to progressively access additional
counties. Furthermore, the use of Korean language speaking not
selected by the DPRK is now allowed for certain organizations.
Small amounts of progress have been made in the field of
monitoring food aid. However, 20 years after humanitarian
agencies began their work in the DPRK, humanitarian workers
still face unacceptable constraints impeding their access to
populations in dire need. According to United Nations Country
Team in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
[O]perational restrictions continue to undermine donor confidence
and resource mobilization, which in turn undermines discussions on
better operating conditions. Negotiating access in DPRK has been
and remains a long and difficult process. The Government often
places unacceptable constraints on access required for humanitarian
agencies to undertake programme implementation, monitoring and
evaluation of activities.948
6. Non-utilization of maximum available resources
1. Article 2 (1) of the ICESCR states that "each State Party to
the present Covenant undertakes to take steps, individually
and through international assistance and cooperation,
especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its
available resources, with a view to achieving progressively
the full realization of the rights recognized in the present
Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the
adoption of legislative measures" (emphasis added).
2. The concept of "progressive realization" describes a central
aspect of states' obligations in connection with economic,
social and cultural rights under international human rights
treaties. At its core is the obligation to take appropriate
measures towards the full realization of economic, social and
cultural rights to the maximum of a state's available
resources. The reference to "available resources" reflects a
recognition that the realization of these rights can be
hampered by a lack of resources and can be achieved only over
a period of time. Equally, it means that a state's compliance
with its obligation to take appropriate measures is assessed
in light of the resources, financial and otherwise, available
to it.949 However, the concept of progressive
realizationmustnot be misinterpreted as discharging the state
from any obligations until they have sufficient resources. On
the contrary, the treaties impose an immediate obligation to
take appropriate steps towards the full realization of
economic, social and cultural rights. A lack of resources
cannot justify inaction or indefinite postponement of measures
to implement these rights. Irrespective of the resources
available to it, a state should, as a matter of priority, seek
to ensure that everyone has access to, at the very least, a
minimum level of rights, and target programmes to protect the
poor, the marginalized and the disadvantaged. A state cannot
plead resource constraints to justify its failure to ensure
minimum essential levels of socio-economic well-being,
including freedom from hunger, unless it can demonstrate that
it has used all the resources at its disposal to give priority
to essential economic and social needs.950
3. Based on the body of testimony and submissions received, the
Commission finds that the allocation of resources by the DPRK
has grossly failed to prioritize the objective of freeing
people from hunger and chronic malnutrition, in particular in
times of mass starvation. The state has neither prioritized
the purchase of the food necessary for the survival of many in
the DPRK, nor investment in agriculture, infrastructure and
other ways of improving the availability and accessibility of
food in the country. FAO and WFP note that the continuous
inability to achieve the official Government target of 573
grams of cereal equivalent per person per day in any given
year points not only to issues of food availability, but also
to broader supply chain constraints such as storage, transport
and commodity tracking.951
4. Testimony and other information received by the Commission
show that the DPRK continues to allocate disproportional
amounts of resources on its military, on the personality cult
of the Supreme Leader, related glorification events and the
purchase of luxury goods for the elites.
(a) Prioritization of military expenditure
1. The DPRK maintains one of the world's largest standing armies,
comprising around 1.2 million people. This represents the
world's highest ratio of military personnel to the general
population. Given the secretive nature of the state, figures
displaying actual military spending figures are difficult to
obtain. Official sources state that around 16 per cent of the
total state budget is devoted to national defence.952Other
sources estimate that it is around a quarter of the Gross
National Product.953
2. Instead of shifting resources to address urgent needs during
the course of the famine in the late 1990s, Kim Jong-il placed
even more emphasis on the military in line with the "Military
First" doctrine (Songun).954 An official broadcast from the
Korean Central Broadcasting Station explained this policy:
During that period, which was called the "Ardous March" in our
history, Great Comrade Kim Jong-il firmly believed that the destiny
of the people and the future of the revolution hinged on the barrel
of a gun, and that we could break through the difficulties and lead
the revolution to victory only by depending on the Army, …. if the
barrel of a gun were weak, a country would be eventually swallowed
by outside force, no matter how powerful its economic might be and
no matter how advanced its science and technology may be.955
1. A 2003 editorial published in Rodong Sinmun,the newspaper of
the Workers' Party of Korea, similarly notes:
What takes the leading position in the correlation between the army
and the economy is still the army…..If economic power is based on
military power, military power is a guarantee for economic power
and impetus for economic development. We cannot defend national
industries nor ensure a peaceful environment for economy-building
without strong military power. Once we lay the foundations for a
powerful self-sustaining national defense industry, we will be able
to rejuvenate all economic fields, to include light industry and
agriculture and enhance the quality of the people's lives.956
1. Expert analysis presented to the Commission shows that a
marginal redistribution of state military expenditure towards
the purchase of food could have saved the population from
starvation and malnutrition. According to economist Marcus
Noland, based on the last FAO/WFP Crop assessment, the DPRK
has an uncovered grain deficit of 40,000 metric tons.
According to the International Monetary Fund, in September
2013, the price of rice was approximately USD 470 per metric
ton and the price of corn was around USD 207 per ton.957
Basing his analysis on United Nations data, Mr Noland
estimates that the size of the DPRK economy was $12.4 billion
in 2011.958 He states that the reallocation of resources
required to close the grain gap is therefore less than 0.02
per cent of national income. If the estimation that 25 per
cent of national income is being used for the military is
correct, then the grain shortfall could be addressed by
cutting the military budget by less than 1 per cent.959
2. Marcus Noland further estimates that even at the height of
mass starvation, the amount of resources needed to close the
food gap was only in the order of USD 100 million to USD 200
million. This represented the value of about 5 to 20 per cent
of revenue from exported goods and services or 1 to 2 per cent
of contemporaneous national income. At the Washington Public
Hearing, he stated,
* "[W]hile the amount of grain needed to close the gap [during the
1990s famine] was much larger, the price of grain in the 1990s
was much lower than it is now. So at the famine's peak, the
resources needed to close that gap were only on the order of a
hundred to two hundred million dollars depending on how you
analysed data. Even during the famine period, the North Korean
government had resources at its disposal if it had chosen to use
them, to maintain imports and avoid that calamity."960
1. Even a delay in purchasing military equipment and using
foreign currency instead to buy food on the international
markets may have saved a very large number of people. In 1994,
when the food shortage was already known to the authorities,
the DPRK reportedly bought a number of submarines.961 In 1999,
at the same time that it was cutting commercial grain imports
to less than 200,000 metric tons, the government reportedly
used its foreign currency for the purchase of 40 MiG-29
fighter jets from Belarus and 8 military helicopters from
Kazakhstan.962
2. In 2005, the United Nations Secretary-General noted that the
authorities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are
under a responsibility to reduce military/defence expenditure
and ensure equitable re-allocation of resources to respond
effectively to the food crisis and other areas needing
development.963
3. However, the Commission has received no indication that the
DPRK has changed its approach of prioritzing the military over
humanitarian concerns. Instead, the current Supreme Leader Kim
Jong-un has insisted that "Military First" remains one of the
guiding principles of the DPRK. In one of his first public
speeches as the Supreme Leader, delivered on 15 April 2012,
Kim Jong-un emphasized: "In order for us to eternally glorify
the dignity of military-first Korea and successfully
accomplish the cause of building a powerful socialist state,
first, second, and third, we must strengthen the people's army
in every way."964
4. In a report to the Supreme People's Assembly on the 2012 state
budget, Minister of Finance Choe Kwang-jin mentioned that only
"38.9 per cent of total expenditure was spent for enforcing
popular policies and measures for social culture under
socialism such as the universal free compulsory education
system, free healthcare, social insurance and social security,
recuperation and relaxation systems as well as those for
development of literature and art and building of a sports
power."965 While Mr Choe's report focuses on increased
expenditure in areas that could positively impact economic,
social and cultural rights, it vaguely mentions that "some of
the total state budgetary expenditure went to national
defence."966
(b) Use of aid to reduce State spending on food
1. The DPRK has had an ambivalent attitude towards foreign aid.
It first considered such aid as an admission of failure of the
DPRK system and a point of entry for external meddling. Lee
Jong-wha, the Chairperson of the DPRK Food Damage
Rehabilitation Committee, described the famine claims as a
"pure fiction". He said that the DPRK did not accept any food
aid with political purposes because it degraded the country's
pride and because it might lead to demands for economic and
political changes.967 In 1997 Kim Jong-il stated: "The
imperialist's aid is a noose of plunder and subjugation aimed
at robbing ten and even a hundred things for one thing that is
given".968 In 2000, Rodong Sinmun reported the official
position of the DPRK on humanitarian aid: "The imperialists'
aid is a tool of aggression ... a dangerous toxin which brings
about poverty, famine and death, not prosperity."969
2. The DPRK has however used aid for its own political purposes.
The DPRK has linked the degree of conditionality attached to
aid operations and the number of international aid workers
allowed into the country to the amount of money a humanitarian
organization brings to the negotiating table.970
3. Most problematically, figures indicate that the DPRK has
effectively used the inflow of aid as a balance of payments
support, rather than as of means for relieving the most
vulnerable part of the population from hunger and starvation.
Instead of using aid as a supplement to its own commercial
food imports, aid has apparently been used as a substitute for
commercial imports. The graph below (figure 12), presented by
Marcus Noland to the Commission during the Washington Public
Hearing, shows that, as the volume of aid delivered to the
DPRK increased, the volume of commercial food imports
decreased.
Figure 12. Volume of aid and imports on commercial terms971
1. T
he graph below (figure 13), also submitted to the Commission
by Marcus Noland, shows the evolution of the DPRK's overall
merchandise imports as compared to the evolution of food
imports. Despite the chronic situation of malnutrition in the
country, food imports experienced a downward trend between
1993 and 2010, as opposed to overall merchandise imports,
which increased substantially.
Figure 13. Democratic People's Republic of Korea: merchandise
imports and food imports972
(c) Role of bilateral donors
1. Multilateral agencies have played a relatively minor role in
the delivery of aid to the DPRK. An estimated 75 per cent of
the total amount of food aid delivered since 1995 has been
provided by China, the Republic of Korea, the United States of
America, and Japan. The conditions under which such assistance
have been provided have differed from country to country. In
accordance with its Sunshine Policy, the ROK has distributed
large amounts of unconditional aid. The USA has linked aid to
progress on the nuclear issue. Between 1995 and 2009, the USA
provided around USD 600 million in energy assistance to the
DPRK. The aid was given between 1995 and 2003 and between 2007
and 2009 in exchange for the DPRK freezing its plutonium-based
nuclear facilities.973
2. The way bilateral donors have handled their aid, has affected
the work of the United Nations and other humanitarian
agencies. Observers have noted that the unconditioned aid that
China and the ROK delivered in the mid-2000s put the DPRK in a
position to resist some of the monitoring arrangements the WFP
sought to put in place.974 A report by the US Congressional
Research Service (CRS) notes the following:
In 2006, the WFP drastically scaled down its programme after the
North Korean government imposed new restrictions, limiting the
organization's size and ability to distribute and monitor its
shipments. The WFP and Pyongyang then negotiated a new agreement
that would feed 1.9 million people, less than a third of the 6.4
million people the WFP previously had targeted. The total
population in the DPRK constitutes approximately 22 million. In the
deal with the WFP, expatriate staff were cut by 75 per cent, to 10
people, all of whom were based in Pyongyang. Before 2006, the WFP
had over 40 expatriate staff and six offices around the country
conducting thousands of monitoring trips every year. The DPRK
government did not allow any Korean speakers to serve on the WFP's
in-country staff.975
(d) Parallel funds for the benefit of the Supreme Leader
1. The economic and financial problems faced by the DPRK in the
1990s, led the DPRK authorities to engage in a number of legal
and illegal activities to earn foreign currency.976 However,
the currency earned was not used to purchase food, medicine or
other goods, which the population urgently needed during the
famine. Instead, it was channelled into parallel funds that
are outside the regular government budget.977
2. These funds, which continue to exist, are tightly controlled
by the Supreme Leader through offices institutionally
connected to the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of
Korea. They are kept at the personal disposal of the Supreme
Leader and used to cover personal expenses of the Supreme
Leader, his family and other elites surrounding him, as well
as other politically sensitive expenditures that should not
appear in the official budget.
3. Testimony from officials involved indicates that DPRK
authorities engaged in a number of criminal activities to earn
foreign currency. Revenue from criminal activity has been
estimated to be as much as USD 500 million per year in 2008,
amounting to a third of the DPRK's annual exports.978
Information received suggest that a considerable portion of
the salaries of workers, who are sent to work abroad by the
DPRK, are placed in these types of funds.979
* One witness described his work at the North East Asia Bank in the
Korean Foreign Insurance Company (KFIC) in 1997. He described in
detail the existence of two parallel budgets in the DPRK, in what
he called the "people's economy" and the "royal economy" which is
run by the Supreme Leader. He was in charge of earning foreign
currency by defrauding foreign insurances companies. This money
was then reallocated to the "royal economy". All the documents
produced at the KFIC were destroyed to remove evidence that
foreign currency earnings were mostly used to contribute to Kim
Jong-il's personal "Revolution Funds". The witness personally
destroyed many documents such as accounting records and
withdrawal information.980
* One witness, who worked in the KeumsusanPalace in the 1990s,
stated that the Accounting Department of the Workers' Party of
Korea is in charge of producing, handling and providing what the
Kim family wants,and that even their rice is produced separately.
He stated that one of the trading companies, Rungra 888, was
generating financial resources for this fund.981
* A former SSD agent, stated that every government agency was given
an annual quota of foreign currency they had to earn.
"The Government did not care where the money would come from, so
agents were pushed to engage in all kinds of activities."
He knew of SSD agents whotraded weapons and drugs with Chinese
merchants. The agents obtained the weapons and drugs from state
drug factories and depots in the DPRK. The witness has direct
knowledge of the trafficking of the narcotic drug methamphetamine,
which was formally authorized by central level authorities.982
* One witness said that a company bought ingredients used for the
production of Korean herbal medicine and sold them to a producer
of the medicine. In the 1990s, he regularly went to an ordinary
prison camp (kyohwaso) to buy opium produced by the prison, which
he then sold to a trading company. He was once shown the economic
plan of the provincial department for managing medical
ingredients. The plan specifically indicated that opium was
produced for export purposes.983
* Another witness, a former manager of a state company, recalled
that the central level of the Workers' Party provided the
witness's company with instructions to grow and trade opium in
order to generate foreign currency.984
* Another former official provided detailed information on the
illegal activities of DPRK embassies around the world. They were
engaged in activities such as the illegal sale of alcohol in
Islamic countries or the internationally prohibited trafficking
of ivory from African countries to China.985
(e) Advancement of the personality cult and glorification of the
political system
1. A number of witness testimonies, including from former high
level officials confirmed that a considerable part of state
resources has been used to further the cult of personality and
the glorification of the Kim regime.
* Built in 1973, the Keumsusan Assembly Hall was turned into an
immense mausoleum for the late Kim Il-sung. The work started in
1995 when mass starvation was devastating the country. The
Keumsusan palace is one example of the monumental buildings built
at the height of the famine. It covers a surface of 34,910 square
metres with a main square of 10,000 square metres where 200,000
people can gather. Reportedly, 700,000 granites sculptures were
carved into 20 different shapes to decorate the building.986 A
former high ranking official testified:
"Kim Il-sung died in 1994. There were months of mourning and the
equivalent of USD 790 million was spent for building his tomb and
other monuments. The DPRK economy that was already in poor
conditions hit the bottom."987
* Another former official witness described his work at the Kim Il-
sung Longevity Research Institute, an extremely well-resourced
research facility established with the sole purpose of ensuring
long lives and good health for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.988
* The Commission also received testimony about the immense
expenditures devoted to the 13th World Festival of Youth and
Students, which was held from 1 to 8 July 1989 in Pyongyang.989
The World Festival was held in an apparent response to the
Republic of Korea's hosting of the Olympic Games in 1988.
* One witness, who was a member of the KPA Escort Command, which is
assigned to protect Kim Jong-il, stated, "Kim Jong-il had
airplanes, ships, trains, helicopters, car… He did not use the
plane himself but he still wanted one."990
1. Large amounts of state expenditure are also devoted to giant
bronze statues and other projects designed to further the
personality cult of Kim Il-sung and his successors and
showcase their achievements. These projects are given absolute
priority, which is also evidenced by the fact that they are
often completed in a short period of time.991 The DPRK
Minister of Finance, Choe Kwang-jin, reported about the 2012
budget of the DPRK:
Of the total state budgetary expenditure for the economic
development and improvement of people's living standard, 44.8
per cent was used for funding the building of edifices to be
presented to the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il-
sung, the consolidation of the material and technological
foundation of Juche-based, modern and self-supporting economy
and the work for face-lifting the country.992
2. In 2013, Kim Jong-un ordered the KPA to construct a "world-
class" ski resort that would rival the winter sports
facilities that are being built in the ROK in preparation of
the ROK's hosting of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. When
visiting the site in May 2013, Kim Jong-un reportedly "was
greatly satisfied to learn that soldier-builders have
constructed a skiing area on mountain ranges covering hundreds
of thousands of square meters, including primary, intermediate
and advanced courses with almost 110,000 meters in total
length and between 40 and 120 metres in width."993
3. A number of similar prestige projects that fail to have any
immediate positive impact on the situation of the general
population have been pursued, including the construction of
the monumental Munsu Water Park in Pyongyang, the Rungna
Dolphinarium and Pleasure Park in Pyongyang and a beach resort
town in Wonsan.994
(f) Purchase of luxury goods
1. The DPRK continues allocating a significant amount of the
state's resources for the purchase and importation of luxury
goods, as confirmed by the reports of the United Nations Panel
of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution
1874 (2009), which inter alia monitors the implementation of
the Security Council sanctions prohibiting the import of
luxury goods. In one report, the Panel of Experts described
the confiscation, by Italy, of luxury items such as high
quality cognac and whiskey worth 12,000 euros (USD 17,290) and
equipment for a 1,000-person cinema valued at Euro130,000 (USD
187,310). The report further revealed that the DPRK has
attempted to purchase and import a dozen Mercedes-Benz
vehicles, high-end musical recording equipment, more than
three dozen pianos and cosmetics.995
2. Luxury goods expenditure by the DPRK rose to USD 645.8 million
(470 million euros) in 2012. Reportedly, this was a sharp
increase from the average of USD 300 million a year under Kim
Jong-il in October 2013.996
7. Violation of freedom from hunger, death by starvation and
diseases related to starvation
1. Freedom from hunger lies at the conjunction of the right to
adequate food (article 11 (2) of the ICESCR) and the right to
life (article 6 of the ICCPR). States are obligated to provide
directly food, including, if necessary, by appealing to
external assistance, when individuals or parts of the
population are unable, for reasons beyond their control, to
enjoy access to food.
2. There has been much debate how many people died from
starvation or related diseases in the DPRK in the 1990s. In
1999, Jon In-chan, an official with the DPRK's Flood Damage
Rehabilitation Committee, reportedly released figures showing
a 37 per cent increase in deaths between 1995 and 1998, which
represented a famine-related death toll of 220,000 people.997
3. Other sources point to a much higher death toll.A former
official stated that in 1995, 500,000 died of hunger, while in
1996 and 1997, one million died each year.998 A source in the
ROK reported that a survey, carried out in July 1998 by the
Ministry of People's Security, recorded a decline of the
population of 2.5 million to 3 million people between 1995 and
March 1998.999 However, this figure may have included
migration and may have been inflated to secure additional food
aid. MrHwang Jong-yop, a high-level defector who fled the DPRK
in 1998, indicated in various public statements that the death
toll for the years 1995 to 1997 was 2.5 million:
"In November 1996, I was very concerned about the economy and
asked a top official in charge of agricultural statistics and
food how many people had starved to death….[The official] replied
in 1995, about 500,000 people starved to death including 50,000
party cadres. In 1996, about one million people are estimated to
have starved to death. … In 1997, about 2 million people would
starved to death if no international aid were provided."1000
1. Various academics have applied statistical methodology to
existing data to derive estimates on the death toll. In 2001,
Daniel Goodkind and Loraine West concluded that excess deaths
due to the famine most likely numbered between 600,000 and one
million in the period between 1995 and 2000.1001 In 2011, Mr
Goodkind and Ms West revised their earlier estimates of excess
deaths downward to 490,000.1002 The research group of the
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health estimated 2.1 million
deaths for the period of 1995 to 1998.1003 Stephen Haggard and
Marcus Noland estimate that there were between 600,000 and 1
million deaths, or approximately 3 to 5 per cent of the pre-
crisis population.1004
2. The Commission is not in a position to provide its own
estimate on the number of deaths related to the "Great Famine"
or Arduous March of the 1990s. By all accounts, however, at
the very least hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings
perished due to massive breaches of international human rights
law. Moreover, the suffering is not limited to those who died,
but extends to the millions who survived. The hunger and
malnutrition they experienced has resulted in long-lasting
physical and psychological harm.
3. Despite the large amount of international assistance provided
in the last 20 years, the figures of malnutrition and stunting
in the DPRK continue to be very high and unevenly distributed.
The Commission is particularly concerned about the ongoing
situation of children in the DPRK. Article 6 of CRC, to which
the DPRK is a party, recognizes every child's inherent right
to life and requests States Parties to "ensure to the maximum
extent possible the survival and development of the child."
4. The close connection between maternal under-nutrition, low
birth-weight, childhood stunting and underweight has been
known for a long time and has major intergenerational
implications.1005 It is exceptionally important to break this
intergenerational cycle, because it is "not only a fundamental
ethical issue but also a priority for any Government concerned
for the future intellectual and economic capacity of its
people."1006 In the Commission's view, the generational impact
of starvation must also be considered from a human rights and
accountability perspective.
5. Starvation is the most acute violation of the right to
food.When considering starvation, four broad situations can be
envisaged:
* Starvation as a result of factors outside authorities control
(such as natural disasters);
* Starvation as a result of lack of capacity, incompetence,
corruption and other factors within the state;
* Inaction or indifference of state toward starvation despite
knowledge of the situation; and
* Starvation resulting deliberate actions.
1. These four categories can point to different level of state
responsibility. They are highly relevant for determining
individual responsibility. The Commission will consider the
responsibility of officials for crimes against humanity
committed on the basis of decisions that were known to
aggravate mass starvation and related deaths in section V of
this report.1007
2. The occurrence of natural disasters and various actions
undertaken by hostile states, including sanctions, has been
repeatedly presented by the DPRK as the official explanation
for malnutrition and starvation in the country. While having
duly considered the impact of factors beyond state control on
the food situation, the Commission finds that decisions,
actions and omissions by theDPRKand its leadership have
generated and aggravated this situation. They have causedat
leasthundreds of thousands of human beings to perish. Those
who survived,sufferedpermanent physical and psychological
injury including intergenerational harm. Actions and
omissionsthat have created the faminogenic conditions in the
country include:
* prioritizing ideology, politics and the interests of elites over
the food security of the broader population;
* using food as a means of controlling the population;
* concealing information and data that could have helped to save
lives;
* violating the population's rights to freedom of information and
freedom of movement, which directly impact the ability of people
to access food;
* denying full access to and monitoring by international
humanitarian organizations even in times when the country was
facing mass starvation;
* Placing financial conditions on the type and extent of
humanitarian organizations engagement; and
* distributing food and diverting international assistance in a
discriminatory manner, based on songbun and according to
perceived loyalty and usefulness to the DPRK.
1. The Commission is concerned that, although a number of factors
have evolved since the 1990s, other elements aggravating or
creating starvation, which are within state control, remain in
place. These elements may cause the recurrence of famine and
mass starvation in the country. DPRK continues to deny full
and unhindered access to humanitarian and relief
organizations. It cannot ignore that this lack of genuine
collaboration can result in increasing the number of deaths by
starvation, stunting and other food-related concerns in the
country. The state continues to be secretive on matters that
affect the lives and health of the population. By blocking
access and preventing proper monitoring, the DPRK authorities
impede the development of effective assistance programmes that
can relieve people from hunger, in particular those most
vulnerable.
2. Reports from the DPRK continue to point to high levels of
malnutrition, stunting and death due to starvation. The
specific regional and social patterns emerging from these
reports are grounded in discrimination on the basis of state-
assigned social class (songbun). The DPRK also still fails to
use the maximum available resources to address the problem of
hunger in the country. Discrimination, ideological
considerations, restrictions on freedom of movement, freedom
of opinion and freedom of association and lack of popular
participation to decision-making are precluding sustainable
improvements in the realization of the right to food. Given
these elements, the mere availability of food in the markets
may not be enough to stop starvation.
3. In 1983, before mass starvation in the DPRK commenced, Dr
Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate and expert in famines and their
causes, stated: "Starvation is the characteristic of some
people not having enough food to eat. It is not the
characteristic of there not being not enough food to eat."1008
4. Focusing on starvation uniquely as a question of availability
of food misses the question of why the situation occurred in
the first place and whether the situation may reappear. Along
the same lines, others have rightfully argued that,
[F]amine should be seen as a protracted politico-social-economic
process of oppression comprising three stages: dearth, famishment
and mortality. The culmination of the process comes well before the
final stage of disease and death. If the process is halted before
people die, it is nonetheless still a famine. Second, famine cannot
be defined solely by reference to the victims. The process is one
in which ‘benefits accrue to one section of the community while
losses flow to the other.1009
1. Experts in the public hearings and various testimonies
received by the Commission have made the case that these
insights also apply to the DPRK.
* At the Tokyo Public Hearing, Mr Ishimaru Jiro stated:
"From my experience investigating North Korea, what I
understand is that in North Korea the case is not absolute
shortage of food supply. The famine in North Korea has to do
with the access to food".1010
1. Access to food is about a relationship of power between those
controlling food and those lacking such control. Human rights
lie at the heart of this relation. As long as civil, economic,
political and social rights are not progressing in the DPRK,
the population is at risk of hunger and starvation. In a
highly centralized decision-making context, decisions related
to food, including distribution of food, purchasing food from
abroad, state budget allocation, and interaction with
international governments and non-governmental organizations,
are ultimately determined by a small group of officials. These
officials must be accountable to their people for past,
present and future behaviour.
8. Violation of the right to food and prisoners
1. The Commission finds that the DPRK has been responsible for
the deliberate starvation of people detained for interrogation
purposes as well as those imprisoned in political prison camps
and the ordinary prison system.1011 Starvation among the
inmates is a general feature of detention in the DPRK.
Deliberate deprivation of food has been systematically used as
a means of control and punishment in detention facilities.
Cuts to rations were part of guards training and described in
prison documents. Prison camps authorities were fully aware of
the results of this deprivation as regular medical checks were
performed on inmates. The food deprivation in detention
facilities was described in all periods independently of the
overall food situation.1012
9. Principal findings of the commission
1. The rights to food, freedom from hunger, and to life in the
context of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea cannot be
reduced to a narrow discussion of food shortages and access to
a commodity. The state has used food as a means of control
over the population. It has prioritized those whom the
authorities believe to be crucial in maintaining the regime
over those deemed to be expendable.
2. Confiscation and dispossession of food from those in need, and
the provision of food to other groups, follows this logic. The
state has practised discrimination with regard to access to
and distribution of food based on the Songbun system. In
addition, it privileges certain parts of the country, such as
Pyongyang, over others. The state has also failed to take into
account the needs of the most vulnerable. The Commission is
particularly concerned about ongoing chronic malnutrition in
children, and its long-term effects.
3. The DPRK was aware of the deteriorating food situation well
before the first appeal for international aid in 1995. State-
controlled production and distribution of food was not able to
provide the population with adequate food from, at best, the
late 1980s. The lack of transparency, accountability, and
democratic institutions as well as restrictions on freedoms of
expression, information and association, prevented the
adoption of optimal economic solutions over those in
accordance with directives of the Workers' Party of Korea. The
DPRK has evaded structural reforms to the economy and
agriculture for fear of losing its control over the
population.
4. During the period of famine, ideological indoctrination was
used in order to maintain the political system, at the cost of
seriously aggravating hunger and starvation. Official
campaigns to collect food for soldiers, to eat two meals
instead of three from an already deprived recipient population
and the rhetoric of the Arduous March were used to compel the
population to endure the hardships for a national purpose. The
concealment of information prevented the population from
finding alternatives to the collapsing Public Distribution
System. It also delayed international assistance that,
provided earlier, could have saved many lives.
5. Despite the state's inability to provide its people with
adequate food, it maintained laws and controls effectively
criminalizing people's use of key-coping mechanisms, including
moving within or outside the country in search of food and
trading or working in informal markets.
6. Even during the worst period of mass starvation, the DPRK
impeded the delivery of food aid by imposing conditions that
were not based on humanitarian considerations. International
humanitarian agencies were subject to restrictions
contravening humanitarian principles. Aid organizations were
prevented from properly assessing humanitarian needs and
monitoring the distribution of aid. The DPRK denied
humanitarian access to some of the most affected regions and
groups including homeless children.
7. The DPRK has consistently failed in its obligation to use the
maximum of its available resources to feed those who are
hungry. Even with available financial resources, the DPRK has
not purchased the necessary food to compensate for its
inadequate production even when starvation prevailed. Military
spending has been prioritized even during periods of
starvation. However, the DPRK still failed to feed ordinary
soldiers. Large amounts of state resources, including funds
directly controlled by the Supreme leader, have been spent on
luxury goods and the advancement of the personality cult while
ordinary citizens starve.
8. The DPRK systematically uses deliberate starvation as a means
of control and punishment in detention facilities. Cuts in
rations have been part of guards training and described in
prison documents. This has resulted in the deaths of many
political and ordinary citizens.
9. The Commission finds systematic, widespread and grave
violations of the right to food in the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea. While acknowledging the impact of factors
beyond state control on the food situation, the Commission
finds that decisions, actions and omissions by the state and
its leadership have caused the death of at the very least
hundreds of thousands of human beings and inflicted permanent
physical and psychological injury including intergenerational
harm, on those who survived.
10. The Commission finds what occurred during the 1990s a most
serious indictment of the DPRK and its officials. In the
highly centralized system of the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea, decisions related to food, including production and
distribution, state budget allocation, decisions related to
humanitarian assistance and the use of international aid, are
ultimately determined by a small group of officials, who are
effectively not accountable to those affected by their
decisions. In this context, the Commission considers crimes
against humanity of starvation in section V of the present
report.
11. While conditions have changed since the 1990s, hunger and
malnutrition continue to be widespread. Deaths from starvation
continue to be reported. The Commission is concerned that
structural issues, including laws and policies that violate
the right to adequate food and freedom from hunger remain in
place which could lead to the recurrence of mass starvation.
E. Arbitrary detention, torture, executions, enforced disappearance
and political prison camps
1. The Commission bases its findings on arbitrary detention,
torture, executions and prison camps mainly on the human
rights obligations of the DPRK under article 6 (the right to
life), article 7 (freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment), article 9 (right to liberty and security
of the person), article 10 (humane treatment of detainees),
and article 14 (right to a fair trial) of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It also took
into account the rights of children under article 6 (right to
life), article 37 (freedom from torture and unlawful
deprivation of liberty) and article 40 (treatment in
detention) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
1. Arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances
1. The laws of the DPRK provide the security agencies with broad
powers of search, seizure and arrest during the investigation
and pre-trial examination phases. Contrary to the DPRK's
international obligation under article 9 (3) of the ICCPR,
which requires that anyone arrested or detained on a criminal
charge must be brought promptly before a judge or other
judicial officer, oversight of the detention process is
exercised only by the Office of the Prosecutor; not the
courts. According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, the
prosecutor must issue an arrest warrant, which must be
presented to the suspect. Confirmation of the continued
detention must be requested from the prosecutor within 48
hours of the arrest.1013
2. In practice, even these requirements provided by DPRK law are
not always complied with. A 2012 survey on detention and trial
practices in the DPRK, conducted by the Korean Bar Association
in the Republic of Korea, found that only 18.1 per cent of
respondents were presented with an arrest warrant or other
document justifying their detention at the time of their
arrest. The majority never received any information concerning
the reason of their arrest.1014 Suspects are often not even
informed orally about the reasons for their arrests.
* Mr Kim Gwang-il was arrested without a warrant when authorities
found out that he had gone back and forth into China to sell rare
pine mushrooms. Mr Kim was not told why he had been arrested, nor
was an arrest warrant presented to him.1015 Many other witnesses
confidentially interviewed by the Commission had shared the same
experience.
1. While a lack of due process is apparent in the entire criminal
justice system of the DPRK, it becomes most apparent whenever
cases are considered to have a political dimension, especially
those handled by the State Security Department (SSD) and the
Korean People's Army (KPA) Military Security Command.1016 As a
rule of thumb, it can be said that the more political a case
is considered to be, the less a suspect can hope to enjoy even
the limited due process rights granted by the Constitution and
Code of Criminal Procedure. Suspects of political wrongs are
frequently arrested at night, in the street or at their
workplace and brought to a detention facility. Often they can
only guess from the line of interrogation as to why they were
arrested.
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol testified that most inmates to whom he spoke
during his long years of working as a political prison camp guard
had no idea why they had been arrested: "They all told me that
one night when they were in bed, suddenly[State Security
Department agents]came to their house and they got arrested… I
was taught that the inmates were bad people. But these people, I
found out, had no idea why they were there." 1017
* A former SSD agent confirmed that all they needed to arrest a
person suspected of political wrongs was a written authorization
from their director. Suspects were only informed orally about the
reasons for their arrest.1018
* In 2008, SSD agents arrested the 20-year old son of a witness in
Hoeryoung County, North Hamgyong Province.1019 The victim had
converted to Christianity and had been in contact with a Korean-
American pastor in China. The men did not present a warrant and
threatened the victim's mother that she should not ask any
questions about who they were and where they were taking her son.
Two years later, the family heard from a personal contact in the
SSD that the son had been interrogated for six months by the SSD
in Hoeryoung and was eventually sent, without trial, to Political
Prison Camp No. 16. The witness agonizes that he knows that is
son is "as good as dead". But he does not wish to lose hope of
ever seeing him alive again.
1. According to article 183 of the DPRK Code of Criminal
Procedure a suspect's family must be notified within 48 hours
of the reasons for the arrest and the place of the suspect's
detention. In practice, this requirement is often not
respected. According to the survey of the Korean Bar
Association mentioned above, only 49.4 per cent of respondents
had their family notified of their detention.1020
2. Suspects of political crimes are regularly held incommunicado.
In the eyes of friends, co-workers and neighbours, the person
simply disappears and may never be heard from again. Even
close family members are not notified about the reasons for
the arrest or the whereabouts of the victim, although family
members can at times secure such information through informal
channels using bribes or personal contacts. Politically
motivated arrests in the DPRK therefore regularly amount to
enforced disappearances in that the initial arrest is followed
by refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the victim,
who is placed outside the protection of the law.1021
3. The Commission finds that the refusal to disclose information
about the fate of persons arrested for suspected political
wrongs appears to be a deliberate feature of the system. It
puts the population on notice that anyone who does not
demonstrate absolute obedience can disappear at any time for
reasons determined solely by, and known only to, the
authorities.
2. Interrogation using torture and starvation
1. The Ministry of People's Security (MPS) operates a network of
police stations and interrogation detention centres
(kuryujang) at the hamlet, city, county, provincial and
national level. When investigations take longer than usual,
suspects may sometimes also be detained in holding centres
(jipkyulso), especially if they are repatriated from
China.1022 Suspects of political wrongs or crimes who are
arrested by the State Security Department (SSD) are initially
detained in interrogation detention centres which exist at the
county, provincial and national level. In addition, the SSD
apparently maintains a number of secret interrogation
detention facilities. These are often euphemistically
described as "guest houses".
2. In a positive legal development, the 2005 reform of the DPRK
Code of Criminal Procedure introduced a time limit of two
months during which the interrogation and related pre-trial
detention must be concluded. With the approval of the Office
of the Prosecutor, this period can be extended, in exceptional
cases, to four months. For ordinary crimes handled by the MPS,
these time periods are usually respected.
3. However, the situation changes as soon as a case has a
political dimension. Suspects of major political wrongs may
find themselves in a detention interrogation centre anywhere
from a few days to six months or more, depending on when the
investigating agency considers that they have confessed to the
entirety of their crimes and denounced all co-perpetrators.
They are often also interrogated successively at the county-
level SSD interrogation detention centre, the provincial SSD
interrogation centre and, in exceptional cases, also the
national headquarters of the SSD in Pyongyang.
4. Even suspects of minor political wrongs often end up spending
months in preliminary detention before their final punishment
is determined, because they are often moved between security
agencies. In many cases, a suspect will be interrogated at
length by the State Security Department or the KPA Military
Security Command. If the suspect is found to have engaged only
in minor wrongs, he or she is handed over to the MPS, where
the interrogation process is recommenced.
(a) Systematic and widespread use of torture
1. During the interrogation phase, suspects are systematically
degraded, intimidated and tortured, in an effort to subdue
them and to extract a full confession. The physical set-up of
the interrogation detention centre is often already designed
to degrade and intimidate.
* After his forced repatriation from China, Mr Kim Song-ju was
first brought to the SSD interrogation centre in Musan (North
Hamgyong Province), where he was kept in an underground prison
that appeared to him like a "cave". Such underground cells are a
common feature of SSD interrogation centres.
* Subsequently, Mr Kim was transferred for further interrogation to
the MPS interrogation detention centre in Musan. Mr Kim explained
that he had to crawl on his hands and knees into the cell he
shared with 40 other prisoners, because the entrance door was
only about 80 cm high. The guards told him that "when you get to
this prison you are not human, you are just like animals, and as
soon as you get to this prison, you have to crawl just like
animals."1023
* Mr Jeong Kwang-il testified that he and other suspects of
political crimes were kept in an underground facility run by the
SSD in Hoeryong (North Hamgyong Province).1024
* Another witness, who was arbitrarily detained, described how the
cell doors in the MPS detention centre in Chongjin were also
constructed so that inmates could only crawl in and out.1025
1. Article 167 of the DPRK Code of Criminal Procedure prohibits
obtaining the suspect's confession of guilt through forcible
means. Article 229 of the Code of Criminal Procedure further
specifies that, in the process of interrogation, witnesses and
suspects must be protected from the use of force or
intimidation.
2. Former SSD and MPS officials confidentially interviewed by the
Commission indicated that the general instructions they
received from their superiors did not require them to torture
suspects. On occasion, general instructions not to use torture
have apparently been issued by the Supreme Leader and other
central government institutions (indicating awareness of the
use of torture at the highest levels). However, in certain
high-profile cases, orders were given by the Supreme Leader to
mercilessly investigate certain individuals.1026 Former DPRK
officials also indicated that it is understood across the
chain of command that torture is used, especially in
politically sensitive cases, to force suspects to confess and
name their co-perpetrators. While beating the suspect into a
confession was the most common method, methods of more
sophisticated cruelty were also employed.
3. Torture is an established feature of the interrogation
process. The same means and methods of torture have been
employed in different provinces and at different times.
Officials often regard it as entirely normal to beat suspects
until they confess. Some interrogation facilities have been
specially outfitted to conduct more sophisticated methods of
torture. In some cases, higher-ranking officials even
instructed junior officials on efficient torture techniques.
This is indicated by the fact that.
* A former SSD official described how a special torture chamber
existed at the SSD interrogation detention facility in the
province where the witness was deployed.1027 The torture chamber
was equipped with a water tank, in which suspects could be
immersed until the suspect would fear drowning. The room also had
wall shackles that were specially arranged to hang people upside
down. Various other torture instruments were also provided,
including long needles that would be driven underneath the
suspect's fingernails and a pot with a water/hot chili pepper
concoction that would be poured into the victim's nose. As a
result of such severe torture, suspects would often admit to
crimes they did not commit.
* A woman who was tortured by the SSD in a different province on
suspicion of practising the Christian religion, described how a
water tank similar to that described by the foregoing SSD
official was used to torture her. She indicated that she was
fully immersed in cold water for hours. Only when she stood on
her tip-toes would her nose be barely above the water level. She
could hardly breathe. She was gripped by panic, fearing that she
might drown.1028
* A former MPS official revealed that the pre-trial investigation
bureau in the headquarters of the Ministry of People's Security
in Pyongyang made use of a small metal cage. Victims would be
crammed into the cage for several hours so that the circulation
of blood to extremities becomes interrupted and other parts of
the body swell up. The victim turns into a rusty brown colour.
After removal from the cage, the victim is abruptly "unfolded"
causing further excruciating pain.
The witness also recalled receiving formal training on torture
techniques from a senior investigator holding the rank of
Lieutenant-Colonel. That senior official taught MPS officials how
to cut off a suspect's blood circulation using straps, while
simultaneously placing the suspect in physical stress positions
in order to inflict the maximum level of pain. 1029
1. In principle, article 253 of the DPRK Criminal Code
criminalizes torture and other illegal means of interrogation.
The DPRK has also stated that victims of torture and coercive
means of interrogation are duly compensated.1030 Victims can
report cases of torture to the Prosecutor and special
complaint mechanisms set up at the level of the Workers' Party
of Korea, the Ministry of Justice and the National Inspection
Committee.1031
2. However, in practice there is an understanding that
perpetrators will not be held accountable. The Commission only
received information about one case, in which a perpetrator of
torture was held accountable.1032 None of the information
gathered by the Commission notes any cases, where victims of
torture were provided with adequate, effective and prompt
reparation as would be required under international law.1033
(b) Torture and inhuman treatment by the State Security Department
1. The treatment of suspects is particularly brutal and inhumane
in the interrogation detention centres of the SSD, the primary
agency tasked with suppressing "anti-state and anti-people
crimes". Suspects held by the SSD are also typically held
incommunicado, a condition that increases their vulnerability.
2. Inhumane conditions of detention exert additional pressure on
detainees to confess quickly to secure their survival. During
the interrogation phase, suspects receive rations designed to
cause hunger and starvation.
3. In some interrogation detention centres, inmates also been
subjected to forced labour in farming and construction. This
violates international standards which prohibit the imposition
of forced labour on persons not duly convicted.1034
4. Inmates, who are not undergoing interrogations or who are not
at work, are forced to sit or kneel the entire day in a fixed
posture in often severely overcrowded cells. They are not
allowed to speak, move, or look around without permission.
Failure to obey these rules is punished with beatings, food
ration cuts or forced physical exercise. Punishment is often
also imposed collectively on all cellmates.
5. In accordance with international standards, men and women are
generally separated. However, children of all ages are often
detained together with adults, especially in cases of
interrogation following forced repatriation from China. Young
children are generally allowed to stay with their mothers.
Children are kept under the same inhumane conditions as
adults, although they are usually exempted from the most
strenuous types of forced labour.
6. The detainees endure squalid hygienic conditions that
facilitate the transmission of diseases. Medical care is
provided only to those who are extremely sick or not at all. A
considerable number of prisoners die from starvation or
disease.
* Mr Jeong Kwang-il was detained in an underground interrogation
facility operated by the SSD in Hoeryoung (North Hamgyong
Province). He was held there on suspicion of being a spy of the
Republic of Korea because Mr Jeong had engaged in trading with
ROK citizens. During the 10 months he spent in detention, Mr
Jeong was given so little food that his weight dropped from 75
kilograms to 36 kilograms.
In order to make him confess, Mr Jeong was beaten with clubs,
while hanging upside down. Like numerous other witnesses
interviewed by the Commission, Mr Jeong was also subjected to the
so-called ‘pigeon torture'. "[Y]our hands are handcuffed behind
your back. And then they hang you so you would not be able to
stand or sit" Mr Jeong described. 1035 On repeated occasion, Mr
Jeong had to spend a full three days at a time in the pigeon
torture stress position, enduring excruciating pain:
"There are no people watching you. There is nobody. And you can't
stand, you can't sleep. If you are hung like that for three days,
four days, you urinate, you defecate, you are totally dehydrated.
… [the pigeon torture] was the most painful of all tortures… [it]
was so painful that I felt it was better to die."1036 Mr Jeong
informed a SSD prosecution bureau official that he had been
tortured until he provided a false confession, but this was to no
avail:
"I thought the prosecutor was going to help me, but the
prosecutor left and then the investigator came back in and
started hitting me, started assaulting me and hanging me upside
down. The next day, the prosecutor came back and said, ‘Can you
talk honestly?' And I said, ‘Yes, yes, I'm a spy' – I
confessed."1037
* Ms Kwon Young-hee was detained and interrogated at the SSD
Interrogation Detention Centre in Musan for one week because her
brother disappeared, and there was suspicion that he had fled the
country.1038 During the interrogation, Ms Kwon was beaten on the
head with a club. She was also forced to write a self-criticism
statement of 100 pages. Her beating led to her developing a form
of tumour, which had to be surgically removed after she
eventually managed to escape to the Republic of Korea.
* Mr Kim Eun-chol was detained and interrogated for 6 months at the
SSD interrogation detention facility in Musan (North Hamgyong
Province), because he had been illegally in Russia, and during
that time tried to apply for political asylum. A confession, on
the basis of which he was sent to Political Prison Camp
(kwanliso) No. 15, was extracted by hitting him with wooden bars.
Mr Kim continues to suffer from the serious injuries sustained to
his head and body:
"[I]t's been ten years but I still have scars. And my teeth,
since I came to South Korea, the South Korean Government has
given me artificial teeth, but at the time my teeth were not
there. And if you look at my ear, it's been 10 years and still my
ear hurts. And on my head, because I was hurt with wooden clubs.
And so I still have scars, I think about 10 scars in all on the
head." 1039
* "Ms X" was interrogated for 10 days by the SSD in an
interrogation detention facility in North Hamgyong Province. Her
interrogations were accompanied by systematic beatings:
"
They just basically beat you to near death. ... If my answer did
not satisfy the official interrogator than he made me kneel down on
the concrete floor and started beating me."
When inmates were not being interrogated, they had to kneel
motionless and without speaking in their cell. If someone was
caught talking, the entire cell had to perform 1,000 squats. Many
people fainted during this exercise. On one occasion, Ms X noticed
that a fellow inmate was lying in the cell without moving. When she
brought this to the attention of the guards, they punished her by
stomping on her and hitting her with stick until her head started
bleeding. In addition, the entire group of people in her cell was
punished by being deprived of food for three days.1040
1. Many suspects die at interrogation detention centres as a
result of torture, deliberate starvation or illnesses
developed or aggravated by the terrible living conditions.
* Mr Ji Seong-ho testified that his father was arrested as he tried
to escape across the Tumen River to China.1041 In November 2006,
Mr Ji's father died as a result of injuries sustained inflicted
through torture, at the hand of SSD agents. When it became
apparent that he would not survive, SSD agents wheeled him with a
cart to his home and dumped him there even though no one was home
to take care of him. Neighbours later found him dead.
* In August 2011, SSD agents arrested the 17-year old son of the
witness in Hoeryoung City, North Hamgyong Province for watching
South Korean movies. He was so badly tortured that his left ankle
was shattered and his face was bruised and grossly disfigured.
The SSD only released him after the family raised a large bribe.
Shortly after his release, the boy died from a brain haemorrhage
from which he suffered as a result of the beatings endured under
interrogation.1042
* In 2001, the witness and other inmates were beaten at an SSD
Interrogation Centre in North Hamgyong Province, including by
smashing her head against the wall. One man from her group of
detainees died from the injuries sustained. Considering that the
witness was forced to dig shallow mass graves she inferred that
more inmates must have been dying in other cells. 1043
* In 2004, the witness, a young woman, was forcibly repatriated
from China and detained at the SSD Interrogation Detention Centre
in Onsong (North Hamgyong Province). She suffered there from
severe vaginal bleeding and pain due to an undetected ectopic
(extra-uterine) pregnancy. Despite her pleas, she received no
medical assistance. She was not even allowed to keep her sanitary
napkins. She was also beaten when she asked to be seated further
away from the cell's defecation hole, because the stench made her
nauseous. . When her health situation became critical, she
managed to bribe her way out of detention using money that other
cellmates had managed to hide. Doctors at the local hospital gave
her no chance of survival. Still, she miraculously recovered. The
witness saw other detainees dying from starvation and water-borne
diseases. She also observed how a man with a heart condition
collapsed during physical strenuous exercise and lay motionless.
The guards later dragged the man away and he was not seen
again.1044
* SSD agents interrogated and tortured an elderly woman at the same
detention centre in Onsong in 2006. The torture and starvation
she endured aggravated her pre-existing liver disease. The woman
was denied medical attention in an attempt to force her brother
to return from China and turn himself in to the SSD. After 15
days at the interrogation centre, the woman died.1045
(c) Torture and inhumane treatment by the Ministry of People's
Security
1. Witnesses also described torture and deliberate starvation at
the hands of Ministry of People's Security (MPS)
interrogators, especially when they were being interrogated
for unauthorized travel to China or other politically
sensitive conduct. The detention conditions are similar to
that of SSD detention, except that suspects are often allowed
to receive occasional visits from family members.
* Mr A was interrogated by the MPS, because he frequently travelled
to China in order to secure the means to support his family in
the DPRK. He described being hit with a thick wooden club,
sustaining lasting injuries to his kidneys:
"They hit me on my back dozens of times, and I almost fainted, I
could not scream anymore. They stopped beating me because I could
no longer scream … I think they were told to beat me until they
got an answer."1046
* Mr Kim Gwang-il described how the police officers interrogating
him propped him up in the "pigeon torture" position.1047 In this
exposed position, his chest was beaten until he vomited blood. In
addition, he was subjected to the "motorcycle torture" and "plane
torture", where he was forced to assume extremely painful stress
positions involving the prolonged extension of his arms until he
collapsed.1048 When they were not being interrogated, prisoners
had to stay the entire day in their cell in a kneeling position,
with the head to the ground. Prisoners who moved were beaten.
Eventually, Mr Kim falsely confessed to the crimes for which the
police wanted to indict him.
* Ms P recounted that she was beaten so badly during interrogations
carried out by the MPS in Onsong (North Hamgyong Province) that
both her legs were broken. She also suffered fractures on her
spine.1049
* At the Interrogation Detention Centre of the MPS in Musan, Mr Kim
Song-ju witnessed how a cellmate was punished for having spoken
without authorization. The guard ordered him to stick his hand
through the narrow gap between the cell bars. The guard then beat
the prisoner's hand about 30 times, using a metal gun cleaning
tool swung with full force. "Seeing this prisoner's hand I was
shocked", Mr Kim recalled, and elaborated:
"He had a lump as a result of the hitting with this device that was
as thick as his own hand. The guard told the prisoner to return to
the cell but the prisoner could not retrieve his [swollen hand
through the narrow bars] and the prisoner just squatted down and
continued crying, he couldn't do anything else."1050
* Mr Kim Hyuk was 16 years old, when he was forcibly repatriated
from China. After initial interrogation by the SSD, he was handed
over to the Ministry of People's Security in Onsong (North
Hamgyong Province). The police officers interrogating him beat
his knees with a stick, while placing an additional stick in the
back of his knees to increase the pain. After that he was
subjected to the pigeon torture described above. Mr Kim was kept
for longer in the interrogation centre, so that he would turn 17
years and could be tried as an adult under DPRK Law.1051
* In February 2011, the witness was repatriated from China. After
enduring 12 days of beatings and interrogations by the SSD, she
was handed over to the MPS. During two months of detention in an
MPS interrogation detention Center, she and other inmates were
beaten with various objects, in particular during interrogations.
People who fainted during an interrogation session were accused
of faking their unconsciousness and made to start again. Although
she paid bribes in exchange for more lenient treatment, the
witness was still subjected to beatings with wheelbarrow handles,
gun barrels and pieces of wood. Detainees had to engage in forced
labour during the day. Two men were beaten to death because they
had not reached their work targets. A woman starved to death.
While in their cells, inmates had to sit still the entire time in
a cross legged position with their hands on their knees. If they
moved, they would be forced to do headstands and squats or they
were beaten. Some guards took advantage of the coercive setting
to rape female inmates, who were taken to a nearby field for
"questioning".1052
Pigeon Torture – Drawing submitted by former prisoner Mr Kim Kwang-
il
Scale, Aeroplane and Motorcycle Torture – Drawing submitted by
former prisoner Mr Kim Kwang-il
(d) Decision to punish through judicial process or extralegal means
1. At the end of the interrogation process, the victim is forced
to attest to the accuracy of a confessional statement drawn up
by the investigating agency by inking his finger print on the
document. At the SSD, the same document also obligates the
victim – under threat of severe reprisals – never to reveal
any of the experiences in the interrogation detention centre.
2. At this stage, the investigating agency will also make the
important decision whether to punish the suspect through the
judicial process or by extra-legal means, without involving
the courts. These decisions take into account the perceived
gravity of the wrong, the socio-political family background
(songbun) of the suspect and the political expediency of
disposing of the case through the judicial process or by
extra-legal means.
3. A rule of thumb for political cases handled by the SDD is that
the more serious a political case handled is, the more likely
it is that it will be disposed through extra-legal means that
bypass the judiciary. The decision-making is strongly
centralized and regularly involves consultation of provincial
and national headquarters. If the interrogating SSD office
considers that case to be so serious that it warrants enforced
disappearance to a secret political prison camp or summary
execution, this usually requires a decision from at least SSD
national headquarters.
4. Courts appear not to ever be involved in the decision to send
a person to a political prison camp. This exclusion violates
not only international law, but also article 127 of the DPRK
Code of Criminal Procedure Code. According to that provision,
the Provincial People's Courts have jurisdiction over cases
involving political crimes that may result in life-time
imprisonment. Occasionally, high profile cases involving what
is seen as a major wrong are referred to the courts, when the
authorities consider it politically expedient to provide a
highly visible warning to the general public, notably through
a public trial and execution. The Special Military Court
operated by the State Security Department is often involved in
such cases.1053
5. However, the judicial route is usually reserved for political
cases of medium severity. The investigating SSD section hands
such cases over to the SSD Prosecution Bureau to prepare the
indictment and trial. Depending on the seriousness of the
political wrong, the SSD Prosecutor seeks a sentence of
execution, imprisonment in an ordinary prison camp or a short-
term forced labour detention camp.
6. When the SSD determines that the suspect committed no more
than a minor political wrong or the case is deemed non-
political, it usually refers the case for further
interrogation to the MPS.
7. Where the MPS handles a case, the reverse rule of thumb
applies: The more serious cases are disposed of through the
judiciary, while the courts are often bypassed in less serious
cases.1054
8. If the judicial route is pursued, the MPS cooperates with the
Office of the Prosecutor, which seeks prison sentences or,
where deemed appropriate and politically expedient, the death
penalty.
9. In cases of relatively minor wrongs, the MPS commits a suspect
to imprisonment and forced labour in a short-term forced
labour detention facility for periods ranging from a few
months to two years. In some cases, county level SSD offices
may follow the same practice in case they end up dealing with
suspects of relatively minor wrongs.
10. Such non-judicial prison "sentences" violate the suspect's
right to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent
and impartial tribunal established by law, which is
established by article 14 of the ICCPR. They would also appear
to be incompatible with the DPRK's own laws, in particular its
Administrative Penalty Act that allows for administrative
penalties of unpaid labour, but not imprisonment. Such non-
judicial sentences would also constitute the criminal offence
provided for under article 252 of the Criminal Code. However,
the Commission has not been able to document a single case, in
which security officials were convicted for illegally usurping
the sentencing powers of the judiciary in contravention of
article 252 of the Criminal Code.
11. SSD and MPS officials operate under great pressure to produce
perpetrators of political wrongs. They are often afraid of
becoming the targets of suspicion and punishment, if they
appear to be too lenient with suspects. As a result, even
those unjustly accused of political wrongs often find it
difficult, if not impossible to escape the control of the
security apparatus without any punishment. However,
interventions by politically connected friends, and
increasingly also the payment of bribes, often allow suspects
of lesser wrongs to secure their release.
3. Political prison camps
1. If they are not executed immediately, persons held accountable
for major political wrongs are forcibly disappeared to
political prison camps that officially do not exit. Most
victims are incarcerated for life, without chance of leaving
the camps alive. Camp inmates are denied any contact with the
outside world. Not even their closest family members receive
any notification as to whether they are dead or alive.
2. The camps serve to permanently remove from society those
groups, families and individuals that may politically,
ideologically or economically challenge the current political
system and leadership of the DPRK. The limited information
that seeps out from the secret camps also creates a spectre of
fear among the general population in the DPRK, creating a
powerful deterrent against any future challenges to the
political system. Because the camps are generally located in
remote, mountainous areas, the innocuous expression that
someone has been "sent to the mountains" has become synonymous
in the DPRK with state-sponsored enforced disappearance.
Several witnesses described to the Commission that people were
aware of the camps and had a vague idea about violations going
on in the camps, which made them very afraid.1055
* Ms Jeong Jin-hwa described that the camps were generally known
and feared:
"
[E]very North Korean knows [about the camps]. We have a perception
that once you are in, there is no way out. It's a cruel, cruel
place, and you would guess, you are sometimes beaten by the police
and so from that you can imagine how harsh the treatment would be
inside."1056
* Mr. Kim Hyuk also indicated that everybody knows about the camps,
although what happens inside the camps and the kind of life the
inmates would live were not known specifically:
"We know that once you are in, there's no way out. Everybody knew
about that. And we knew that there is no due process to enter the
[political prison camp] and also that a family can disappear
overnight and then people would get the hint that the family had
been sent to [a prison camp]."1057
1. The authorities strenuously deny the existence of political
prison camps in the DPRK.1058 The very existence of political
prison camps is considered a state secret, even though
international human rights groups have reported about them
since the late 1980s.1059 The authorities are deploying
considerable efforts to conceal details about the prison camps
from the outside world. The camps are disguised as military or
farming facilities and only selected officials with a special
security clearance are permitted to visit them. No human
rights organization has ever been given permission to visit
the areas where the camps are located. Even in classified
internal terminology, the camps are euphemistically called
"controlled areas" (kwanliso). Their inmates are referred to
as "moved people" (ejumin). The Bureau of the State Security
Department that administers the camps (Bureau No. 7) is known
as the "Farming Bureau". Confidential witness testimony
indicates that diplomats of the DPRK are under strict
instructions never to admit to the existence of the camps.
2. Guards, released inmates and communities neighbouring the
camps are threatened with severe reprisals if they disclose
any information about the camps. Most disturbingly, the camp
authorities have received orders to kill all prisoners in case
of an armed conflict or revolution so as to destroy the
primary evidence of the camps' existence. The initial order
seems to have been given by Kim Il-sung himself, and the order
was later reaffirmed by Kim Jong-il.
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol testified that in case of a war, the guards
were supposed to "wipe out" all the inmates "to eliminate any
evidence" about the existence of the camps.Former guards from
other camps and officials confidentially interviewed by the
Commission were aware of the same order. Mr Ahn and other
witnesses also explained that specific plans exist on how to
implement the order and that drills were held on how to kill
large numbers of prisoners in a short period of time.1060
* Mr Kim Eun-chol started speaking publicly about his three years
of detention at Political Prison Camp No. 15 once he escaped to
the Republic of Korea. The authorities retaliated by executing
his brother in accordance with the guilt by association policy.
The tragic event caused his sister to take her own life.1061
1. Despite all efforts to deny and conceal the existence of the
political prison camp system, the Commission finds that an
extensive system of political prison camps has been in
continuous existence since the late 1950s and continues to
operate up to the present time. It has interviewed numerous
people who have personally experienced or seen the political
prison camps, including former inmates and guards. Several of
these witnesses testified in the public hearings.1062
2. Additionally, the Commission has obtained satellite images of
the camps and analysis provided by professional satellite
imagery analysts, supplemented by the testimonies of former
guards and inmates who could identify relevant structures.1063
These images not only prove to the Commission's satisfaction
the continued existence and on-going operation of large-scale
detention facilities. They also provide a clear picture of the
evolution of the prison camp structure and corroborate the
first-hand accounts received from former prisoners and guards.
During the course of the Commission's public hearings, several
former prisoners and guards were able to identify and describe
the locations of camps on satellite images and to identify
specific structures, where forced labour, torture, executions
or other camp-related activities are being carried out.
(a) Location and size of political prison camps
1. Four large prison camps are known to exist in the DPRK today.
In the DPRK's own internal terminology, the camps are assigned
numbers to distinguish them1064:
* Political Prison Camp No.14 covers 150 square kilometres of a
mountainous area near Kaechon City in South Pyongan Province.1065
It appears to have been in existence since the 1960s and was
transferred to its present location in the early 1980s. All
inmates are incarcerated for life. Only one prisoner is known to
have successfully escaped the camp – Mr Shin Dong-hyuk who
testified publicly before the Commission. According to what can
be seen on satellite images, the camp appears to have been
expanded since his escape in 2005.1066
* Political Prison Camp No. 15 is spread out over an area of 370
square kilometres covering several valleys in Yodok County, South
Pyongan Province.1067 While the inmates of all other existing
prison camps are incarcerated for life without any chance of
release, 1068 Camp No. 15 distinguishes itself in that it has
been divided into a total control zone (jeontongjekyooyeok) and a
revolutionizing zone (hyukmyunghwakooyeok). Total control zone
inmates are considered ideologically irredeemable and
incarcerated for life. Revolutionizing zone prisoners are
incarcerated for less serious wrongs and tend to come from
privileged families with very good songbun. In the past, they had
a chance of being released after a few years of incarceration, if
they convinced the camp authorities through hard work, diligent
participation in daily indoctrination sessions, and often also
the payment of bribes, of their ideological rehabilitation. 1069
* Political Prison Camp No. 16 covers about 560 square kilometres
of rugged terrain in Myonggan, North Hamgyong Province.1070 It is
located in close proximity to the P'unggye-ri nuclear test site.
First-hand witness testimony indicates that the camp has existed
since the 1970s, although it was much smaller at that time.1071
Inmates live in two settlement areas in the torthwestern and
southeastern areas of the camp.
* A detention facility often referred to as Political Prison Camp
No. 25 is located near Chongjin City, North Hamgyong
Province.1072 While Political Camps No. 14, 15 and 16 each have
tens of thousands of prisoners, Camp No. 25 has a population of a
few thousand prisoners. It also distinguishes itself from the
other camps, because it looks more like a maximum security prison
with a main block surrounded by high walls. Its prisoners are
incarcerated for life without trial on political grounds, which
is why Camp No. 25 can be considered a political prison camp. In
recent years, Camp No. 25 has been expanded. It almost doubled in
surface-size since 2006 and now covers an area of 980 square
metres.
1. Political Prison Camps No. 14, 15 and 16 are administered by
the SSD. It is likely, but not entirely certain, that the SSD
also controls Camp No. 25.
2. The Commission cannot exclude the possibility that there are
additional, so far undetected secret detention facilities,
where political prisoners are detained in conditions similar
to those of the known political prison camps. In particular,
some witnesses provided information suggesting that the KPA
Military Security Command may operate smaller special prison
camps in undisclosed locations, where officers and ordinary
soldiers are held without trial on political grounds.1073
* Mr Kim Joo-il, a former KPA officer, explained how the Supreme
Leader Kim Jong-il personally visited his battalion in 1996. When
Kim Jong-il noticed that the soldiers were not provided with
food, he immediately divested the head of the battalion of his
rank and had him sent, without trial, to a KPA prison camp. Mr
Kim Joo-il indicated that these camps were detention facilities
run by the KPA and located on KPA facilities. He added: "Some
people served a life sentence there. Anyone who would be released
from these military prisons, they could no longer survive. They
couldn't get a job because of the political nature of their
crime."1074
1. It is certain that other political prison camps existed in the
past. There may have been 12 camps or more. Over time, the
system has been consolidated. Some camps were closed down and
the remaining inmates transferred to other sites, which were
expanded.1075
* From the 1960s until its closure in mid-2012, the SSD operated
Political Prison Camp No. 22 near Hoeryong(North Hamgyong
Province). The authorities are believed to have closed the camp,
because of its proximity to the Chinese border, which increased
the risk of successful escapes and of information about the Camp
being transmitted to the outside world.1076
Before the closure process was started in 2009 or 2010, Camp No. 22
was believed to have had 30,000-50,000 inmates. There is no
information that any inmates of Camp No. 22 were released. The
Commission has not been able to establish the fate of the large
numbers of prisoners that remain unaccounted for. Observers offer
divergent opinions on what happened to the prisoners of Camp No.
22. Some take the view that the prisoners of camp 22 were
distributed between camps 14, 15 and 16. 1077. Others have
indicated that satellite imagery from other camps does not suggest
any new construction of a scale that would support the inflow of
the entire population of Political Prison Camp No. 22. They also
presented allegations that food supplies were diverted from Camp
No. 22 in 2009 and 2010, which caused a large number of the inmates
to starve to death.1078
* Political Prison Camp No. 11, controlled by the State Security
Department, was located on the upper slope of the Kwanmo mountain
in North Hamgyong province. Initially, it was mainly used to
detain high-profile prisoners and their families. At the end of
the 1980s, this camp appears to have been closed since a villa
for Kim Il-Sung was supposed to have been constructed in the
area. The surviving prisoners were distributed between Camps 16
and 22.1079
* Political Prison Camps No. 12 and 13 (also run by the State
Security Department) were in what is today Onsong County, North
Hamgyong Province. 1080 Inmates included families of former
landowners, supporters of rival socialist factions and
collaborators with the Japanese colonial administration. The
camps were closed in the early 1990s. The surviving prisoners
were apparently transferred to Camp No. 22.
* Since at least the early 1960s, a political prison existed in
Sungho, near Pyongyang, which is sometimes referred to as Camp
No. 26.1081 It was closed in the early 1990s after a former
political prisoner had disclosed its existence, and Amnesty
International reported extensively on the camp.1082
1. Until 2006, the Ministry of People's Security and its
predecessor, the Social Safety Agency, also managed political
prison camps, subject to oversight by the State Security
Department and the Workers' Party of Korea. Although the MPS
camps did not share all features of the existing camps (e.g.
the prohibition of marriage), these camps were similar to the
currently existing camps in that inmates suffered enforced
disappearance and were imprisoned without trial in conditions
of starvation and forced labour.
* Located near Camp No. 14 on the south bank of the Taedong River,
Camp No. 18 in Bukchang County (South Pyongan Province) may have
held as many as 50,000 prisoners in the late 1990s.Political
Prison Camp No. 18 was similar to the revolutionizing zone of
Political Prison Camp No. 15 in that at least part of the camp
population could secure an early release if deemed to be
ideologically rehabilitated.1083It appears that Political Prison
Camp No. 18 was gradually downsized until the site in Bukchang,
South was closed down in 2006. Today, a short-term labour
detention facility has been placed on the premises formerly
occupied by Political Prison Camp No. 18. Most of the surviving
prisoners of Political Prison Camp No. 18 seem to have been
released, although many chose to continue living and working on
the camp premises for lack of another place to go. A small
segment of the prisoners from Camp No. 18 were apparently not
cleared for release. They may have been transferred to a new
prison camp site in nearby Ch'oma-Bong, (Kaechon County, South
Pyongan Province), which borders Camp No. 14.1084
* Political Prison Camp No. 17 was located in Toksong (South
Hamgyong Province) and controlled by the Social Safety Agency,
the predecessor organization of the Ministry of People's
Security.1085 The camp was initially closed in the mid-1980s.
Some witness testimony indicates that the camp was temporarily
reopened in the late 1990s since Political Prison Camp No. 18 was
unable to handle the large inflow of new detainees arrested in
connection with theshimhwajo operation.1086
* The Social Safety Agency reportedly also operated Camp No. 19 in
Tanchon, South Hamgyong Province. The camp was closed around 1990
and most prisoners were released. Camp No. 23 in Toksong Country,
South Hamgyong Province, also operated by the Social Safety
Agency, was transformed into an ordinary prison in 1987.1087
1. In the absence of direct physical access to the camps, it is
extremely difficult to provide reliable estimates on the
overall size of the prison camp population at different points
in time. The earliest estimate, provided in 1982 by the
National Intelligence Service of the Republic of Korea, refers
to a prison population of 105,000 prisoners. Later estimates,
which were provided by non-governmental organizations, based
on satellite images and testimony from guards and prisoners
who were in the camps in the 1990s or early 2000s, range from
150,000-200,000 inmates.1088
2. Observers who presented information to the Commission
generally agree that there has been a drop in the political
prison camp population over the last few years. the Korea
Institute for National Unification (KINU) estimates that
between 80,000 and 120,000 people are detained in the
political prison camps today.1089 This figure, which KINU
bases on analysis of recent satellite imagery analysis and
first hand-testimony, takes into account the release of
prisoners from Political Prison Camp No. 18 and the
uncertainty about the fate of the prisoners of Political
Prison Camp No. 22. Similarly, the non-governmental Committee
on Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) submitted that a figure
of 80,000 to 130,000 prisoners is an accurate rendering of the
prison camp population.1090These figures are also in line with
a 2011 estimate of the Database Centre for North Korean Human
Rights (NKDB), which placed the size of the camp population at
a minimum of 130,500 people, but did not yet account for the
closure of Camp No. 22 and the related uncertainty about the
fate of the prisoners of Camp No. 22.1091
3. The observed drop in the number of inmates may be attributed,
to some extent to the release of most of the prisoners who
were held in Camp No. 18. However, an equally important factor
is the extremely high rate of deaths in custody, coupled with
the fact that the prisoners are generally not allowed to have
children. In the absence of further releases, a drop in the
camp population therefore merely signifies that the inflow of
new inmates does not keep up with the high rate at which
prisoners are dying due to starvation, neglect, arduous forced
labour, disease and executions.
(b) Evolution and purpose of the political prison camp system
1. The DPRK began to establish its system of secret political
prison camps in the late 1950s, as large purges were carried
out under Kim Il-sung.1092 The system was inspired by the
prison camps managed by the Gulag in the Soviet Union during
the rule of Joseph Stalin. Many features of the DPRK camps are
even harsher than what could be found in the Gulag camps.1093
2. The camps rapidly grew in size, as Kim Il-sung consolidated
his rule by purging political opponents and rival socialist
factions and suppressing any expression of the Christian and
Chondoist religions. While many of the primary targets of the
purges were often executed, lower-ranking officials and other
persons associated with them disappeared to the camps. A large
number of additional victims, including senior officials, were
purged between the 1970s and 1990s to preclude any opposition
within the Workers' Party of Korea and the state apparatus to
the dynastic succession of Kim Jong-il following the death of
his father Kim Il-sung.
3. On the basis of the principle of "guilt by association" (yeon-
jwa-je), the entire family of those purged frequently also
ended up in the political prison camps including the parents,
spouses, siblings and children (regardless of age). Only
female relatives who were already married outside the family
at the time of the purge were usually spared. Because of the
strict patriarchal system, they were considered to belong to
another family. Spouses sometimes escaped the prison camps, if
they underwent an immediate forced divorce.
* In 1981, the witness's entire family, including two children aged
2 and 4, was arrested by agents of the State Security Department
and sent to Political Prison Camp No. 12.1094 The witness, who
thinks she was spared imprisonment because she had married into
another family, never saw her family again. The family apparently
became victim to the purges of side arms of Kim Il-sung's family
that were conducted to prevent challenges to the succession of
Kim Jong-il. The family were relatives of Kim Hwan-hyup, who was
related by marriage to Kim Jong-il. Despite being a high-ranking
official of the Korean Worker's Party, Kim Hwan-hyup was
reportedly himself purged.
* In 1997, the Ministry of People's Security launched a
comprehensive investigation, known as shimhwajo to identify
officials who had concealed politically sensitive aspects of
their family history.1095 The operation was also strategically
used to purge "old-guard" officials whose loyalty to Kim Jong-il
was considered questionable. An estimated 20,000 suspects
disappeared without trial in Political Prison Camp No. 18,
although many were later released. In a subsequent counter-purge,
thousands of MPS officials were arrested by the KPA Military
Security Command and the SSD. In prison, they were often
subjected to particularly harsh treatment and many died in
detention. One former official relayed statistics kept by the MPS
Corrections Bureau according to which only few of the MPS
officials imprisoned during the counter-purge survived their
prison stint.1096 Mr Kim Gwang-il testified that guards at
Kyohwaso No. 12 apparently received orders to single out
particular prisoners for food ration cuts and other harsh
punishments designed to kill them. He named two prisoners who had
ended up in a kyohwasoon political charges and were killed in
that manner. One of them was detained in reaction to the
shimhwajooperation.1097
1. "Class enemies", including owners of large landholdings or
factories, would-be defectors to the Republic of Korea and
collaborators with the Japanese colonial administration, have
also been disappeared to the prison camps. The Commission
finds that the camp system served the purpose of re-
engineering the social fabric of the DPRK in conformity with
the ideology of the Suryong system by purging entire groups
and individuals from general society. This purpose finds clear
expression in the fact that camp inmates were considered to
have lost all their citizenship rights. For all intents and
purposes, they no longer exist as a part of the DPRK's
citizenry.
2. The Commission also finds that the purge of "class enemies"
was extended to descendants up to the third generation, i.e.
the grandchildren of the original wrongdoer. In the rare event
that prisoners have children in the camp, even those children
became prisoners. The ideological basis for such
intergenerational punishment is ascribed to an instruction
reportedly issued by Kim Il-sung himself according to which:
"Class enemies and factionalists, whoever they are, their seed
must be eliminated through three generations."1098 Camp guards
and other security officials are taught this doctrine during
their basic training. "According to Kim Il-sung's instructions
… three generations of the inmate should be annihilated",
former camp guard Ahn Myung-chol recalled.1099 In several
camps, the guards were also reminded of the three generations
principle through large boards displaying Kim Il-sung's
instruction.1100
* Mr Shin Dong-hyuk was born in Political Prison Camp No. 14 in
1981, as a result of a relationship the guards had arranged
between his parents, who had no choice in the matter. His father
and his family had apparently been imprisoned in the camp,
because one of Mr Shin's uncles had fled to the Republic of
Korea. Mr Shin never found out why his mother was in the camp. Mr
Shin described how he had been indoctrinated to internalize the
guilt by family association principle that he never questioned
the basis and conditions of his imprisonment:
"I was born a criminal and I would die a criminal that was my fate
… Where I lived only two kinds of people existed, the guards who
had guns and the people who are inmates wearing uniforms. Inmates
were born inmates, so we lived like inmates; that was our fate...
Nobody taught us that way but that was all that we could see… so
that's how we lived."1101
* Ms Kim Hye-sook was 13 years old, when SSD agents arrested her
just as she returned from school.1102 She was taken to Political
Prison Camp No. 18, where her entire family was already
incarcerated. No charges were ever presented against any family
members. Inmates were warned that they be executed if they
enquired about the reasons for their arrest or talked with other
inmates about it. When her father one day challenged the guards
about why he was kept at the camp, he was taken away and the
family never saw him again. During 28 years of incarceration, Ms
Kim never found out why she had to endure such a long time of
starvation and forced labour. She even started blaming her
parents. In 2001, as Political Prison Camp No. 18 was downsizing,
she was released. From a relative she found out that the family
had been punished because her grandfather had fled to the
Republic of Korea during the Korean War.
* In 1975, the entire family of the witness were arrested by the
State Security Department, without being presented with reasons
for his arrest or any criminal charges. The arrests were part of
a larger operation in the city of Nampo directed against the
descendants of landowners and other "class enemies". Altogether
300 people were crammed into train carriages and sent to
Political Prison Camp No. 18. The witness was released in 2006
when Camp No. 18 was closed.1103
1. The political prison camp system has served, and continues to
serve, the purpose of preventing the emergence of any future
ideological, political or social challenges to the Suryong
system and preserving its power base. Many inmates were sent
to the prison camps because they, or their family members, had
criticized the DPRK's political system, especially if the
Supreme Leader was the direct target of the criticism.
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol described how his father, who was an official
managing a public distribution centre, had said to other higher-
ranking officials that the food shortage in the DPRK existed
because the people on the top were not doing their job correctly.
Realizing his political crime, Mr Ahn's father took his own life.
Mr Ahn's mother and three siblings, including a sister who was
still an elementary school student, were all arrested and sent to
a political prison camp. He escaped incarceration only by fleeing
across the border into China.1104
* The uncle of the witness disappeared after an informant in his
own family denounced him as having said that Kim Jong-il was not
made of the right material to be the Supreme Leader. The last the
family heard about the uncle was that he had been sent to
Political Prison Camp No. 22.1105
1. In some cases, entire families disappeared because one member
divulged "state secrets", such as politically sensitive
information about the private lives of the ruling Kim family.
* Ms Kim Young-soon, a former professional dancer, was a good
friend of Song Hae-rim, who later became Kim Jong-il's third wife
and the mother to his first-born son Kim Jong-Nam. Ms Kim Young-
soon knew about the relationship in 1969 when it was still a
state secret. In 1970, her husband disappeared. One month later,
the State Security Department arrested her. She was detained and
interrogated in an informal secret detention facility over two
months about what she knew about Song Hae-rim. Ms Kim came to
understand that officials were afraid of her disclosing
information about the relationship between Song Hae-rim and Kim
Jong-il. After the interrogation was completed, Ms Kim were
detained at Camp No. 15 at Yodok without trial or any
explanation, until 1979. Ms Kim's parents and her four children
(aged 3, 5, 7 and 10 when they disappeared) were sent to Yodok
with her. Both her parents and one of her sons died in the camp.
At Political Prison Camp No. 15, Ms Kim met another woman who had
been sent to the camp because she had assisted Song Hae-rim in
giving birth to Kim Jong-Nam.1106
* In 2005, a college professor from Pyongyang and his entire family
were sent to Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok.The man had
told colleagues that Kim Jong-il had been born in Russia (and not
on Mount Paektu, as his official biography claims). He had picked
up this information after illegally listening to a short wave
radio broadcast produced in the Republic of Korea. The entire
family disappeared, except for one daughter, who had already
married into another family.1107
1. Among the camp inmates are also people whose activities
threaten to undermine the authorities' policy of isolation
from "capitalist" outside influences or the state's monopoly
over information. In the past, many prisoners of war and
civilians abducted during the Korean War, who refused to be
quiet about their past and accept their fate of being denied
their right to repatriation, ended up in the prison camps (see
below). Many of those ethnic Koreans who returned from Japan
in the 1950s and 1960s.1108 disappeared into political prison
camps, because the authorities felt that they might spread
subversive information about what they had seen abroad. The
same fate was suffered by a large number of young citizens of
the DPRK who had studied in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union around 1989 and witnessed the emergence of democracy in
those countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
* Mr Kang Chol-hwan's paternal grandparents, moved from Japan to
the DPRK in the 1960s to help build the country. In 1977, his
grandfather suddenly disappeared. Soon after, Mr Kang (then 9
years old) was arrested and taken, without indictment or trial,
to Political Prison Camp No. 15. Only his mother was spared,
because she accepted a forced divorce from Mr Kang's father.
After having survived ten years of starvation and forced labour
in the Camp, he was released without any explanation. Mr Kang
described to the Commission that an entire section at Political
Prison Camp No. 15 was occupied by ethnic Koreans from Japan who
had been detained, apparently because they knew too much about
capitalist culture.1109
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol, who served as a guard in Political Prison Camp
No. 22 at the time, described a large inflow of new prisoners who
were arrested in relation to what he termed "the collapse of the
Soviet Bloc". The prisoners were brought to the camps in train
wagons originally designed to transport animals. "[T]here were
like six wagons that were filled with people. And that train came
to the camps for six days consecutively, so thousands came in" Mr
Ahn testified.
1. People continue to be sent to political prison camps. Although
there has been some reorganization, there is no indication
that the system of extra-legal secret political prison camps
as such is being phased out. Many among those who disappeared
into prison camps in more recent years are persons who fled
the DPRK and others who had unauthorized contact with
officials or citizens of the Republic of Korea (ROK) or who
expressed their Christian religion.
* Mr Jeong Kwang-il was also detained in the revolutionizing zone
of Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok from 2000-2003. Coming
from a privileged family, he had the opportunity to engage in
trading in China. In order to increase the profit margins for his
company, he began selling goods directly to buyers from the ROK,
instead of going through Chinese intermediaries. When such
prohibited contacts were reported by informants to the State
Security Department, Mr Jeong was arrested. He was interrogated
under torture for six months until he agreed to confess falsely
to having engaged in espionage for the ROK. After surviving three
years of starvation and forced labour, in Political Prison Camp
No. 15, Mr Jeong was released.
* Mr A testified that in 2007, his older sister was sent to
Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok after being forcibly
repatriated from China. The State Security Department (SSD)
considered her case particularly grave, because she had been
arrested while trying to reach Mongolia and from there the
Republic of Korea. The fact that she had practised Christianity
was a further aggravating factor. Being an elderly woman, the
sister suffered a stroke when the SSD subjected her to torture.
Nevertheless she was sent to the political prison camp without
any medical care. "Mr A" fears that his sister must have died in
the camp as a consequence of her dire medical condition and the
living conditions in the camp.
* One witness described how his son had adopted the Christian
religion and repeatedly travelled to China, where he received
religious instruction from a Korean-American pastor.1110 At the
end of 2008, the son's contacts with the pastor were discovered,
because SSD agents in China had the pastor under surveillance.
The son was arrested by the State Security Department. After
interrogation, the son was sent to a political prison camp and
has not been seen since.
* In July 2009, the witness and three other persons were engaged in
an operation to help two elderly citizens from the ROK, prisoners
of war from the Korean War, escape the DPRK across the border to
China.1111 The operation was discovered. The witness managed to
flee across the border, but the other persons were arrested and
eventually sent to Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok.
1. The imprisonment of entire families on the principle of guilt
by association has been a defining feature of the DPRK's
political prison camps. The principle has been particularly
effective in oppressing dissent, because anyone willing to
oppose the current political system in the DPRK would have to
be prepared not only to sacrifice his or her own life but also
that of close family members. Based on its extensive archive
of interviews with persons who fled the DPRK, the non-
governmental Database Center for Human Rights in North Korea
(NKDB) re-construed the reasons for the incarceration of 832
political prison camp inmates. The largest number disappeared
to the prison camps for political reasons directly linked to
them personally (48.3 per cent). A smaller number of prisoners
were held for economic, administrative and ordinary crimes
(7.1 per cent) or for having fled to China (8.0 per cent).
Yet, more than a third of all inmates (35.7 per cent) were
incarcerated for no other reason than an assumed guilt by
association.1112
2. The Commission finds that, in recent years, there are some
indications that fewer people are being sent to political
prison camps on grounds of guilt by association.1113
Nevertheless, there are still instances where families have
been sent to prison camps for wrongs committed by a family
member. Such collective punishment is often meted out in high-
profile cases, where the authorities consider that a
particularly harsh reaction is needed to serve as a warning to
the general public or to a special segment of society. Even
where families are spared prison camps, they often remain
subject to harsh official reprisals, including by being
removed from their jobs or universities.
* In 2007, the witness escaped from the DPRK. Subsequently, the
witness's parents were arrested, interrogated and eventually sent
to Camp No. 15, even though they were not involved in the escape
of witness. Prior to the escape, the family had already been
classified as politically suspect since they were ethnic Koreans
who had migrated from Japan. 1114
* In 2012, the State Security Department carried out a major
operation in Hoeryoung (North Hamgyong Province) against a group
involved in smuggling mobile phones, cameras and small radios
into the DPRK.1115 The group was falsely framed as planning
sabotage activities in the DPRK. State media presented one of the
alleged smugglers, Mr Jon Yong-chol, who was seen confessing that
he formed a society to destroy statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim
Jong-il and indicating that he "could not die" before implicating
the Government of the Republic of Korea.1116 An estimated 90
people, including family members of the suspected smugglers, were
arrested and are believed to have been sent to political prison
camps. Mr Jon was reportedly executed.
* In the aftermath of the December 2013 execution of Jang Song-
thaek, the uncle-in-marriage to Kim Jong-un, allegations have
emerged indicating that security officials arrested members of
his extended family and transferred them to political prison
camps.1117
(c) Total control, torture and executions
1. Political prison camp inmates are considered to have lost
their rights as DPRK citizens. They are subject to the total
control of the camp authorities. As elaborated by former camp
guard Ahn Myong-chol:
"In the kwanliso, the inmates are no longer registered citizens, so
you do not need a law to decide the sentences. Thebowibu [SSD]
agent is the person who decides whether you are saved or you are
executed. There are no other criteria other than his words. [The
inmates] are already eliminated from society."1118
1. The Commission finds that the majority of prisoners who remain
in the camps have no prospect of ever being released. They are
held in total control zones and are incarcerated until they
die. Only prisoners held for relatively minor wrongs who are
kept in the revolutionizing zone of Political Prison Camp No.
15 could hope to be reinstated as citizens and achieve their
release after a number of years in the prison camp. It is
uncertain whether this remains the case. Since 2007, there are
no known cases of people being released from Political Prison
Camp No. 15. Some observers therefore fear that the entire
Political Prison Camp No. 15 has been turned into a total
control zone to preclude the possibility of further witnesses
emerging from the prison camp.1119
2. The physical set-up of the camps makes escape virtually
impossible. The camps are surrounded by high perimeter fences
that are electrified at a deadly voltage and further secured
by barbed wire. Pit traps and minefields are also placed
around the perimeter fence. Each camp is surrounded by
numerous guard posts and checkpoints, manned by guards armed
with automatic rifles. Inmates are subject to strict movement
restrictions within the camp. They are under strict orders to
stay clear of the perimeter fence unless authorized to
approach it by the guards.
* Mr Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person known to have successfully
escaped a total control zone, owes his escape to a tragic
coincidence. As nightfall approached on the day of his escape, a
friend and he were assigned to collect firewood in the vicinity
of the perimeter fence. They decided to seize the opportunity to
escape. His friend reached the fence first and was electrocuted
as he attempted to climb through a hole in the fence. Dangling on
the wire, the friend's body created a sufficiently insulated
breach for Mr Shin to climb through and run away. Mr Shin
explained the motivation underlying his risky decision:
"I heard from this new inmate, that the people outside could eat
the same food as the guards, freely. I could have been
electrocuted, I could have been shot but I just wanted to have one
day for which I could eat all the food that the people outside [the
camp] ate."1120
1. Camp guards are under firm orders to shoot to kill anyone
trying to escape and they are rewarded if they do. Guards and
prisoners are also instructed that any attempt to escape will
be punished by immediate summary execution. This rule is
systematically implemented. Summary executions for attempted
escape can be based on vague indicators like the inmate
separating from his assigned group or approaching the
perimeter fence without authorization.
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol testified that a fellow guard killed five
prisoners and then, in an attempt to be rewarded, he falsely
reported that they had tried to escape. When an investigation
discovered the man's action, he was transferred to another camp,
but not severely punished "in order to maintain high spirits
[among the guards] within the camp."1121
* Mr Jeong Kwang-il described two executions linked to a suspected
escape attempt. In August 2001, a male inmate had left his group
to look for food because he was so hungry. He then went into
hiding, because leaving one's group is considered an escape
attempt, which is punishable by death. When the guards found him
after three days, they publicly executed him.
* In March 2003, another man left his work unit to take some
potatoes from the storage, because he was extremely hungry.
Fearing that the guards would try to consider this an attempted
escape, he tried to hide. The guards chased tracker dogs after
him. The dogs found and mauled the man until he was half dead.
Then the guards shot the victim dead on the spot.1122
1. The Commission finds that summary executions and other cruel
extrajudicial punishments are meted out for violations of the
camps' strict rules, disobedience of orders or any other
conduct considered worth punishing. The punishment process is
entirely in the hands of a special investigation unit of SSD
agents. Even a decision to impose the death penalty is not
subject to appeal or judicial review of any kind. Before a
"sentence" is pronounced, the victim is often subject to
lengthy interrogation under torture conducted by the SSD
investigation unit in the camp.
2. Executions are generally carried out in front of all inmates
to provide a warning for the rest of the inmates. Even family
members of the victims and children of all ages are usually
forced to attend. An SSD agent usually pronounces the reasons
for the executions, before a firing squad, normally composed
of regular camp guards, carries out the execution.
3. Other types of punishment can take a wide variety of forms
ranging from ration cuts and additional forced labour to
solitary confinement, beatings and mutilation. Physical
punishments are usually carried out in special punishment
blocks, which are also used for the interrogation of prisoners
under torture. At times, individual guards will also impose
torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments on the
spot without any formal investigatory process. Children are
not spared from even the cruelest punishments.
* When he was 14 years old, Mr Shin Dong-hyuk was interrogated
under torture for six months in the punishment block of Political
Prison Camp No. 14 to establish whether he knew about escape
plans discussed between his mother and brother. Among other
methods, he was strung over a lit fire until his back was burned.
He survived only because of the help of an older cellmate who
nursed his injuries.1123
On another occasion, Mr Shin accidentally dropped a sewing machine
at the factory he was forced to work at. The middle finger of his
right hand was cut off as punishment:
"The guard told the floor manager to cut off my finger, so got on
my knees and I begged not to do so but that didn't work obviously.
And, I thought my whole hand was going to cut off, but it was just
a finger. So, at that time I was grateful, really grateful to the
guard because I was only losing a finger instead of a hand."1124
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol recalled an incident in Political Prison Camp
No. 22, when his superior officer used a blowtorch to bludgeon a
sick prisoner to death, because the man had not worked fast
enough. After an investigation of the incident, the officer was
not punished but rewarded with the right to attend
university.1125
* Mr Kang Chol-hwan indicated that the "sweatbox" was used to
punish prisoners in Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok.
Located near the guards barracks at the main entrance, the
"sweatbox" was a wooden box so small that a person could not
fully stand up or lie down within it. The prisoner is forced to
kneel in a crouched position. The prisoner's rear end pressed
into the heels constantly until the buttocks were solid black
with bruising. This cuts off the circulation so that, if left in
the sweatbox long enough, a prisoner will die. Moreover,
prisoners in the sweatbox were given almost no food. They often
survived only by eating insects that crawl into the box. 1126
* According to one witness, who was detained in the revolutionizing
zone of Political Prison Camp No. 15, anyone who was reported to
have criticized the camp authorities was taken away into the
punishment block. Many never returned and may have been sent to
the total control zone for life imprisonment. Those who made it
back were in a terrible physical and psychological condition. The
witness remembers one inmate who returned from the punishment
block in such a pitiful state of health that he could not fulfil
his work quota. The guards beat him so savagely that he died two
days later.1127
1. Guards are taught that inmates are enemies of the people and
must be approached with hostility. They also realize that
individual cruelties towards inmates will generally not result
in any punishment.
* Describing his training, Mr Ahn Myong-chol indicated that "we had
very intensive ideology training for six months, and that
training is to… I guess invoke hostility against the inmates and
to imprint in our minds that the inmates are enemies."1128 He
also described how he and other guards sometimes felt sympathy
for the prisoners, but could never show it, because such signs of
sympathy would have resulted in punishment of the guard
concerned.
* The intensive ideology training that guard recruits like Mr Ahn
received aimed at invoking hostility against the inmates and
imprinting in their minds that the inmates are enemies. In order
to reemphasize this point, he and other guards were made to use
prisoners as ‘human punching bags' during their martial arts
training:
"Sometimes the instructors would summon inmates who were working in
the field. They were summoned so that we could practise our
[martial arts] skills on them. The reason for actually practising
our skills on these inmates was to … make these inmates stay on
alert and to instruct us that those are our enemies. … We did not
have people to practise on, so they summoned the inmates so that we
could practise our kicks and hits on them… We really don't care if
we are going to kill them or let them live."1129
Mr Ahn also spoke about how ferocious dogs were kept in one the
camps to catch inmates who attempted to escape. On one occasion,
the dogs mauled and killed three children at a school for child
inmates. The commanding officer initially berated the dog trainer
for letting the dogs loose. Later, however, he praised the
trainer in front of the other guards for having trained dogs that
could effectively kill political prisoners.
* Ms Kim Hye-sook endured her most humiliating moments in Political
Prison Camp No. 18 when some of the guards randomly stopped her
and ordered her to kneel down and open her mouth. The guards spat
in her mouth and tell her to swallow it. If she had shown any
sign of disgust she knew that she would have been severely
beaten.1130
1. The Commission finds that, in addition to its guards, the
political prison camps employ selected prisoners to control
and monitor other prisoners. Prisoners are organized into work
units. The prisoners appointed to head these units are
responsible for enforcing discipline and, to do so, they may
use violence at their own discretion. In addition, the camp
administration runs a system of informants who cooperate in
the hope of receiving larger food rations or more lenient
treatment from the guards. Individual prisoners are instructed
that failure to report any perceived wrongdoing of other
inmates could result in severe punishment. From their first
moments in the camp, this principle is also instilled in child
inmates, who are even expected to denounce their own parents.
* Mr Shin Dong-hyuk was 13 years old when he reported a
conversation he overheard between his mother and brother in which
they talked about escaping from the camp. As a result, his mother
and brother were both executed. Mr Shin had to watch the public
execution of his mother and his brother, along with all other
inmates. Mr Shin described the thought process leading to him
denouncing his own mother as follows:
"I first reported about their plan [to escape], because I was
obliged to report every detail to the guards... That was the rule
of the prison's camp, so that's why obviously I thought it was my
job to report about their plan to the guard at that time. At my
age, I was really proud of that. … I asked the supervisor to reward
me, to give full portion of cooked, dried rice so fill my stomach.
And, I was promised that reward and that's why I reported about
their plan."1131
(d) Sexual violence and denial of family and reproductive rights
1. Although policies appear to vary between camps, families sent
to the camps on the basis of guilt by association are often
allowed to stay together. The Commission finds, however, that
inmates of the existing prison camps are generally not allowed
to form new families or have children.1132 This policy is
consistent with the stated objective of eliminating the seed
of class enemies. Only on rare occasions do the camp
authorities arrange "marriages" between model prisoners who
distinguished themselves through hard work and absolute
obedience. The prisoners selected have no say in the choice of
partner. "Married" couples are not allowed to live together,
but are brought together for several nights per year for the
purpose of intimate contact. In some cases, this results in
the birth of children. Children born from such relations
themselves become prisoners.
2. Women who are not in authorized relationships and become
pregnant are subjected to forced abortion and additional
punishment, including execution or torture.
* Mr Shin Dong-hyuk's parents were designated by the guards to
"marry" each other since they had been model prisoners of Camp
No. 14. Mr Shin lived alone with his mother until age 11 but then
had to move into separate barracks. His father lived separately
within the camp, seeing him rarely. Mr Shin felt there was no
concept of family in the camp:
"We were all inmates and there was nothing that I could do to them
… And, they had nothing they can do as parents, so I guess I did
not feel any attachment or feeling for my parents."1133
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol indicated that Kim Il-sung had instructed that
three generations of inmates should be annihilated. This is why
pregnancies were strictly forbidden: He elaborated that "the camp
is there in order to make sure that there are no future
generations of the political prisoners." The camp authorities
sometimes allowed marriages to motivate the workers. However, if
an unmarried woman gave birth to the child of another inmate,
harsh punishment inevitably followed:
"[I]f the father is an inmate, the guy would be shot to death and
the woman will be sent to the harshest coal mines to work."1134
* A former political prisoner, who was detained from 2007 to 2010
in the revolutionizing zone of Political Prison Camp No. 15 at
Yodok, witnessed two cases, in which women who became pregnant
without authorization were forced to have an abortion. The
victim's term of imprisonment at Yodok was also extended. One of
the cases was a late term abortion, carried out through an
injection that induced premature labour. The witness herself was
forced to help the victim deliver the dead foetus.1135
* The witness was sent to Political Prison Camp No. 18 whilst
pregnant. Towards the end of her pregnancy, she was kicked by a
guard triggering premature labour. When the child was born,
guards beat her until they could pull away the crying baby from
her. She lost consciousness because of her ordeal. When she woke
up she found her baby dead. The body was gathered with other
corpses in a storeroom until enough corpses had accumulated to
merit throwing them into a single grave site. Still in pain and
bleeding, the witness was forced to work the next day and beaten
because she could not keep up with her work quota.1136
1. The Commission finds that the conditions of subjugation of
inmates, coupled with the general climate of impunity, creates
an environment, in which rape perpetrated by guards and
prisoners in privileged positions is common. In some cases,
female inmates are raped using physical force. In other cases,
women are pressed into sexual relations to avoid harsh labour
assignments, or to receive additional food.1137 Such cases
generally amount to rape as well, because they are not
consensual as the perpetrators take advantage of the coercive
advantages of the camp environment.1138
2. Unlike other types of torture, rape as such is not condoned by
camp rules. Instead, SSD agents and guards are under strict
orders not to fraternize with the inmates and in particular
not to have any sexual engagement with them. However, if cases
of rape come to light, the perpetrator often escapes with a
mere dismissal or no punishment at all. The victim, however,
is frequently reassigned to harsh labour or secretly executed,
especially if she becomes pregnant.1139 Without exception,
pregnant victims are subject to abortion or their child is
killed at birth.
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol gave testimony that, unlike ordinary guards,
higher-ranking SSD agents could get away with sexually abusing
female inmates, as long as the women did not become pregnant. In
cases of pregnancy, the official was dismissed and the women sent
to harsh mining work or secretly executed. On one occasion, the
commander of his unit raped a woman, who became pregnant and gave
birth to a baby. The mother and her child were taken to the
detention and punishment block, where the baby was thrown in the
feeding bowl for the dogs.
Mr Ahn Myong-Chol also recalled the case of a young girl, who was
sent to the torture and punishment block in Camp No. 22 after she
was raped by a guard. She was tortured by pressing a burning hot
stove hook on her breast. Subsequently, she was reassigned to harsh
labour in the coal mine, where she lost both legs in an accident.
Mr Ahn further testified that some of the guards played sadistic
and sexually abusive games with the hungry prisoners. On one
occasion, an SSD agent at Political Prison Camp No. 22 sat on a
chair and used a fishing rod, baited with pork fat to entice a nude
female prisoner to crawl like a dog and jump after the meat. The
SSD officer took obvious pleasure in this game, pulling up the
fishing rod just high enough to keep the prisoner from catching the
meat and lowering it again to give her another chance.1140
* Ms Kim Hye-sook described how the women who worked in the mines
of Political Prison Camp No. 18 feared assignment to the
nightshift, because guards and prisoners preyed on them on their
way to and from work and rape them. None of the victims talked
about their experience openly for fear of being punished.
However, a number of female prisoners recounted their traumatic
experiences to her in confidence.1141 Another witness reported
that the guards of Camp No. 18 were especially targeting teenage
girls. 1142
* A former guard in Camp No. 11 described how the camp authorities
made female inmates available for sexual abuse to a very senior
official who regularly visited the camp. After the official raped
the women, the victims were killed.1143
(e) Starvation, forced labour and diseases
1. Except for the minority of prisoners kept in the
revolutionizing zone of Political Prison Camp No. 15, camp
prisoners are considered ideologically irredeemable. They have
no prospect of securing release. Instead, they are subject to
gradual extermination through starvation and slave labour in
harsh conditions, with the apparent intent to extract a
maximum of economic benefit at a minimum of cost. Former
political prison camp guard Mr Ahn Myong-chol explained:
"Inmates in the [political prison camps] are not treated like human
beings. They are never meant to be released...] their record is
permanently erased. They are supposed to die in the camp from hard
labour. And we were trained to think that those inmates are
enemies. So we didn't perceive them as human beings."1144
1. Former inmate Mr Shin Dong-hyuk came to the same conclusion.
In his testimony before the Commission, he said:
"[T]he dictators in North Korea thought that we should die, we were
not worth living, they were just extending our lives, and they just
let us live so that we would produce for them and we could die in
the process working."1145
1. Inmates of political prison camps experience unspeakable
atrocities and hardships. However, the feature that former
inmates emphasized as most painful most was their severe
hunger and their daily struggle against starving to death.1146
Inmates are provided with rations that are so insufficient in
quantity, quality and diversity that any prisoner who solely
relies on the ration would quickly starves to death. The
starvation diet gives the emaciated political prisoners a
distinctly skeletal physical appearance. Every year, large
numbers of prisoners die from starvation or nutritional
deficiency diseases like pellagra, which is characterized by
skin eruptions, breakdown of the mental and digestive system
and mental deterioration. Prisoners are only be able to
survive over longer periods of time by hunting and gathering
insects, rodents and wild plants or finding ways to divert
food meant for the guards and farm animals.
2. The Commission finds that the starvation of prisoners is based
on deliberate policy, rather than being a mere reflection of
the overall situation of food insecurity prevailing in the
DPRK. It has been a constant feature of the camps that existed
even when the overall food situation in the DPRK was more
stable. Former guards and other security officials interviewed
by the Commission indicated that starvation was a deliberate
measure to keep prisoners weak and easy to control and to
augment their suffering.
* Ms Kim Young-soon described how her family was only provided with
corn and salt, when they were incarcerated at Political Prison
Camp No. 15 at Yodok in the 1970s. Her father starved to death.
Kim Young-soon said she always ran to her work because if she was
late her food rations were cut. Even if she had broken bones she
still needed to run to her work to avoid having her rations cut.
Their rations were so little of it that the families hunted
snakes and rodents to secure the survival of their young
children. Ms Kim recalled:
"[The] babies [had] bloated stomachs. [We] cooked snakes and mice
to feed these babies and if there was a day that we were able to
have a mouse, this was a special diet for us. We had to eat
everything alive, every type of meat that we could find; anything
that flew, that crawled on the ground. Any grass that grew in the
field, we had to eat. That's the reality of the prison camp."1147
* Mr Kang Chol-hwan testified that, during his ten years at
Political Prison Camp No. 15, he buried the bodies of more than
300 people who had died of starvation or malnutrition. Food
rations were provided once a month and usually consisted of corn
kernels that lasted no longer than half the month, even though
the food situation in the remainder of the DPRK was good at the
time of his incarceration in the 1980s.
"At that time, the economic situation was pretty stable, so I
think the food [situation in the country] was okay. But for
political criminals, they gave us a fistful of corn kernels once
a month... after 15 days, we would run out of food, so we had to
cut grass to cook porridge, to stay alive. Even fit men, healthy
people, after three months, would suffer from malnutrition. In
order to overcome malnutrition, we ate things like mice, snakes,
frogs, worms, anything that came into our sight, in order to get
protein. …The first three months after you enter the prison camp,
those three months are critical. … I developed malnutrition in
those three months and I came very close to dying. But kids who
were there before me, they caught mice in the field for me and
they saved me. … The elites, the intellectuals, the people who
used to be in higher positions, they are the first ones to die
because they don't dare to eat [mice and rats]. But those who had
a difficult life outside the camp, and kids, who leaned to their
instincts, they had higher survival rates."1148
* Mr Shin Dong-hyuk, born in 1982 in Camp No. 14, testified that he
was always hungry during his detention, because there was never
enough food. Although camp inmates raised animals and also farmed
rice, they were not given permission to eat this food and only
had access to the meagre rations allotted to them. Mr Shin
recalls that he was given only 400 grams of corn porridge per
day, so that to survive he had to find other sources of food such
as grass and mice.1149
* Even before the famine of the 1990s, Ms Kim Hye-sook's family of
seven only received 4.5 kilograms of dried corn per month, so
that they had to augment their diet to survive Political Prison
Camp No. 18.1150 During the famine, food rations were further cut
down to a point where only adults engaged in full time forced
labour would receive rations. Her grandmother died from
starvation and her exhausted mother fell from a steep cliff as
she tried to forage for edible wild plants.
* Mr Jeong Kwang-il and Mr Kim Eun-chol, detained from 2003 in Camp
No. 15, said that prisoners were only given 120 grams of corn
porridge three times a day. On special days, they received a
piece of pork in their soup. Rations were halved if workers did
not perform well.1151
1. As a matter of camp policy, the food rations of disobedient
prisoners are cut to a level where death by starvation results
in a short period of time. Former prisoners interviewed by the
Commission attested to the fact that rations in the prison
camps were frequently halved as a punishment for not working
well, for being too unwell or injured to work or as a
punishment for not following the rules of the camp. Former
officials indicated that such ration cuts were meticulously
outlined in the written instructions that the guards received
as part of their training.
2. Where prisoners are caught circumventing the starvation
rations, for example, by taking leftover food from the guards'
entitlements, animal feed or food produced in the camp, this
can result in extremely harsh punishment, including summary
execution.
* Mr Shin Dong-hyuk described how a girl of around 7 years of age
had slipped a few grains into her pocket. A guard caught her and
beat her so badly with a wooden stick that she died from her
injuries:
"[A]bout twice a week, [the guards] would choose one kid and do the
inspection to see if this person is stealing something or hiding
something, but she was so unlucky that she was chosen as the kid to
be inspected. And, in her pocket there were some grains and then
the guard asked where she got it. Then, she told the guard that she
picked them up on the street. There was a wooden stick that the
guards used. And, the guard says that's not the way I taught you,
so you went against my teaching. So, she was beaten so badly that
she fainted, and we had to take her to her mom. When she didn't
come to school the next day, we learned that she had died."1152
Mr Shin also described how inmates had to eat grass or food
crumbs that had fallen on the floor clandestinely so that the
guards would not see them:
"We had to make sure that the guards did not look at us when we
did that. And sometimes we had to ask the guards if we were
allowed to eat he crumbs that had fallen on the floor. There were
lots of mice, lots and lots of them … the inmates would rush
towards them, catch them, but if we saw any of the guards
present, the best performing worker among us would ask the guard
if we could catch and eat one of the mice. And, sometimes if the
guard was in a good mood, he would give permission, but sometimes
he would not give us permission to catch the mice. … Sometimes,
when we caught mice without the knowledge of the guard we would
hide it in our pants."
* Mr Kim Eun-chol recalled how a fellow inmate at Political Prison
Camp No. 15 was executed in front of the other inmates, because
he had stolen potatoes from one of the fields.
Mr Kim also testified that people caught stealing leftover food
were subject to solitary confinement and extreme starvation
rations in the punishment block of Political Prison Camp No. 15
at Yodok. Mr Kim elaborated on the experience of solitary
confinement:
"Once you are in there, not a lot of people make it out. Once you
are in the solitary cell, you are beaten up and they give you 30
grams per meal and you get cold, so that leads to an immediate
weakness. Somebody who weighs 50 kilograms [when they go in], their
weight is reduced to 20 kilograms [when they exit solitary
confinement]."1153
* The witness, who was detained at Political Prison Camp No. 18,
picked through cow dung to find undigested grains. When a guard
caught her, he kicked her in the head. She suffered a gashing
wound and lost several teeth. The witness also described how a
fellow prisoner was beaten to death when he tried to hide stolen
corn in his mouth. When another inmate tried to pry open the
corpse's mouth to take the corn, he was also savagely beaten.1154
1. The Commission finds that, in addition to enduring deliberate
starvation, inmates are also deprived of other basic needs of
survival. Even though temperatures can reach minus 20 degrees
Celsius in winter, they are housed in huts or basic barracks
that often lack window panes and effective heating. Blankets,
soap, sanitary pads for women and other hygiene items as well
as cooking utensils are provided infrequently or not at all.
2. The camps offer only the most rudimentary health care
facilities, which lack medical supplies and qualified
personnel and offer the seriously ill little more than a place
to die. The prevailing lack of hygiene and medical care
facilities the outbreak of epidemic diseases that kill large
numbers of the starving and exhausted prisoners.
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol described how an epidemic broke out and killed
200 prisoners in one camp because hungry prisoners were catching
and eating a type of rat that carried the disease. A lot of
deaths also occurred in winter and early spring (when the cold
was the harshest and food stocks were depleted).1155
* Mr Shin Dong-hyuk endured freezing winters in a small house that
had one window opening without glass: "There were a lot of winds
gusting in, and I remember being really cold in the winter
times."1156
* Mr K described that the prisoners of Camp 11 were living in straw
thatched mud shacks that were dug into the ground and placed
right next to the pigsties of the camp.1157
* Ms Kim Hye-sook had two children in the camp without receiving
any pre-natal or other medical care in relation to her
pregnancies. She was alone in the mountains foraging for edible
herbs, when she gave birth to her first child and had to drag
herself back to her living area, covering the new-born baby with
clothing rags and leaves.1158
* According to a former inmate, Political Prison Camp No. 18 lacked
medicine and doctors. Prisoners who were seriously ill were
gathered in a special "work unit" and just left to die. When
prisoners died, they were not buried right away. The dead bodies
were stored in a warehouse until there were enough bodies for a
mass burial. Rats often gnawed the flesh off these bodies.1159
1. The political prison camps run their own factories, farms,
mines and logging operations, producing among other things,
coal, clothing for the military and consumer goods. They also
produce more food than is being used by the inmates. In
particular, high quality foods such as meat are reserved for
the guards or sale. Roads and train connection ensure that the
goods produced reach the general economy. The production
facilities are administered to generate a maximum of economic
output at minimal cost, without proper regard for the well-
being and survival of the inmates. All inmates are subjected
to forced labour. They generally work 12 hours or more every
day of the week, even if they are very sick. They are only
exempted from forced labour (or have to perform only reduced
shifts) on important public holidays and days reserved for
maintenance activities.
2. The assignments most feared by inmates are in the mines and
logging sites that are located on the premises of some of the
camps. There, inmates have to toil with only basic tools in
particularly dangerous conditions. Deadly work accidents
frequently occur as a result of the combination of the
prisoners' dire physical condition and the lack of safety
measures.
3. Prisoners are subject to beatings, extended hours and food
ration cuts, if they do not fulfil their assigned daily work
quota. Very often, an entire work unit of prisoners is
collectively punished. This gives the work unit leaders among
the prisoners a strong incentive to drive fellow prisoners to
the point of complete exhaustion. They often beat those fellow
prisoners who lag behind.
4. In the revolutionizing zone of Political Prison Camp No. 15,
elderly prisoners no longer have to work, but receive only
reduced food rations. However, in the total control zone
prisoners apparently have to work until they die.
5. From the age of five, children are forced to engage in forced
labour such as farming or cleaning. In addition, they receive
a few hours of rudimentary education that is provided by SSD
agents. From age 15 or 16, children work full-time the forced
labour system and are not spared from even the most
backbreaking assignments such as mining.
* Born as a prisoner of Camp No. 14, Mr Shin Dong-hyuk described
how children received only very little education while spending
most of their time farming or doing other chores. He felt that
the camp authorities "were thinking that we were same as
[ploughing] animals that's why they felt that they didn't need to
teach us anything".1160 At age 15, he was assigned to help build
a hydropower dam on the Taedong River. On one occasion, three
adults and five children were crushed by a falling concrete wall.
The work crew had to continue working and could only dispose of
the bodies at the end of the shift. From age 16, Mr Shin had the
fortune to be assigned to work in a pigsty, a much coveted
position because of the possibility of access to clandestinely
obtain animal feed.1161
* Mr K found small sickles used in farming as he dismantled
Political Prison Camp No. 11. He was shocked and saddened to hear
from the SSD agents remaining on the site that these tools were
used by children as young as 5 years who were forced to work in
the fields, while only receiving a bare minimum of education.1162
* Ms Kim Hye-sook had to work in a coal mine at Political Prison
Camp No. 18 from age 15. Although there was nominally a system of
three shifts, they ended up having to work 16-18 hours a day to
maximize output. The men dug up the coal with picks and shovels.
The women then had to manually transport the coal to the surface
using sacks, buckets or coal trolleys. Both her husband and her
brother died in mining accidents. Like many others forced to work
in the mines, Ms Kim still suffers from black lung disease.1163
* Another witness, who had to work in the same mine, said that
every prisoner had to dig up or carry a quota of one ton of coal
per day. Some people ended up working 20 hours until they filled
their quota. The witness estimated that 200 people died every
year in that mine alone. 1164
(f) Deaths in custody and lack of respect for the dignity of the
dead
1. Political prisoners are considered to have been erased from
the citizenry. If they die their bodies are never returned to
the family outside the camp, but are disposed of with no
respect for cultural tradition and the dignity of the dead. If
they have family outside the camp, they will generally receive
no notification about the death.
* Mr Ahn Myong-chol explained that there is no designated burial
spot for inmates or a Korean-style tomb. Instead, they were
simply placed in shallow holes in collective burial sites:
"They sometimes buried bodies over other bodies. As we are digging
the ground and we sometimes found the bones, and so if there is a
[prison] mine, then surrounding hills, and mountains would be
something like a cemetery. There is no actual cemetery for
political prisoners..."1165
* Mr Kang Chol-hwan remembered that he buried over 300 bodies
during his 10 years in Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok.1166
Inmates assigned to bury the bodies stripped them of their
clothes so as reuse or barter them.1167 Eventually, the camp
authorities simply bulldozed the hill used for burials to turn it
into a corn field:
"As the machines tore up the soil, scraps of human flesh reemerged
from the final resting place; arms and legs and feet, some still
some still stockinged, rolled in waves before the bulldozer. I was
terrified. One of friends vomited. …. The guards then hollowed out
a ditch and ordered a few detainees to toss in all the corpses and
body parts that were visible on the surface."1168
1. Former prisoners and guards interviewed by the Commission all
concurred that death was an ever present feature of camp life.
In light of the overall secrecy surrounding the camp, it is
very difficult to estimate how many camp inmates have been
executed, were worked to death or died from starvation and
epidemics. However, based on the little the outside world
knows about the horrors of the prison camps, even a
conservative estimate leads the Commission to find that
hundreds of thousands of people have perished in the prison
camps since their establishment more than 55 years ago. 1169
4. Gross violations in the ordinary prison system
1. In addition to the political prison camps operated by the SSD,
the DPRK maintains an extensive system of ordinary prisons.
The existence of these prisons is acknowledged and they have a
legal basis in the Criminal Code.1170
2. Ordinary prisons are for the most part operated by the Prisons
Bureau of the Ministry of People's Security. They are subject
to the oversight of the Office of the Prosecutor. Perpetrators
of more serious crimes are sentenced to imprisonment in
ordinary prison camps (called kyohwaso, which literally
translates to "Reform and Edification Centre"). Less serious
crimes are supposed to be punished through imprisonment of a
few months to two years in "labour training camps"
(rodongdanryundae). In addition, there are various types of
detention and closed facilities for juvenile offenders and
street children.1171
3. According to information provided by the DPRK to the United
Nations Human Rights Committee in 2001, there were three
prison facilities, which housed 1,153 inmates at the end of
1998, 3,049 at the end of 1999 and 1,426 at the end of
2000.1172 In 2005, the DPRK reported to the Committee on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW) that in March 2005, only 40 women were imprisoned in
reform institutions following conviction.1173
4. On the basis of testimony and other information received, the
Commission finds that these numbers are grossly understated
and do not constitute a complete description of the prison
system. Information gathered about the number of different
prisons in existence and reported inmate figures for some of
the facilities, suggest that the number of inmates in the
ordinary prison system could be 70,000 or more.1174
5. The DPRK contends that its prisons are reform institutions
that provide reform of prisoners through labour.1175 It also
stated that in strict application of relevant regulations, its
prisons are equipped with bedrooms, bathrooms, dining-rooms,
workshops, education rooms, libraries, infirmaries and other
facilities, as well as with natural and electric lighting,
ventilation and heating. The inmates were provided with meals,
drinking water, clothing, bedding and health care. Doctors
checked their physical condition and provided appropriate
medical treatment free of charge. Reform institution officials
received special training and were prohibited from torturing
or insulting inmates. There was an eight-hour working day and
inmates were paid according to the quantity and quality of
their work. They had access to books, magazines and
newspapers, could watch films and television, listen to the
radio, play games, engage in sport and could receive visits
from and correspond with their family.1176 The DPRK also
insists that female inmates are assigned appropriate light
labour according to their physiological state.1177
6. To a certain degree, the model prisons occasionally shown to
outside visitors may live up to these standards. However,
testimony the Commission gathered from dozens of former
inmates and former officials who have seen other prisons
first-hand leads the Commission to find that the vast majority
of prisoners experience a very different reality. Patterns of
deliberate starvation, forced labour, inhumane living
conditions, torture and summary executions exist that are in
many respects similar to the patterns existing in political
prison camps, although the level of violations is less
intense.
(a) Ordinary prison camps (kyohwaso)
1. Many inmates of the ordinary prisons camps (kyohwaso) are
perpetrators of common crimes, including violent and economic
crimes. Sentences can involve disproportionally long terms of
imprisonment for relatively minor offences. However, the harsh
sentencing practice is to some degree offset by partial
amnesties decreed on politically important anniversaries.
These allow many inmates to secure an early release and commit
them to gratitude to their government for its generosity.
2. A considerable number among the kyohwaso inmates are
incarcerated for having exercised their human rights. Persons
who try to cross the border into China without authorization
may be imprisoned in a kyohwaso, in particular if they are
repeat offenders or come from families with bad songbun social
class. As Christianity is spread in the DPRK, ordinary
followers of the Christian religion with good songbun are
increasingly sentenced to imprisonment in ordinary prison
camps. Church leaders, active missionaries and other high-
profile offenders continue to be sent to political prison
camps.1178
(i)Size and location of ordinary prison camps
1. The name, location and set up of a number ordinary prison
camps (kyohwaso) is relatively well known. Like the political
prison camps, the authorities have assigned them numbers:
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12 at Jonggo-ri (North
Hamgyong Province) is one of the biggest and perhaps the best-
documented ordinary prison camp. Many of its inmates were
forcibly repatriated from nearby China or had contact with the
Christian churches operating in the border region. The prison has
an estimated 3,000-4,000 inmates, including about 1,000 female
prisoners who have been housed in a separate building since 2009.
KyohwasoNo. 12 operates a copper mine, as well as logging and
farming enterprises.
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 1 is located in Kaechon City
(South Pyongan Province) and has about 2,000 male and female
prisoners. The prison has a factory that produces clothing and
textiles, some of which is apparently being exported to countries
in the region.
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 4 serves mainly as a place of
detention for residents of Pyongyang and some members of the
military. Its main site with an estimated 4,000 prisoners is
located in Samdung-ri, Kangdong County (South Pyongan Province).
The prison also has several outposts in Pyongyang. The Hyongsan
outpost serves as a model prison occasionally shown to outside
visitors. However, the rest of the prison complex is grossly
overcrowded. In 2008, the entire prison complex reportedly housed
around 12,000 male and female prisoners, four times as many as
its intended capacity. The prison camp operates a coal mine and
various factories.
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 6 in Sariwon City (North
Hwanghae Province) consists of three sites. One of the sites at
Dorim has been shown to foreign visitors. The prison has 3,000-
4,000 prisoners who are forced to engage in farming and the
production of clothing and shoes.
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 9 in Hamheung (South Hamgyong
Province) was already built during the Japanese colonial period.
The Kyohwaso consists of a men's prison (estimated 1,500 inmates)
and a women's prison (500 inmates). The prison operates a coal
mine and also produces sewing machines and livestock.
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 11 in Cheungsan (South
Pyongan Province) is located in a mountainous area. It consists
of smaller housing structures and focuses its economic activities
on farming, livestock and salt manufacture. According to reports,
it has 3,000-5,000 male and female inmates.
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 22 at Oro, Yongkwang County
(South Hamgyong Province) is a smaller facility that was upgraded
from a labour training facility to a regular prison camp in 2006.
Its male and female inmates are mostly forced to work in farming.
1179
1. Less information is available on some of the other kyohwaso
that reportedly exist, including:
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 88, located in Chuksan
Village, Wonsan City (Kangwon Province), is said to have about
2,000 prisoners. Since 2007, it also houses female inmates.
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 2 in Dongrim County (North
Pyongan Province)
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 3 in Sinuiju (North Pyongan
Province)
* Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 7 in Kanggye City (Chagang
Province)
* Chonma Ordinary Prison Camp in Chonma County (North Pyongan
Province)
* Yongdam Ordinary Prison Camp in Chonnae County (Kangwon
Province).1180
1. The Commission cannot exclude the possibility that there are
other ordinary prison camps (kyohwaso), which are not yet
known to the outside world.
(ii)Unfair trials preceding imprisonment
1. Occasional cases of security officials committing a person
without trial to ordinary prison camps have been reported.
Yet, most inmates of ordinary prison camps (kyohwaso) have
been sentenced to a defined prison term following conviction
at trial. However, such trials fall short to such an extent of
the most basic fair trial guarantees, that many convicted
inmates must be considered victims of arbitrary detention. The
lack of independence and impartiality of the judicial system
manifests itself in a judicial process that appears commonly
to take the guilt of the accused for granted.1181
2. Article 164 of the DPRK Constitution prescribes that the
accused is guaranteed the right of defence. In practice,
trials often do not involve an actual evidentiary discovery
process. The defendants are expected to confess their crime
and show repentance.
3. A senior law officer working at the Supreme Court of the DPRK,
when speaking to a visiting foreign delegation, reportedly
summed up the presumption against innocence prevailing in the
DPRK as follows:
"Most defendants are those whose crime has already been revealed,
before indictment, through investigation by the police. When a
person comes to court, we do not think of them as innocent."1182
1. The Code of Criminal Procedure provides a right to defence
counsel, which is usually state-assigned. Yet, a number of
witnesses testified before the Commission how their own state-
assigned defence counsel either said nothing or even joined
the judge and the prosecutor in berating them for their
conduct. At most, defence counsel pleaded for leniency,
commonly based on the defendant's good songbun.
2. The DPRK Constitution requires trials to be open. However,
article 271 of the Code of Criminal Procedure sets out broad
exceptions, including by allowing for closed proceedings "in
case of negative impact". In practice, out of fear of
attracting the suspicion of the authorities, hardly anyone
dared to watch a trial unless officially summoned.
* Mr Kim Gwang-il was convicted to imprisonment in a kyohwaso by
the People's Court in Hoeryoung City (North Hamgyong Province).
The trial took place in a small room in the Court, with one
judge, one prosecutor, one defence attorney and two citizen jury
members present. The judge never bothered to ask whether he was
guilty:
"In North Korea, it's just unimaginable. The judge will not ask
[whether you are guilty or not] and the judge will just simply make
decisions. So let's just get this person this many years and that
many years. And the judge will never ask if we are guilty or
not."1183
Mr Kim had no opportunity to speak to his state assigned attorney
before the trial. The attorney also did not ask him any substantive
questions during the proceedings or attempt to argue a defence.
Instead, he merely asked Mr Kim if he had any pilots or military
officers in the family, which would have helped achieve a more
lenient sentence.
* Mr Kim Hyuk described the trial leading to his conviction to
three years imprisonment for illegally crossing the border into
China. Mr Kim received what he called an "unofficial trial" at
the police station. There was a judge, a prosecutor, a defence
attorney and a judge present. The defence attorney did not confer
with Mr Kim nor make any substantive representation. At the very
end of the proceedings, he merely asked the judge for leniency
because Mr Kim was young and an orphan.1184
* In the trial that led to her being sentenced to three years of
imprisonment in Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 11, the
witness had to keep her head down the entire time and was only
allowed to say yes as her alleged crimes were being read out to
her.1185
* Another man was convicted and sentenced to nine years of
imprisonment in Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12 for
hitting a prosecutor during the course of an interrogation.
During the trial, his own defence counsel harshly criticized him
for his conduct.1186
1. The abovementioned 2012 survey of persons who fled the DPRK,
which was carried out by the Korean Bar Association in the
Republic of Korea, found that only 19 per cent of the
respondents who underwent a criminal trial met their lawyer
before the trial. Only 5 per cent believed their lawyer was of
any help. In only 57 per cent of trials both the prosecutor
and the defence attorney were in attendance. In 81 per cent of
cases, the courts called no witnesses in favour of the
defendant. Only 54 per cent were allowed to make a final
statement in line with article 330 of the DPRK Code of
Criminal Procedure. Almost half of all respondents (46 per
cent) were subject to a closed trial.1187
(iii)Inhumane conditions of detention
1. In accordance with article 30 of the DPRK Criminal Code, the
civil rights ofkyohwasoinmates are considered to have been
partially suspended. However, compared to political prison
camp inmates, they derive a modest measure of protection from
the fact that ordinary prison camps are subject to oversight
by the Office of the Prosecutor. In addition, inmates are
entitled to receive a family visit once a month, although in
practice the family usually has to bribe the prison
authorities to be able to see the prisoner and to provide him
or her with food and other necessities of survival.
2. The Commission finds that prisons in the DPRK are generally
severely overcrowded. Toilets are shared and rarely cleaned.
There are no showers and prisoners can only wash themselves on
irregular occasions. They are often not given any soap or
other hygiene materials. Many prisons are poorly heated during
the harsh Korean winters. Inmates are expected to bring their
own clothes and blankets. Otherwise they are provided unwashed
second-hand materials, which are infested with lice, bed bugs
and other vermin.
* Mr Kim Gwang-il described how in Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso)
No. 12 at Jonggo-ri up to 60 or 70 people were kept in a cell
designed for 14 to 17 people. At night, people had to take turns
lying down, while others in the cell were standing. This led to
extreme exhaustion among the prisoners.1188 Another witness, who
was incarcerated in the same prison until 2011, added that
inmates who did not receive blankets from their families had to
make their own from their own clothes. The cells were infested
with bugs and lice and infectious diseases spread easily.1189
* According to another former inmate of Kyohwaso No. 12, the newly
constructed female ward was equally overcrowded. There were 1200
women in a facility constructed for 200 inmates. The hygienic
conditions were abysmal and lice and cockroaches abounded. Even
in winter, the female inmates could only wash themselves in the
river under the eyes of male guards. Only their family members
provided them with soap and sanitary napkins, which they often
had to wash out and reuse.1190
* A former female inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 11
at Cheungson described how she was held with 40 to 50 inmates in
a cell of approximately 40 square metres in the female section.
People could not lie down straight and fights about space were
frequent. In winter, it was extremely cold in the cellblock.
Inmates could only wash themselves once a month, and everyone had
lice. Every month, at least two people from her cell died.1191
1. Like the political prison camps, the ordinary prison camps
also operate mines, factories, farms and logging camps by
extracting forced labour from their inmates. The profits of
these ventures do not seem to be reinvested in the prisons.
Prisoners produce more food in quantity and variety than is
provided to them. While international law does not outlaw all
forms of involuntary prison labour for purposes of reforming
duly convicted criminals, the type of labour that ordinary
prison camp inmates are forced to do amounts in almost all
cases to a form of illegal forced labour as defined by
international standards.1192Prisoners are typically not duly
convicted in a proper court of law, but usually sentenced to
imprisonment in trials that fail to respect the most basic
guarantees of fairness. The forced labour of prisoners must
also be regarded as a form of political coercion, since it is
systematically coupled with compulsory daily indoctrination
sessions focusing on the achievements and teachings of the
ruling Kim family. In this regard, the Commission finds that
the prison system does not seek to reform prisoners in a human
rights-compliant sense, but serves to subdue them and re-
establish their absolute obedience to the political system and
its leadership.
2. This finding is reinforced by the fact that work conditions
are so inhumane that the work cannot be said to serve any
legitimate, rehabilitative purpose. Surviving on starvation
food rations, the prisoners are forced to work without pay for
9-12 hours every day of the week. Work that was normally be
undertaken by machines or beasts of burden (e.g. ploughing or
coal extraction) must be carried out manually in the DPRK's
prisons, using rudimentary tools. If prisoners fail to fulfil
their onerous daily work quotas or accidentally damage prison
property, they are subject to torture and inhuman punishment,
including beatings, solitary confinement and cuts to their
already meagre food rations. Deadly work accidents are very
frequent because little consideration is given to work safety.
* One former inmate worked in the limestone quarry and the gold
mine of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No 4 in Kandong County,
South Pyongan Province. The inmates were so tired and exhausted
that work accidents were very frequent. On one occasion, he
suffered an open fracture of his foot in a mining accident. The
skin was sewn together without anaesthesia and he was ordered to
report back to the mine the same day. He only survived, because
the head of his work unit reassigned him to lighter duties.
He witnessed several workers being crushed to death after their
hands or clothing got caught in the limestone crushing machine.
The air was so dusty that they could not see very well. They just
heard a scream and when they rushed to the machine they find a
mangled body hanging from the crusher.1193 Very similar types of
deadly crushing accidents were related by another witness, who
worked in the copper mine of Kyohwaso No. 12 of Jonggo-ri.1194
* A former inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 22 at Oro
had to farm without proper tools and even had to spread
fertilizer consisting of human faeces with their bare hands.1195
1. In a 2005 submission to the Committee on the Elimination of
all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the DPRK contended
that female inmates only work in workshops that produce such
items as clothes, shoes or bags, for which they are
remunerated.1196 While the Commission has not received any
information about women having to engage in mining in the
ordinary prison system, it received numerous credible accounts
from female inmates that they had to engage, without pay, in
backbreaking work in forestry and farming.
* A former female inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12
at Jonggo-ri, had to rise every morning at 5 a.m. She collected
wood until 10p.m. every day. Inmates who worked too slowly were
beaten. Inmates only received used clothes and she could hardly
walk in the ill-fitting shoes given to her. When she could not
keep up with the rest of her unit marching to work, the guard put
a rope around her neck and dragged her along.1197
* A female inmate, who was detained at KyohwasoNo. 12 until 2011,
had to do hard farming work. However, the food produced in the
farms was used to feed the guards. The small rations left her so
hungry that she ate different types of grass, wild mushrooms and
tree bark to survive. A number of times, she saw other inmates
being beaten for stealing food.1198
* Similar hard farming work was also forced on another woman, who
was detained at Kyohwaso No. 12 until the end of 2010. The guards
always watched the hungry prisoner to make sure that they did not
take any of the corn they had to grow. When the female prisoners
concluded their work at around 7 p.m. in the evening, they still
had to sit through long indoctrination sessions emphasizing the
greatness of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung.1199
1. When they enter the ordinary prison camps, most new arrivals
are already weak and starving following weeks or months of
starvation rations in interrogation detention centres and
temporary police holding facilities. At the kyohwaso they
continue to be exposed to starvation. Food rations provided in
the ordinary prison camp vary depending on the forced labour a
prisoner is assigned to do and the prisoner's conduct. Despite
having to engage in strenuous types of forced labour, the
average prisoner only receive about 300 grams of rough corn
porridge or cooked rice with beans per day. This amount of
food provides only a fraction of the minimum dietary energy
requirement for adults in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, as calculated by the United Nations.1200Therefore,
those who do not find additional sources of food are
effectively condemned to starving to death. Many inmates of
ordinary prison camps survive only thanks to extra food that
their families bring during monthly visits. Others feed
themselves by hunting rodents and other vermin, eating grass
and wild plants or finding ways to divert animal feed for
their own use.
2. Former officials confirmed that the policy of starvation
rations is deliberate, so as to keep prisoners weak and easy
to control. This is also evidenced by the fact that the
surplus food and other resources generated by the prisons'
forced labour do not appear to be applied towards providing
prisoners with adequate food and other necessities of
survival.
* Mr Kim Gwang-il, a former inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp
(kyohwaso) No. 12 at Jonggo-ri testified that the prisoners
starved as they only received 80 grams of bad quality food per
meal:
Most people became very weak. The food they gave us was less than
80 grams per meal but if you did something wrong, if you slipped
up, they would give you less. … They fed us some things that not
even the pigs would eat, like for example, rotten cucumber.
Boiled rotten cucumber was given to eat. And if we refused to eat
that we would be punished. Sometimes we would be punished by
being given less than 50 grams [of food].1201
* Mr Kim added that prisoners became so desperate that they hunted
and ate the snakes that lived on the prison's premises.
* Mr Kim Hyuk, another former inmate of Kyohwaso No. 12, indicated
that most prisoners only survived thanks to the food their
families bring them. Some inmates waited in vain for their family
and would die. Since he was an orphan, Mr Kim could not rely on
any help from outside:
"I knew I had to survive on my own. So I would eat anything, and I
ate lizards, snakes, rats, whether it was reptiles, whatever.… in
the springtime, I would eat grass, but if you eat the wrong grass,
then you would get poisoned and you would get all the swelling and
bloated. I would eat different types of grass and the roots."1202
* According to another inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso)
No. 12, inmates only received five small potatoes in the morning
and a small cup of corn porridge and salted soup with some
cabbage leaves for lunch and dinner. Everyone was very hungry and
rapidly lost weight. Those who did not have family to bring food
them food died quickly. On one occasion an inmate consumed
everything his family sent him at once because he was so hungry.
He was not used to taking in so much food and vomited. He swept
the vomit into a bag to keep it for when he got hungry again.
On another occasion, the witness's work unit had to plant seeds
into little pots that were later planted as seedlings onto the
field. Fearing the hungry inmates would eat the seeds, the guards
soaked them in urine and manure. The inmates still tried to eat
them. Therefore, the guards made them call their prisoner
numbers, going round and around between the prisoners, so that
none of them had a free moment to chew and swallow any seeds. If
prisoners did not say their number, the guards put a walnut sized
rock in their mouth to prevent them from eating.1203
* According to a former inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso)
No. 9 in Hamhung, the inmates were so malnourished that they
looked like skinny sticks with big heads. Prisoners tried to
catch rats to survive. However many were no longer fast enough,
given that they were forced to work outside every day from 8 a.m.
until late in the evening, regardless of the weather. Some
prisoners from more privileged backgrounds bribed the guards to
be assigned better rations and easier forced labour. Such
prisoners were nicknamed the "dining class".1204
(iv)Torture and executions
1. Inmates of ordinary prison camps are subject to strict rules
and must demonstrate absolute obedience to the guards. Failure
to obey an order is punished in a variety of ways, ranging
from food ration cuts and deprivation of sleep to reassignment
to harsher labour, beatings and solitary confinement in tiny
cells. Former inmates of different ordinary prison camps
indicated that solitary confinement meant imprisonment in
cells so small that the victim could not lie down or stand up.
During time served in solitary confinement, the food ration is
reduced to less than 100 grams of rice or corn porridge per
day.
2. Guards often impose punishments on prisoners on the spot. Even
serious cases of physical abuse by the guards or prison unit
leaders, acting on their behalf, do not result in any
accountability. Prisoners incarcerated for politically
sensitive crimes are often singled out for particular
punishment.
* Mr Kim Gwang-il described how guards at Ordinary Prison Camp
(kyohwaso) No. 12 at Jonggo-ri had the right to beat or otherwise
torture them at any point, including for trivial matters such as
snoring while sleeping. The guards also assigned inmates to the
worst forced labour or cut their rations based on reports of
misconduct they received from informers among the prisoners.1205
* A former inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 1 at
Kaechon, who was sent to prison for expressing her Christian
religion, was punished 10 times with solitary confinement during
her seven years of detention. She was also assigned to pull the
cart used to remove excrement from the prison latrines. Several
times the guards made her lick off excrement that had spilled
over in order to humiliate and discipline her.1206
* Another former prisoner recounted how he and other prisoners of
Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12 at Jonggo-ri were ordered
to protect the stems of corn from heavy rains by placing earth
around it. When inmates used the occasion to eat corn and the
guards caught them, they made them keep a corn stalk in their
mouth all day. Any inmate dropping the stalk received a heavy
beating.1207
* A man who had been convicted in relation to illegal travel and
smuggling across the Chinese border talked o a fellow inmate in
his cell at Kyohwaso No. 12, even though that was not allowed.
The guard punished him by ramming a metal rod in his mouth,
causing him to lose several teeth.1208
* Another former inmate of Kyohwaso No. 12 broke the rule of never
looking a prison official in the eye. According to his testimony,
he was beaten with a club and kicked until he bled and his arm
was broken.1209
1. Ordinary prison camps in the DPRK are usually secured by high
walls topped with barbed wire and electrified fences with a
deadly voltage. Closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras have
also recently been installed to monitor the interior of the
prison. Guards have the right to shoot to kill escaping
prisoners. Those who are caught alive are subject to extremely
harsh punishment. Until a few years ago, inmates who tried to
escape were summarily executed on a regular basis. It is
uncertain whether such executions remain the practice today.
* Mr Kim Hyuk witnessed the execution of a prisoner of Ordinary
Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12 who attempted to escape. Mr Kim
himself narrowly escaped execution, when on one occasion he was
separated from his work unit, while in the mountains. He was
investigated for attempted escape and the guards beat him with
their rifle butts in the head to force him to confess. Eventually
he was able to convince them that he had only become lost.1210
* In 1997, another inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12
was forced to watch the execution of a man who attempted to
escape. After the execution was over, the prison's director had
his driver tie a rope around the neck of the dead prisoner. The
other end of the rope was tied to the back of a car. The car
drove four times around the prison court yard, dragging the body
behind it. All inmates had to watch this brutal spectacle, which
was meant to serve as a warning against future escape attempts.
* Another witness, imprisoned at Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso)
No. 11 in Cheungsan from 2004 to 2007, recounted that it was
established prison policy to summarily execute anyone caught
trying to escape. The witness saw several executions of such
prisoners.1211
* According to another man who was detained at Ordinary Prison Camp
(kyohwaso) No. 12 until 2011, prisoners who tried to run away
were shot to death while trying to escape. The witness did not
see any summary executions of those caught alive. Such inmates
were reassigned to harsh work that likely caused them to die.
Each prisoner was also partnered up with another prisoner and
ordered to watch the other. In case one attempted to escape, the
other prisoner was also punished.1212
(v)Rape and forced abortion
1. There is an increasing number of female prisoners, not least
since many of those who flee to China and are subsequently
repatriated are women. Male and female inmates are generally
kept separate, in line with international standards. However,
male guards are often assigned to guard female prisoners.
While sexual contact between guards and prisoners is not
condoned by the prison authorities, the power differential
between guards and inmates makes it easy for guards to abuse
and rape prisoners with impunity. The instances of rape
include cases where guards demand sex in exchange for food or
other essential goods that prisoners require to survive the
ordinary prison camp, thus taking advantage of the coercive
circumstances of the prison environment.1213 It is difficult
to quantify the number of rapes taking place in the DPRK's
ordinary prison system, since many victims will not reveal
such abuse in light of the social stigma attached to rape.
* Mr Kim Hyuk witnessed how the hospital chief raped a woman at
Kyohwaso N. 12. On another occasion, he saw a guard raping a
woman.1214
* According to a former female inmate of the same prison, the
guards had the prettier among the female inmates sit close to the
bars, so that they could grope their breasts. The same witness
also knew several women who agreed to sexual contacts with the
guards to receive more than the usual starvation rations or other
benefits that allowed them to survive. On one occasion, one
female inmate spoke about such a sexual contact with others. The
guards made her kneel outside covered from head to toe in thick
layers of snow, so that she appeared like a grotesque human
snowman.1215
In the past, women who entered the prison already pregnant or
become pregnant in prison regularly had to undergo a forced
abortion, including at the late stages of the pregnancy when the
foetus is already viable to survive on its own. Some prisons
systematically administered blood tests to new female inmates to
check for pregnancies. In more recent years, more cases have been
reported of women being allowed to leave the prison to have the
child and then return while the child remains in the custody of
family members. 1216
* The authorities at Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 9 forced
the witness, who served as a medical assistant, to administer a
fellow inmate who was three months into her pregnancy with a
deworming medicine so as to trigger an abortion. When this
medication failed to have the desired effect, the victim was
forced to drink an opium concoction and aborted the child. The
foetus was fed to the pigs kept in the prison.1217
* Another witness related the case of a fellow inmate forced to
have an abortion while the witness was imprisoned at Ordinary
Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12 from 2004-2011.1218
(vi)Lack of medical care, deaths in custody and lack of respect for
the dead
1. The Commission finds that, every year, thousands of people die
in the ordinary prison camps in the DPRK. They die from
deliberately imposed starvation, disease, executions and
injuries sustained as a result of work accidents and beatings.
2. Starvation and related diseases constitute the primary cause
of death. In many prisons, the authorities have devised
regular starvation check-ups to systematically identify those
who are expected to die soon. Despite methodically keeping
track of starvation in prisons in this manner, the authorities
are not changing the underlying policies that lead to such
starvation. Instead, those who are found to be in a critical
stage are taken out of their work units. No meaningful medical
interventions are provided to prevent prisoners in a critical
state of starvation from dying. On some occasions, prisoners
who are deemed to be terminally ill are released and handed
over to their families in the expectation that their death is
highly likely to occur quickly.
* During his imprisonment at Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 9
at Hamhung, the witness was assigned to work as a "medical
apprentice". In this role he came to know that 480 out of 1200
inmates who were held there in the winter of 1999/2000 died over
the course of six months. Medical staff regularly measured the
space between a prisoner's buttocks to gauge his or her level of
starvation. Those classified to be in a critical stage were taken
out of their forced labour units and brought to a dying room.
They were provided with the usual food, but no medicine or any
treatment to prevent death from starvation. The prisoners
assigned to help them were themselves so hungry that they tried
to steal the dying prisoners' food. The bodies of those who died
were collected in a storeroom, where rats often gnawed on their
bodies, before being burned in large numbers in a furnace on the
prison grounds.1219
* Mr Kim Gwang-il indicated that similar starvation check-ups were
performed at Kyohwaso No. 12 to find those who were likely going
to die from starvation:
"Everybody suffers from malnutrition. In the jail, they determine
whether you are physically weak or not by stripping you naked and
they see how your butt cheeks are. If your butt cheeks are apart
and loose, the guards see if their fists can fit in between the
butt cheeks. And that's how they determine whether if you are weak
or not. The person standing up received ‘class 1st weakness', the
one standing to his sideways is ‘2nd class', and the third person
is ‘3rd class'. So if you are determined to be weak like them, you
will never make it out of this camp."1220
* The Commission also received testimony from a man, who served as
a medical assistant during his imprisonment in Ordinary Prison
Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12 at Jonggo-ri. During the 12 months he
spent there, everyone suffered from malnutrition and he
personally knew of 178 cases of prisoners who died. He was
required to wake people up during the night and see if they were
lucid. Those who were not, were given a drip for five minutes,
but no other intervention. Some prisoners who were close to dying
were sent back to their family to die there.1221
1. A large number of the weak prisoners die from infectious
diseases. The dismal hygienic conditions in the overcrowded
cells provide an ideal breeding ground for infectious
diseases. Epidemics regularly ravage the ordinary prison
camps. Prisons usually have a military doctor who is assisted
by unlearned prisoners. However, the medical facilities lack
the equipment and medicine necessary to provide effective
medical assistance. Inmates who get seriously ill often
survive only because of medicine supplied by their families.
2. The bodies of those who die in prison are never returned to
their families. Instead, they are often tossed into mass
graves or collectively burnt without respect for the dignity
of the dead. The families are often not notified about the
death, although many come to find out when they arrive to
visit a relative and are told that the inmate has died.
* Ms Jee Heon A described how, in one day alone, a disease causing
severe diarrhoea killed about 20 inmates at KyohwasoNo. 11 at
Cheungsan. They did not have any medicine, except for burnt corn
stalks that had been ground into a powder. The bodies were buried
in a mass grave known as "flower hill". Among the victims was a
close friend of Ms Jee:
"She began to lose a lot of weight to the point that she could not
get up, and eat with her own hand … there was nothing I could do. I
could not give her any medicine. And when she died, she couldn't
even close her eyes. She died with her eyes open. I cried my heart
out."
Ms Jee tied a bottle around her dead friend's body with a piece of
paper noting her name, date of birth and date of death so that she
may be recognized one day.1222
* Another former inmate of Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 11
described how she hunted frogs and rats and ate grass to survive.
Especially in winter, lots of inmates were dying of starvation.
Many people also died from diseases including diarrhoea, since no
medicine other than a few medical herbs was available. Her job
was to carry the bodies to the "flower hill" mass grave which was
said to already be the burying ground for 5000 bodies. They had
to dig holes for the dead that were so small and shallow that the
bodies had to be bent to fit. On some occasions the deceased
person's knees stuck out of the ground.1223
* According to Mr Kim Gwang-il, there were hundreds of deaths
during his two years and five months at Ordinary Prison Camp
(kyohwaso) No. 12. Mr Kim was himself involved in the disposal of
the bodies of over 100 prisoners. The bodies were collected in a
storeroom, where they were often eaten by rodents or rot in the
summer heat. When enough bodies had piled up, they would be
heaved on a large cart and driven up to the mountains, where they
were burnt. Inmates who were strong enough were forced to assist
in the disposal of the bodies. Mr Kim described how the bodies
were "burnt like rubbish", with the mortal remains sometimes
being used as fertilizer for the prison fields.1224
* A former male inmate confirmed that the practice of burning the
dead collectively and using their ashes as fertilizer carried on
at Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No. 12 was still ongoing when
he was released in 2011. On one occasion, he was forced to bring
a pile of bodies up the mountain and saw that rats had already
gnawed of the flesh from their faces. The witness estimates that
at least 800 prisoners died every year from malnourishment,
infectious diseases and accidents at work.1225
* A former prisoner remembered that in 1997 and 1998, around 500
inmates died from a typhoid epidemic in Kyohwaso No. 12 at
Jonggo-ri. Another former inmate experienced a second typhoid
epidemic that ravaged in that prison in the winter of 2009/
2010.1226 So many people died that entire work units ceased to
function. She contracted typhoid herself and got so weak that the
guards dumped her in the room assigned for inmates who were
considered close to death. She thinks she survived only because
she licked the icy water from the windows to bring down her
fever. When it was discovered she was still alive she was sent
back to her cell. Only later was she provided with medication
that helped her survive.1227
* A woman who was imprisoned at Ordinary Prison Camp (kyohwaso) No.
22 at Oro recalls that lots of people died from starvation and
beatings in the prison. Their bodies were collected in one of the
corn barns and then dumped into a mass grave.1228
* A former MPS official saw numerous starving prisoners who were
left to die during a visit to Kyohwaso No. 4 in Kandong
County.1229 Shocked by what the witness saw, the witness made an
enquiry with the MPS Corrections Bureau in 2010 and was informed
that more than 800 inmates per year were dying in Kyohwaso No. 4.
The death toll was aggravated by the fact that many inmates were
from nearby Pyongyang. In consequence of them having committed
crimes, their families had been banished from Pyongyang to remote
provinces.1230 This meant that the families could not regularly
visit them and bring food.
(b) Short-term forced labour detention camps
1. Persons who are found to have committed smaller crimes may be
sent to short-term prison camps, where they are usually
imprisoned for periods ranging from one month to one year. For
example, persons repatriated from China, who convince the SSD
that they spent a relatively short time there and avoided
contact with churches or ROK citizens, are typically sent to
such prison facilities. People of good songbun who are caught
using a Chinese mobile phone or watching foreign movies might
get away with a stint in such facilities.
2. Men and women are kept separate in line with international
standards. Among the inmates of some facilities are also
children. However, they are generally assigned lighter forms
of labour.
3. The vast majority of short-term forced labour camps are
administered by the MPS and local authorities. A very small
number of the known short-term forced labour detention camps
are run by the SSD and the KPA Military Security Command.
4. The most common among the short-term prisons are called
"labour training camps" (rodongdanryundae). They started being
set up from the 1990s, in accordance with an order from Kim
Jong-il that correctional facilities for misdemeanours should
be established by local authorities at the county level.1231
Today, article 31 of the Criminal Code, which foresees the
punishment of labour training, provides the legal basis for
such camps.
5. In a comprehensive 2012 study, the Database Center for Human
Rights in North Korea identified 49 labour training camps
administered by the MPS and two by the KPA Military Security
Command.1232 The true number might be a lot higher considering
that such facilities were to be established at the level of
every county.
6. In addition, the MPS operates facilities referred to as labour
reform centres (kyoyangso) in provinces and major cities.1233
Perpetrators of crimes of medium severity, including less
grave forms of "anti-socialist behaviour", are often assigned
to forced labour in these prisons. The MPS and SSD holding
centres (jipkyulso) are also effectively used as places of
punishment in the DPRK, although there appears to be no legal
basis for that. 1234
7. Inmates of all three categories of short-term prisons have in
common that their punishment resulting in loss of liberty is
not based on criminal conviction by a court of law, as would
be required by international law. Instead, their guilt and
punishment was determined by the MPS or the SSD, which form
part of the executive branch of government. Only in a minority
of cases, inmates of labour reform centres and labour training
camps have gone through a trial, and if they did it so it was
the type of grossly unfair judicial trial described above.1235
Therefore, hardly any of the inmates can considered to be duly
convicted by a court of law; they are victims of arbitrary
detention and illegal forced labour as defined under
international law.
* After her interrogation under torture was concluded, the witness
was "sentenced" by an SSD agent to six months at a labour
training camp for having illegally crossed into China. The agent
took into account as a mitigating circumstance that she had only
spent a very short time in China and had gone there with the
intent to support her family. She had to sign (by finger print) a
document pledging never to go to China again and not to disclose
what happened to her during her interrogation by the SSD.1236
* Another woman recounted how SSD agents committed her, without any
form of trial, to a labour training camp in South Hamgyong
Province, because she had been illegally in China. She was never
told how long her punishment would be and ended up being kept for
four months. The witness ascribes her survival only to the
fortunate coincidence that the camp's manager was an old friend
of her father's.1237
* In 2009, the witness, a young woman from Hyesan (Ryanggang
Province), was denounced by her friend, because she had secretly
watched movies produced in the ROK. Four MPS officers
interrogated her until 3 a.m. in the morning and slapped her face
until she admitted to her "crime". Thereafter, she was detained
incommunicado and forced to write a confession statement. After
nine days of detention, she was brought before a gathering of
police officers. Her "trial" before these police officers
consisted of an announcement what crime she committed and that
she had to serve six months of imprisonment.1238
1. Short-term forced labour detention camps positively
distinguish themselves from the ordinary prison camps because
prisoners can receive family visits on a more frequent basis.
Security measures also tend to be less strict. There are only
few reported cases of escape attempts from such prisons that
resulted in summary executions.1239
2. In other respects, however, the inmates of short-term prisons
suffer violations similar to those in ordinary prison camps
(kyohwaso). Kept in inhumane hygienic conditions, they have to
engage in forced labour while receiving so little food that
they face starvation. Prisoners who do not perform their work
well or who disobey the guards are beaten, often severely.
Few, if any medical services are provided in the short-term
camps. Prisoners who become very sick are taken to local
hospitals. Many prisoners die from starvation, disease or
injuries sustained during beatings and work accidents. In a
considerable number of cases, prisoners who are expected to
die soon are handed over to their families, so that the
detention camp is not saddled with the responsibility and the
burden to handle the dead body. Witnessed also relayed a
number of cases of forced abortion carried out in labour
training camps.
* Detained in a labour training camp in Hamhung (South Hamgyong
Province) after his repatriation from China, Mr Timothy only
received five spoons of unspiced rice and bean porridge per meal.
The malnourished inmates, who looked like "skeletons barely
covered with skin", had to be up from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m. every
day. In addition to having to perform hard labour, they also
received ideology instruction. Those who failed to memorize the
teachings of Kim Il-sung correctly had their prison term
extended. After a month or two of imprisonment, a lot of inmates
died:
"You see so many bodies, dead bodies, coming out of the detention
centres. People who try to escape [the DPRK] are the first ones to
go out dead."1240
* Ms P was forced to carry logs of wood and cut grass during her
imprisonment in a labour training camp in North Hamgyong
Province. The prisoners were starving:
"Weweregiven … corn-based food, just enough to keep us alive. For
young male inmates, [the food provided] was very insufficient, so
male inmates would find worms or snakes in the field when they were
working there. They would eat them alive to feel that feeling in
the stomach."1241
* Another woman, who had also been forced to work in logging during
her detention in a labour training camp, described how a lot of
inmates were crushed by tree trunks as they tried to carry the
large logs down the mountain slopes on their backs.1242
* In 2004, the witness was imprisoned in a labour training facility
following her interrogation by the SSD in Sinuiju. She was forced
to do farming and logging work starting at 5a.m. She received a
lump of maize and five pieces of pickled radish per day. She
injured herself and was limping so that she could not work as
fast as the others. A guard punched her face, causing her to lose
a tooth and pass out. After regaining consciousness, she
immediately had to return to the field despite the fact that she
could hardly stand on her own. As she was not able to do any work
the guards started beating her again. She was eventually examined
by a doctor, but not provided any medicine.
The witness also recalled an incident, where a woman was caught
eating raw rice grains she took from the field. She was taken to
the cell block and beaten up. When the witness tried to help her,
she was beaten up as well.
Cases of diarrhea were quite common and one inmate in her cell died
because she received no treatment. The victim's body was so
emaciated that the guards could simply fold it over to carry it
away with great ease.1243
* In 2000, the witness spent six months of imprisonment in an all-
female labour training camp in North Hamgyong. There were 30 to
40 inmates crammed into a 28square metres cell. They had to sleep
on the straw covered floor. The prison only supplied raw corn and
salted soup. However, family members were allowed to visit and
bring food. She had to carry sandbags and rocks. At night,
inmates were also forced to march and run. Those who did not do
well were beaten.1244
* A former labour training camp inmate witnessed a 7 month pregnant
woman in her 20s being kicked many times in the stomach at a
short term labour camp in Hyesan. During the night, the victim
miscarried and the women in her room helped to deliver the baby.
The baby was born alive, but after about 1 minute died. The
witness wrapped the baby's body in a cloth and left it in the
corridor. The body stayed there for a week until the guards took
it away.1245
* A woman detained in another labour camp described a similar case.
A heavily pregnant woman, who had been repatriated from China,
was being kicked in the stomach until she started bleeding. The
guards took her to the hospital. When she returned, her belly was
no longer swollen and her eyes were swollen from crying. This led
the witness to conclude that the woman lost the child.1246
5. Executions
1. The DPRK continues to impose the death penalty. Capital
punishment is provided for by article 27 of the DPRK Criminal
Code. While the DPRK does not provide any comprehensive
statistics, first-hand testimony collected by the Commission
and other observers leads the Commission to find that a large
number of persons are executed every year in the DPRK. In the
vast majority of cases, the strict conditions and safeguards
that article 6 of the ICCPR requires in relation to the death
penalty are not observed.
2. The 2004 reform of the DPRK Criminal Code reduced the number
of crimes that are subject to the death penalty in the DPRK.
However, the Criminal Code's remaining death penalty
provisions still cover a wide range of conduct that extends
far beyond the ‘most serious crimes' to which article 6 ICCPR
limits the application of the death penalty. Moreover, some
death penalty provisions are so broad and vaguely defined that
they can easily be abused to suppress the exercise of human
rights. Article 59 of the DPRK Criminal Code, for instance,
allows the death penalty to be imposed inter alia for grave
cases of participating in a demonstration with anti-state
purposes. In grave cases, the death penalty may also be
imposed on a "Korean national, who, under the control of
imperialists, suppresses the people's struggle for national
liberation or the struggle for the reunification of the
country or betrays the nation by selling national interests to
imperialists."1247
3. Since 2007, the scope of crimes subject to the death penalty
has been once again expanded. In September 2007, the Standing
Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly adopted an
ordinance that contains an annex to the Criminal Code with new
offences. Sixteen of the new offences are subject to the death
penalty. In accordance with the decree, economic crimes such
as "extremely grave" cases of smuggling precious metals or
intentionally destroying state property are now subject to the
death penalty. Most disturbingly, the 2007 decree contains a
"catch all" clause, allowing for the sentence of death where a
perpetrator commits multiple particularly grave crimes and the
court considers that the perpetrator cannot be rehabilitated.
4. In 2009, the Ministry of People's Security issued a
proclamation on behalf of the Government of the DPRK that
prohibits various types of illegal trading in foreign
currency. The proclamation envisages harsh criminal sanctions,
including the death penalty. The same year, the death penalty
was also extended to the crime of "disloyal destruction for
anti-state purposes" under article 64 of the Criminal Code.
(a) Public executions in central places
1. Almost every citizen of the DPRK has become a witness to an
execution, because they are often performed publicly in
central places. In many cases, the entire population living in
the area where the execution takes place must attend,
including children. In other cases, executions are conducted
in stadiums or large halls in front of a more selected
audience.
2. The DPRK generally does not provide statistics on the number
of executions carried out. In response to a question of the
United Nations Human Rights Committee, the DPRK stated in
October 2001 that only 13 executions were carried out between
1998 and 2001 and that the last public execution dated back to
October 1992.1248
3. The Korea Institute for National Unification documented 510
public executions that it found to have taken place between
2005 and 2012 by gathering testimony from persons who fled the
DPRK.1249 The real number is probably even higher considering
that relatively few people manage to depart from the provinces
located farther from the Chinese border.
4. Executions are usually carried out in the DPRK by firing
squads shooting multiple times at the condemned person. In
more exceptional cases, the victim is hanged. Over the last
couple of years, the authorities have increasingly resorted to
killing the victims with automatic machine guns; presumably to
maximize the terrorizing effect of the executions. Especially
for young children and relatives of the victim, the experience
of watching such killings is often so horrifying, that the
witnesses must themselves also be considered victims of
inhuman and cruel treatment in contravention of article 7 of
the ICCPR.
* Mr Choi Young-hwa and Mr Kim Joo-il saw their first executions
when they were 10 years old. In both cases, their teacher
interrupted class to take the children to watch the executions.
* Mr Choi Young-hwa saw another execution at the age of 16. The
manager of a factory was executed on grounds of espionage after
his factory showed a dismal economic performance. He remembered
being afraid and thinking that anyone could become a victim of
such executions.1250
* At the age of nine, Mr Kim Hyuk witnessed his first public
execution which was carried out in the vicinity of Political
Prison Camp No. 25 near Chongjin. He recalled how he and the
other children played with stray bullets they later found.1251
* Mr Lee Jae-geun witnessed at least 10 public executions during
his 30 years in the DPRK. His whole work unit was required to
travel to the execution site, where about 1,000 people in total
were gathered. He recalled the case of one man, who was executed
for criticizing Workers' Party of Korea leaders. Mr Lee described
the purpose of forcing people to watch executions as follows:
"They would take us to these public executions like a field trip,
so that nobody dares think about disobeying the Party and
disobeying the ideology of Kim Il-sung."1252
1. Public executions were particularly common in the DPRK during
the 1990s in line with orders from Kim Jong-il aimed at
halting the breakdown of social order and state control. Many
victims were executed for economic crimes such as embezzling
goods from state factories or stealing food in order to
survive. In many cases, the accused were summarily executed
without trial. It was common that the victim's body was left
at the execution site for a time, as a warning. The famine was
a time of much arbitrary punishment in the DPRK.
* During the famine, Ms Jeon Jin-hwa saw several public executions
in her hometown Hamhung (South Hamgyong Province):
"People who stole property that was considered belonging to the
state and those who were caught stealing other people's property
were publicly executed. Because of this, we didn't feel like we had
control of our own life. We did not even have the right to end our
own life."1253
* Another witness from Hamhung remembered that people were executed
for petty survival crimes such as stealing wires from factories
or public installations.1254
* A man described how the way in which public executions were
carried out, became more brutal in the late 1990s. When he saw
his first execution as a nine-year old boy in Bukchang, South
Hamgyong in the 1980s, the victim was placed in wooden frame
covered with cloth. That way only the silhouette of the slumping
body could be seen. During the famine, this practice was
abandoned. Victims were simply tied to a pole and shot, so that
everyone could see the bloodied body of the victim.1255
* A woman testified that she saw five public executions in her home
village in North Hamgyong Province, including the execution of
several farmers who had secretly slaughtered a cow to feed
themselves. No trials preceded the killings. An official simply
announced the crimes and then the victims were shot in the
head.1256
* According to the witness, up to 20 people were executed each week
for "anti-socialist" behaviour in Hyesan, Ryanggang Province. On
several occasions, the military used tanks to block the streets,
forcing people to congregate around the execution sites. After
killing the victim with the initial shots, the firing squad aimed
to shoot through the ropes that tied the victims at the neck,
waist and feet to a wooden pole. As a result, pieces of body
tissue flew everywhere.1257
* On one single occasion in July 1999, another witness recalled,
KPA Military Security executed 12 persons in Hyesan for alleged
anti-state activities, including the head of the city's
management department.The entire population of Hyesan was
required to gather and witness the public execution.1258
1. From 2000, after the social situation had somewhat improved
and the state could ease the level of repression, fewer public
executions were reported. However, the practice of public
executions was never abolished. During the course of its
Universal Periodic Review in December 2009, the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea admitted itself that public
executions were still being carried out in very exceptional
cases involving very brutal crimes.1259 Information received
by the Commission indicates that more public executions have
been carried out since then. In a number of cases, the victims
were publicly executed for murder, drug trafficking, theft of
state property and "human trafficking" (a charge which is at
times also wrongly levelled against those who help others to
voluntarily escape from the DPRK). Smugglers of foreign movies
and other politically sensitive goods are also among the
victims. Shortly before this report was finalized, the
Commission received allegations about a string of executions
that seem to have political purposes. These developments
appear to be linked to the accession of Kim Jong-un to the
office of the Supreme Leader and his consolidation of power.
They raise questions as to his part in them.
In December 2013, the authorities executed Mr. Jang Song-thaek,
the uncle by marriage to the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Until
shortly before his death, Jang Song-thaek was the head of the
Administration Department of the Central Committee of the
Workers' Party of Korea. While the execution was not carried out
in front of the general public, information about it was widely
disseminated by DPRK state Media, both within and outside the
DPRK. In addition, large parts of the population reportedly had
to attend compulsory information events in order to be informed
about the execution and the underlying reasons, as described by
the government. According to the DPRK's own account, a special
military court of the State Security Department convicted Mr Jang
on charges of "state subversion attempted by the accused Jang
with an aim to overthrow the people's power of the DPRK by
ideologically aligning himself with enemies".1260 The judgment
reportedly "vehemently condemned him as a wicked political
careerist, trickster and traitor for all ages".1261The death
sentence was handed down only three days after Mr Jang's arrest.
Footage of his arrest at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the
Workers' Party of Korea was broadcast on DPRK television. The
fairness of the procedure observed in this case is called in
question by a report of the enlarged meeting of the Political
Bureau, which is chaired by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. This
report was made public three days before the judgment. It already
concluded that Mr Jang "committed criminal acts baffling
imagination" and that he had done "tremendous harm to our party
and revolution".1262 In violation of the right to seek pardon or
commutation of the sentence under article 6 (4) of the ICCPR and
the right to have the conviction and sentence reviewed by a
higher tribunal according to law under article 14 (5) of the
ICCPR, the death sentence was executed immediately after the
special military court handed down its judgment.1263 The
Commission finds that the circumstances of the trial and
execution of Jang Song-thaek, as per the DPRK's own account of
it, involved many elements that contravened international human
rights law. If such violations could affect one of the highest
officials in the land, it is not difficult to appreciate the
standards of law and justice that are afforded to ordinary
citizens.
The Commission also received reports of executions and
disappearances of close associates of Jang Song-thaek in the
Workers' Party of Korea and the Ministry of Public Security.1264
Among the victims of public executions are the most senior
officials of the Administration Department of the Workers' Party
of Korea, which used to be headed by Jang Song-thaek. In November
2013, Mr Ri Riong-ha, First Deputy Director of the Administration
Department and Mr Jang Su-gil, Deputy Director of the
Administration Department were reportedly executed on the basis
of a judgment of the Special Military Court of the State Security
Department. The reports are consistent with the pronouncement of
the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central
Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea that the Party had
"eliminated Jang and purged his group, unable to remain an
onlooker to its acts any longer, dealing telling blows at
sectarian acts manifested within the party".1265 The judgment
sentencing Jang Song-thaek to death specifically names Ri Riyong-
ha as Jang's "trusted stooge".1266.In the same direction points
the 2014 New Year's statement of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, in
which he indicated that the Party "took the resolute measure of
removing the factionalists lurking in the Party".
The Commission received reports about a series of public
executions conducted in August, October and November 2013 in
various locations across the country. Many of the victims were
reportedly executed for having been involved in the distribution
of foreign movies and pornographic material. Most of the reported
executions occurred after unconfirmed rumours were widely
published in international media, which sought to link Kim Jong-
un's wife Ri Sol-ju to a pornography-related scandal. In response
to these rumours, the DPRK authorities reportedly issued stern
warnings to its population not to trade in rumours and
intensified a crackdown on ‘anti-socialist materials', including
pornographic material and foreign films.
In early 2010, a number of officials involved in the disastreous
2009 currency reform were executed.1267 At the time that the
executions were carried out, Kim Jong-un had already started
gradually assuming affairs of state from his ailing father Kim
Jong-il. According to testimony received, including from the
Korea Institute for National Unification, one of the victims was
Mr Pak Nam-gi, who was the Director of the Finance and Planning
Department of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of
Korea, at the time that the currency reform was implemented.1268
Mr Pak has not been seen since his reported execution and has
been publicly described by an enlarged meeting of the Political
Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea,
which was chaired by Kim Jong-un, as a "traitor for all
ages".1269 This lends credence to the accuracy of the reports
received.
1. In confidential interviews, eyewitnesses testified about the
other recent cases of public executions to the Commission:1270
* In March 2013, the inhabitants of Songpyeong area of Chongjin
City (North Hamgyong Province) were ordered to watch the
execution of a man and a woman. Both adults and children had to
attend, without exception. After an official announced to the
crowd that the victims had produced and sold large amounts of
methamphetamine, the victims were beaten and tied to a pole. Then
a firing squad of six officials executed them using machine guns.
Other public executions were conducted in the same place in 2007
(for human trafficking), 2008 (for theft from a state factory)
and 2009 (for murder).
* In the spring of 2012, a woman was publicly executing for having
killed her lover in Bukchang County, South Pyongan Province.
* In November 2011, four persons were publicly executed for having
produced and sold drugs in Kyonghung County, North Hamgyong
Province.
* In June 2011, people were forced to watch the public execution of
a woman for murder in Kumya County, South Hamgyong Province.
* In 2010, a woman who had sold movies and soap operas produced in
the ROK was publicly executed in Hamhung, also South Hamgyong.
* In October 2009, a man was publicly executed in Hoeryoung, North
Hamgyong Province for having been in contact with ROK
authorities.
(b) Executions in places of detention
1. The Commission also finds that a large number of executions
are carried out in places of detention in the DPRK. In some
cases, the execution is based on a judicial sentence. In other
cases, summary execution is imposed without any known trial or
judicial order, apparently to uphold discipline and
institutional rules. The entire population of the detention
facility is usually obliged to attend and watch such
executions. This appears to be done to instil fear and to
promote the subjugation of the prisoners.
* Former political prison camp guard, Mr Ahn Myong-chol testified
that the camp authorities carried out executions, when someone
tried to escape, destroyed camp property or when things were out
of control: "We would kill or would execute … one inmate to set
an example for the rest of the inmates." The decision to execute
was always taken by the investigation bureau that the State
Security Department maintained in the camp, without any
involvement of a court of law. The entire camp population had to
watch. The number of executions per camp fluctuated, in some
years as many as 20 people were publicly executed.1271
* Ms Kim Hye-sook witnessed numerous executions in Political Prison
Camp No. 18. Prisoners were executed for disobeying guards
orders, tying to escape or venturing into the guards' living
quarters to scavenge for leftover food.1272
* In 2007, two men were executed in Political Prison Camp No. 15 at
Yodok according to a former inmate. The men had left their living
areas, because they were starving and wanted to find food in the
mountains. After a large search operation was mounted by the camp
authorities, the men were found and summarily executed in front
of the other inmates.1273
* Mr Kim Hyuk witnessed four public executions during the span of
only three months he spent at Kyohwaso No. 12 at Jonggo-ri (North
Hamgyong Province). One victim was summarily executed for
stealing food from the prison's storage and another had tried to
escape. Two others had been sentenced by a court to execution,
because they had committed several serious crimes.1274
1. Inmates of political and ordinary prison camps are
particularly vulnerable to secret executions. They are
considered to have lost their basic rights, and, in the case
of political prison camp inmates, have no contact with the
outside world. The killing of prisoners can also be easily
concealed because the bodies of prison camp inmates are never
returned to their family. The Commission received credible
first-hand information about instances of secret summary
executions carried out in prison camps and interrogation
detention facilities.
* From 1998, a large number of prisoners of Political Prison Camp
(kyohwaso)No. 12 at Jonggo-ri were secretly executed. The victims
were mostly people who had bad songbun and/or had been imprisoned
for politically sensitive crimes. Some victims may also have been
targeted because they complained about prison conditions or
disobeyed orders. According to eyewitness testimony, the victims
were taken out of their cell at night and brought one after the
other to a room, where prison camp officials and an MPS officer
from Pyongyang presented the victim with false accusations.
Immediately thereafter, prison guards strangled the victim to
death using a metal wire. Work unit leaders from among the
prisoners were assigned to remove the bodies and take them to a
furnace located a few kilometres away from the main prison block.
Such killings occurred at regular intervals, and every time
several prisoners were killed.1275
In 1997, secret executions targeting perpetrators of politically
sensitive crimes appear to have been carried out in an ordinary
prison camp that was located in Taehun, South Pyongan Province
and was closed later that year. Three to five victims per week
were shot during the night or early morning at a site located
about 1.5 km from the main prison block.1276
Both sets of secret executions could be linked to a directive
that was allegedly issued by Kim Jong-il in 1997 and instructed
the security apparatus to eliminate all elements who are
"diseased in mind".1277
* Between February 1993 and 1998, around 250 military officers who
had studied at the Frunze Military Academy in the Soviet Union
were reportedly executed. Some among them had apparently hatched
plans to carry out a coup d'état. The purge was led by the KPA
Military Security Command. The victims were executed without
trial, after a determination of their guilt was made by security
officials. The families of some victims were sent to political
prison camps. Other families were apparently spared from
collective punishment, because they represented some of the
country's most influential families.1278
* Former guards have presented information indicating that inmates
of Political Prison Camp No. 13 have been secretly executed. A
former guard in Camp No. 13 described that he had to transport
political prisoners to secret executions sites in the mountains.
The victims had to shovel their own graves before other security
officials killed them by a hammer blow to the back of the
skull.1279 Ahn Myong-chol indicated that a mountain near the camp
was used for secret executions and that shots from that area
could sometimes be heard at night. He also noted that he
witnessed corpses being found when construction was conducted in
the area.1280
6. Medical experiments
1. The Commission has investigated allegations brought to its
attention, which suggest that political prisoners were
deliberately killed in medical experiments conducted by state
authorities to test the impact of chemical and biological
weapons.1281 Similar allegations have been received regarding
medical experiments performed in closed hospitals for persons
with disabilities.
2. The Commission considers that particular care is called for in
verifying the accuracy of such serious allegations. On the
basis of the information available when this report was
finalized, the Commission is not in a position to confirm
whether any such medical experiments were conducted. Further
proof would be required to meet the rigorous standard of proof
applied by the Commission. Nevertheless, the Commission
records the allegations for future investigation and
consideration.
7. Principal findings of the commission
1. The Commission finds that the police and security forces of
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea systematically
employ violence and punishment that amount to gross human
rights violations in order to create a climate of fear that
pre-empts any challenges to the current system of government
and to the ideology underpinning it. Fear is the keystone that
ultimately holds up the edifice of the current state structure
in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The institutions
and officials involved are not held accountable. Impunity
reigns.
2. Gross human rights violations in the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea in respect of detention, execution and
disappearances are characterized by a high degree of
centralized coordination between different parts of the
extensive security apparatus. The State Security Department,
Ministry of People's Security and the Korean People's Army
Military Security Command regularly subject persons accused of
political crimes to arbitrary arrest. This falls short of the
legal requirements set out by international law and even under
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's own laws.
Subsequently, those so arrested are typically held
incommunicado for prolonged periods of time. Their families
are not informed about their fate and whereabouts. Persons
accused of political crimes therefore become victims of
enforced disappearance. Making the suspect disappear is a
deliberate feature of the system that serves to instil fear in
the population that anyone who does not show absolute
obedience can disappear at any time for reasons solely
determined by, and known to, the authorities.
3. The use of torture is an established feature of the
interrogation process in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, especially in cases involving political crimes.
Starvation and other inhumane conditions of detention are
deliberately imposed on suspects to increase the pressure on
them to confess and to incriminate other persons.
4. Persons who are found to have engaged in major political
crimes disappear, without trial or judicial order, to
political prison camps (kwanliso). There, they will be
incarcerated and held incommunicado. Their families will not
be informed of their fate even if they die. In the past, it
was common that the authorities sent entire families to
political prison camps for political crimes committed by close
relatives (including forebears to the third generation) on the
basis of the principle of guilt by association. Such cases
still occur, but appear now to be less frequent than in past
decades.
5. The unspeakable atrocities committed against the inmates of
the kwanliso political prison camps of the DPRK resemble the
horrors of camps that totalitarian states established during
the twentiethh century. In the political prison camps of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the inmate population
is gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced
labour, executions, torture, sexual violence including rape
and a denial of reproductive rights enforced through
punishment, forced abortion and infanticide. The Commission
estimates that hundreds of thousands of political prisoners
have perished in these political prison camps over the course
of more than five decades.
6. Although the authorities in the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea claim that the camps have never existed and do not
exist and have denied outsiders access to the areas where they
are situated, this claim is shown to be false by the testimony
of former guards, inmates and neighbours. Satellite imagery
proves that the camp system continues to be in operation.
While the number of political prison camps and inmates has
decreased due to deaths and some releases, an estimated 80,000
to 120,000 political prisoners are currently detained in four
large political prison camps and a residual detention complex
that remains from a fifth earlier camp.
7. Gross violations are also being committed in the ordinary
prison system, which consists of ordinary prison camps
(kyohwaso) and various types of short-term forced labour
detention camps. The vast majority of inmates are victims of
arbitrary detention, since they are imprisoned without trial
or on the basis of a trial that grossly fails to respect the
due process and fair trial guarantees set out in international
law. Furthermore, many ordinary prisoners are, in fact,
political prisoners, who are detained without a substantive
reason compatible with international law. Prisoners in the
ordinary prison system are systematically subjected to
deliberate starvation and illegal forced labour. Torture, rape
and other arbitrary cruelties at the hands of guards and
fellow prisoners are widespread and committed with impunity.
8. As a matter of State policy, the authorities carry out
executions – with or without trial; publicly or secretly – to
punish political and other crimes that are often not among the
most serious crimes. The policy of regularly carrying out
public executions serves to instil fear in the general
population. Public executions were most common in the 1990s.
They became less common after 2000. However, they continue to
be carried out today. Shortly before this report was
finalized, there was an apparent spike in the number of
politically motivated public executions.
F. Enforced disappearance of persons from other countries,
including through abduction
1. Enforced disappearances occur when persons are arrested,
detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived
of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels
of government or by organized groups of private individuals
acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect,
consent or acquiescence of the government, followed by a
refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons
concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their
liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of
the law.1282
2. Article 1 the Declaration for the Protection of All Persons
from Enforced Disappearances states that:
1. Any act of enforced disappearance is an offence to human
dignity. It is condemned as a denial of the purposes of the Charter
of the United Nations and as a grave and flagrant violation of the
human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed and developed in
international instruments in this field.
2. Any act of enforced disappearance places the persons subjected
thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe
suffering on them and their families. It constitutes a violation of
the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right
to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and
security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture
and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It
also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.
1. Periods and types of abductions and other enforced and
involuntary disappearances
(a) 1950-1953: abduction ofRepublic of Koreacivilians during the
Korean War
1. During the Korean War, DPRK forces took thousands of people
from their homes or places near their homes in the South of
Korea to the North. The kidnapping and relocation to the North
of non-military persons residing south of the 38th parallel
during the Korean War from 25 June 1950 to the signing of the
Armistice on 27 July 1953, constitute abductions of civilians.
These victims are often referred to as Korean War abductees.
2. The number of ROK civilians captured and forcedly removed to
the North during the Korean War is not precisely known.
However, estimates range between 80,000 and 100,000.1283 After
several years of intense study on the matter, the Korean War
Abductees' Family Union (KWAFU), a civil society organization
dedicated to ascertaining the whereabouts and current status
of ROK citizens abducted during the war, on the basis of
investigations conducted by its research institute, the Korean
War Abductees Research Institute (KWARI), compiled records of
96,013 Korean War abductees. 1284 These records are based on
detailed lists of abducted persons compiled by the Government
of the Republic of Korea and a victims' family association in
the immediate aftermath of the abductions. The list was
supplemented by other sources and testimony from family
members and other witnesses.
3. The abductions were widespread and organized, indicating that
they were planned and conducted in line with State policy.
From the list of 96,013 submitted by KWAFU, the statistics
point to the abductions being a planned operation to recruit
young men, with experience in the cultivation of farmland,
construction and other technical tasks beneficial to the
building and maintenance of the socialist state infrastructure
of the DPRK.1285 The information provided to the Commission
reveals the following statistics about the composition of the
abducted individuals:1286
4. The abductions were carried out by soldiers of the Workers'
Party of Korea. Soldiers took citizens from their homes and
workplaces, generally on the understanding of detaining them
for questioning, but did not allow them to return to their
homes.
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, Mr Kim Nam-joo told the Commission
of the abduction of his father who was an electrician in Chungmu
Ro. Two men posing as civilians entered the electrical store of
Mr Kim's father asking for him. When Mr Kim's father appeared, he
was taken by three Korean People's Army (KPA) officers and was
not seen again. DPRK officers later visited Mr Kim's home in
search of Mr Kim's elder brothers though they were able to evade
capture. Mr Kim told the Commission: "So once a happy family, we
were broken. … The pain that I experienced in the past still
persists after 60 years. We still live in that pain. I still cry
from the memories."1287
1. In addition to the large numbers of young men targeted for
their practical skills and expertise, there were also targeted
abductions of skilled professionals, including persons with
training in medicine, law and governance. Persons who served
in the security and intelligence agencies of the ROK were also
targeted. According to KWAFU 2,919 civil servants, 1,613
police, 190 judicial officers and lawyers, 424 medical
practitioners were among the abductees.
* The son of an abducted police officer, Mr Choi Gwang-seok told
the Commission that his father hid his uniforms and anything that
identified him as a police officer for fear of being targeted.
However, despite his best efforts he was captured and was never
seen by his family again.1288
"[M]y father, as you know, was a member of the Security Department,
which was like a police. My father asked me to hide his police
uniform and relevant documents in the basement. … I was in the
basement, hiding the documents and the uniform and I was able to
hear the conversation that was going on between my dad and the
communists who came looking for him. And they were asking my father
to go with them. They took my father away. The last time that I
heard my father, my father was saying good-bye to his mother, who
was my grandmother. That was the last time I heard my father's
voice."1289
* Ms Park Myung-ja, perhaps the last remaining surviving abductee
outside the DPRK,recounted her experience of being taken to the
North along with half of the medical staff at the hospital where
she had been working during the Korean War. Ms Park told the
Commission of the capture of the Seoul National University
Hospital by DPRK forces and the abduction of half the staff for
the purpose of establishing a hospital in Hamhung, South Hamgyong
Province:
"We were passing through a mountainous area. We were very exhausted
– doctors, nurses and the administrative staff. Our legs were
exhausted and they said anybody who was exhausted should come out.
Those who held [up] their hands came out and they were killed. We
were so scared that we had no choice but to follow them. Our legs
were weak. They kept beating us up so that we would keep
walking."1290
1. Historical documents provided to the Commission by KWAFU show
that the abductions were not spontaneous violations, but
followed specific objectives to gain labour and skills set by
central-level institutions of the DPRK. Documents from the
DPRK contain various demands for persons with particular
skills and expertise.1291 For example, in an urgent request
issued by the Ministry of National Protection to the Workers'
Party of Korea on 6 June 1950, shortly before the DPRK made
incursions into the ROK, categories of personnel such as
engineers, pharmacists, and doctors were requested.1292
Additional documents from the ROK government and wartime
telegrams of foreign governments that have since been
disclosed detail information known to these governments about
the abduction of civilians during the war.1293 For example, a
declassified Russian document reveals that the Russian
Ambassador to the DPRK sent a translation to Russia on 17
August 1950 of a DPRK document dated 17 July 1950, outlining
the decision to transfer Seoul citizens to farms in the
North.1294
2. The underlying objectives of the wartime abductions are
believed to be the recruitment of labour and expertise, while
simultaneously draining the capacity of the South. The need
for labour and expertise in the North grew as a result of the
depletion of its own population as a result of the war, and
from the exodus of nationals persecuted by the government of
the DPRK in the early days of independence.1295 After the
establishment of the DPRK north of the 38th parallel, after
the independence from the Japanese, the newly created
socialist state appropriated private property and took harsh
action against persons who may have posed a threat to the new
state such as landowners, intellectuals and religious people.
As a result, large numbers of these people fled to the South
causing sudden labour shortages. The abductions also served to
cause chaos and confusion in the South, to make post-war
rehabilitation more difficult due to the shortages of skilled
professionals and youth, and to propagate the socialist dream
by portraying the abductions as voluntary defections. A report
issued on 5 August 1949 (before the war) shows the DPRK state
policy to "divide and destroy the anti-communist group [in the
South] by bringing them to the North."1296
3. The Armistice Agreement instructed the Commanders of each side
to permit and assist civilians who had crossed the demarcation
line after 24 June 1950 to return to their home territory if
they so desired.1297 International humanitarian law also
requires states to repatriate civilians interned during an
armed conflict.1298 Despite these obligations, no civilians
from south of the demarcation line prior to 24 June 1950
residing in the North at the end of the Korean War were
assisted in returning to the South. Since the Korean War, the
DPRK has consistently denied any war-time abductions, claiming
that a number of people had voluntarily come to the North.1299
For example, on 30 June 2013, Kim Jong-un delivered the
following message via the official newspaper of the DPRK,
Rodong Sinmun:
"[The Korean War abductees] fuss under the current puppet ruling
quarters far surpasses the predecessor's provocation. … As for the
defectors, they were not forced to do, but made a patriotic heroic
attempt according to their political belief, desire for
reunification and national conscience."1300
1. In 1956, through the International Committee of the Red Cross,
the DPRK was requested to advise about the fate of the Korean
War abductees, who were referred to as "displaced persons". Of
the 7,000 names provided at that time, information was
received regarding only 337 persons.1301 Requests for
information about larger numbers of abductees have been met
with counter-requests to remove any reference to "abduction"
or "abductees". In 2012 KWAFU submitted the list of 96,013
names of Korean War abductees whose fate is currently unknown
to the International Committee of the Red Cross, requesting
their assistance in uncovering details of the abductees'
fates. To date no response from the DPRK has been received.
Given the passage of time since the abductions, it is unlikely
that many of the Korean War abductees remain alive.
Submissions have also been made to the Working Group on
Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID). However due
to a lack of cooperation by the DPRK, the Working Group has
not been able to confirm any information.
2. The Korean War abductees faced significant discrimination
after arriving in the DPRK and were not treated well. Even
those who had been handpicked for their special skills and
expertise came to be viewed as antagonists rather than assets.
Those who did not wholeheartedly accept the ideology of the
state were particularly severely punished and closely
monitored. Most were relegated to work in remote mining areas.
Many disappeared into labour camps and political prisons.1302
On 5 September 1950, after the forcible removal to the North
of approximately 66,000 civilians from the South, the DPRK
internal affairs office in Gang Won issued a memorandum to the
district and city Internal Affairs stations about how the
euphemistically called "liberated Seoul citizens" were to be
treated. The memo instructs that they are to be searched,
interrogated and monitored. The memorandum instructs each
factory, mine and workplace at which the former Seoul citizens
were working to make a list of the "recruited labourers" under
their jurisdiction, regularly question them and "watch their
every movement, lest any undesirable behaviour occur, and in
the case of any runaways, efforts should be made for their
immediate arrest."1303
* The Commission heard from a witness whose uncle, a trained boxer,
had been abducted for his physical skill and trained as a spy. As
surveillance on the remaining family in the ROK intensified, the
boxer's sister and two brothers defected to the North. The boxer
lived with one of his brothers, while the second brother and
sister established their own respective families in the North.
The extended family lived relatively well in Pyongyang, until the
boxer's boss in the spy department left the DPRK for the ROK.
After this, the boxer was executed along with everyone in the
department. The brother who lived with the boxer was also
executed. The brother who lived separately with his own family,
attempted suicide in an effort to spare his family from being
punished under the guilt-by-association policy. It is believed
this brother and his entire family were later killed. The boxer's
sister and sister's daughter (the witness) were sent to a remote
mining district.1304
* The daughter of an abducted ROK civilian told the Commission of
the purge of ROK citizens to mountainous regions in 1977/78. Her
family had lived in a city area as her father had been a teacher
at a college. However, in 1977, they were exiled with many other
families originating from the ROK to a remote mountainous area.
She said, "after the exile, we were treated as less than
human".1305
1. Korean War abductees were denied not only freedom to leave the
DPRK and return to the ROK, but also denied the right to
communicate with their families in the South or authorities of
the Republic of Korea. Most married (or remarried if they had
been married in the ROK), and as they were relegated to the
lowest rank of songbun, they and their descendants were denied
educational and employment opportunities for generations.
Several witnesses told the Commission of their songbun
categorization into the "hostile" class.1306
2. The daughter of a Korean War abductee, explained that her
husband forced her to divorce him after he discovered that her
father was born in the South.1307
3. The abduction of ROK civilians appears to have been conducted
in accordance with a plan. DPRK and foreign documents reveal
the need for labour, the plan to relocate ROK nationals to the
North – particularly to work on farms – and describe how they
were to be treated. Witness testimony presented to the
Commission points to the large scale forcible relocation of
persons, and the targeting of particular professionals. The
fact that these abductions were carried out by the Korean
People's Army (KPA) further reinforces the conclusion that the
wartime abductions of civilians were carried out on the
instruction of the then Supreme Commander of the KPA Kim Il-
sung. The Commission finds that the KPA, taking advantage of
the circumstances of war to forcibly take civilians to the
North, upon the instruction of Kim Il-sung, and at the
cessation of the war, failed to provide those civilians with
the opportunity to return to the ROK.
(b) 1953: denial of repatriation to prisoners of war from the
Korean War
1. At the time of the end of the Korean War, an estimated 82,000
members of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces were
missing.1308 Estimates of those taken as prisoners of war
(POWs) and detained in the DPRK, or other countries allied to
the DPRK, range between 50,000 and 70,000.1309 According to
the Soviet Union's protocol of a meeting between Stalin, Kim
Il-sung, Zhou Enlai and other senior officials, in September
1952 the DPRK held 35,000 ROK POWs.1310 Kim Il-sung conveyed
to Stalin that during the Armistice negotiations, the DPRK had
only acknowledged to have taken about 7500 ROK soldiers as
POWs. . According to Kim Il-sung, there were an additional
27,000 POWs, whose existence had not been revealed to the
other side or the media. In the same meeting, Chinese General
Peng Denhuai, who commanded the Chinese volunteer forces in
the DPRK, indicated that since Chinese forces had entered the
war, they had taken 40,000 POWs from the ROK.1311
2. Only 8,343 POWs were returned to the ROK in the immediate
aftermath of the armistice between April 1953 and January
1954.1312 On the basis of the discrepancy between this figure
and in the numbers reported by Kim Il-sung and Peng Denhuai to
Stalin, the Commission finds that at least 50,000 POWs from
the ROK were not repatriated.
3. It is estimated that approximately 500 survivors among them
are still being held in the DPRK.1313 They have 400 POW family
members who live in the ROK or elsewhere outside the DPRK.1314
4. International Humanitarian Law requires that prisoners of war
must be released and repatriated without delay after the
cessation of active hostilities.1315 In addition, the
Armistice Agreement established express obligations as to when
and through which mechanisms repatriation of POWs was to
occur.1316 By signing the Armistice Agreement, each State
party agreed to:
[W]ithin sixty (60) days after this agreement becomes effective
each side shall, without offering any hindrance, directly
repatriate and hand over in groups all those prisoners of war in
its custody who insist on repatriation to the side to which they
belonged at the time of capture.1317
1. The Agreement detailed how the Red Cross would facilitate the
repatriation efforts. The Committee for Repatriation of
Prisoners of War would mediate any disputes as to the
arrangements.1318 The Committee for Repatriation of Prisoners
of War was to be dissolved by the Military Armistice Committee
upon completion of the programme of repatriation of prisoners
of war.1319 Despite these obligations under international law,
thousands of ROK Prisoners of War were not repatriated, nor
fairly offered the prospect of repatriation, by the DPRK.
2. It is clear from contemporary discussions between leaders from
the DPRK, the Soviet Union and China, found in archived
documents, that Kim Il-sung did not intend to return all the
prisoners of war in his control. Rather, the DPRK had
concealed the existence and whereabouts of the majority of ROK
POWs by transferring them to KPA unit. Kim Il-sung reported to
Stalin that the existence of the POWs thus transferred had
been kept a secret from observers :
"
According to the list which we have submitted we have taken a total
of 12,000 men prisoner, of which 4,416 are foreigners and the rest
South Koreans. Among the prisoners are 300 American pilots, of
which more than 30 are officers. About 27,000 South Koreans have
transferred to units of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army.
These POWs have not been reported in the press."1320(emphasis
added)
1. The Commission received testimony from several South Korean
POWs who were not repatriated but managed to escape the DPRK
in their advanced years. By September 2012, 80 former Korean
War POWs have returned to the ROK.1321 According to the
testimonies received, and reports on the issue, POWs captured
in the early years of the war received re-education
(ideological training) for several months before being
enlisted in the KPA,1322 being told that "they will now be
participating in liberating ROK".1323
2. A minority voluntarily joined the DPRK army. A former POW
explained that as he joined the Korean People's Army
voluntarily working in a hospital for the injured, he was no
longer treated as a POW and was afforded the same benefits as
DPRK soldiers after the war.1324 Another former POW told the
Commission that those who joined the DPRK voluntarily after
capture had their documentation papers were marked with "no
39", and they were promised positions of responsibility when
the South fell.1325
3. For the vast majority however, being (non-voluntarily)
enlistees in the KPA meant being regrouped into "construction
brigades". These were composed entirely of POWs, who were
forced to work in coal mines, factories and farm villages in
the northern-most parts of the country.1326 POWs were kept in
camps at these forced labour sites during and after the war,
until 1956.1327 After the signing of the armistice, POWs who
had been in the custody of the Chinese and Soviet forces were
handed over to the DPRK and ended up in the same
situation.1328
4. Each person in that position who gave evidence to the
Commission told of how the opportunity to be repatriated was
not fairly offered to them after the armistice in 1953.
* Mr Yoo Young-bok, who became a POW as a young man and only
managed to escape after more than 50 years in the DPRK, testified
that repatriation was never offered him. Instead, he and 600
other POWs were forced to work in a mine in North Pyongan
Province:
"We were forced to work this mine and we said we are South Korean,
POWs, why are we not being exchanged, why are we working in the
mines, we asked these questions. And the North Koreans said they
don't know why and they just said we should do what we are told to
do. … we thought this wouldn't last long. We thought that relations
between South and North Korea would improve. And because all the
officers were alive, and because the South Korean government was
there, because the president was there, we thought they would one
day come looking for us trying to save us. So we decided to be
patient and wait… but 5 decades have passed and nobody came looking
for us and tried to save us. And North Korea just used us."1329
1. Others spoke of being fearful of truthfully responding to
questioning about their desire to be repatriated for fear of
persecution. In one instance, a witness described how those
who had answered affirmatively, indicating they wished to be
repatriated, were shot.1330 The majority however testified
that they were not asked whether they wished to be
repatriated. One witness explained that anyone who spoke up
against the denial of repatriation was tied up in the
camp.1331
2. In 1956-57, most of the POWs were released from the KPA and
became civilians.1332 Upon decommissioning, POWs were
typicallysent to work in mines in remote provinces where they
remained until their death.1333
* At the Seoul Public Hearing, former POW Mr Yoo Young-bok
described how he believed he would be repatriated to South Korea
after the armistice in July 1953, but instead in August 1953 he
was sent to perform "incredibly difficult", "back-breaking"
forced labour in a mine in the DPRK. He told the Commission:
"I didn't do anything wrong in North Korea. I served 47 years in
North Korea. I did everything they asked me to do. I was in forced
labour for decades. I did nothing wrong in North Korea... So before
I die, it was my wish to return to my hometown where my family
lived and I was going to testify about what North Korea did."1334
1. The conditions in the mines were treacherous, and work
conditions severe.1335 Many workers enslaved in the mines died
from accidents or diseases contracted in the mines caused by
the dust.1336 Incidents such as explosions tearing off limbs
or flesh, collapses in the mines engulfing workers and deaths
resulting from crushing or cutting by machinery are not
uncommon.1337 Conditions were so bad, and deaths and severe
injuries so common, that according to one witness there was a
saying "Don't ever allow your daughter to marry a coalminer",
meaning a woman married to a coal miner is likely to become
widowed and subsequently without a male's income.1338 The
witness estimates that 20 per cent of miners did not reach the
retirement age of 60.
* Mr Yoo Young-bok explained:
"Working in the mines, it's very primitive. One of the mines I used
to work in, we had to go as deep as 1,000 metres. And the air was
bad, and the work itself was back-breaking. I think even the North
Koreans say that that is the mine with the most intense workload.
The way we worked there was very primitive – there were no
tools."1339
1. POWs who complained about their treatment or advocated for
return to the ROK were sent to prisons, political prison camps
or just disappeared.1340 This resulted in a climate of fear
within the construction brigades and mines which prevented
workers from criticizing or protesting against working
conditions, let alone organizing a strike.
* Mr Yoo Young-bok testified:
"They took us forcefully to mines. Of course some of my comrades or
colleagues asked why they are not sending us back to our homes when
we are POWs. So there were some who stood up. And they were just
telling us that we should do what we were told to do. So there was
a lot of peer pressure. And those who stood up against the North
Koreans were publicly executed or were secretly transported. I
learned later that they were taken to the political prisons. So
most of us decided to keep quiet, because we knew, if we complained
that we would only be victimized further."1341
* Another former POW who managed to escape, also emphasized that
they were not allowed to complain and got severely punished if
they did. He recalled the case of a fellow POW, Mr Oh Sam Jun,
who once said aloud that he wanted to be sent back to ROK. The
man was charged with a political crime and sentenced to 15 years
in a kyohwaso. Eventually he reappeared at the coal mine. Soon
thereafter, he disappeared again forever.1342
1. POWs forced to work in the coal mines were under particularly
strict surveillance by the MPS and SSD.1343 Interrogations by
these agencies (often involving torture) were commonplace for
POWs, and every detail of their lives was known and
recorded.1344 Particular effort appears to have been made by
the DPRK government to monitor and prevent escape of POWs and
Korean War abductees. The Commission also heard testimonies of
escape plans that were uncovered or thwarted at the last
moment by the SSD as a result of their comprehensive
surveillance.
2. A former POW described his brigade's attempt at escape from a
POW camp in North Pyongan Province. Several POWs were shot at
the time of the incident, and the rest captured and tried.
During pre-trial investigations, the witness was tortured with
electricity and had his fingernails forcibly removed resulting
in memory loss. At trial, 35 POWs were sentenced to death, and
as the youngest in the brigade, the witness was sentenced to
20 years.1345
3. Thwarted escape attempts have also resulted in the deaths of
family members due to the guilt by association policy employed
in the DPRK. The Commission heard of the interrogation and
subsequent death in a SSD detention facility in North Hamgyong
Province of a woman after her brother's plans to assist POWs
in escaping was foiled.1346 Another witness provided testimony
about two people who were sent to political prison camp
(kwanliso) No. 15 at Yodok because they were attempting to
assist two elderly POWs cross into China in an effort to
return to the ROK.1347 A former POW told the Commission of his
wife's suicide after his escape from the DPRK, presumably in
an attempt to save her son from a previous marriage from being
tarnished by the guilt by association policy.1348
4. Like the Korean War abductees, as POWs and their families were
categorized into the lowest rank of songbun, their descendants
also suffered from the discrimination levied against the POWs.
The Commission heard evidence from many POWs and descendants
of POWs about the discrimination they faced. For example,
children of POWs were denied access to higher education. They
were directed to work in the same mines as their family and
generally were forced to take the worst jobs in the mines.1349
* A POW who returned to the ROK after escaping from the DPRK
decades after the war told the Commission how there was little
opportunity for his children in the DPRK to flourish because of
their songbun classification. So much so that his son once asked
him "why [were] we even born?"1350
* The son of a POW working in the same mine as his father
discovered, after befriending a security officer, that his
documents were marked with the number 43, the number used for
children of POWs.
1. The POWs who gave evidence to the Commission all spoke of
seeking better opportunities for their children born in the
DPRK as the primary reason for their decision to flee.
Children and grandchildren are routinely denied access to
education or employment opportunities. Daughters are further
discriminated against as they find it much harder to marry a
man of better songbun if discovered to be the child of a
POW.1351 Marriage options for daughters and granddaughters of
POWs are thus limited to men of equally low songbun. This
perpetuates the cycle of discrimination and increases the
chances of being widowed at an early age, as men of the lowest
level of songbun are forced to work in difficult and life
threatening environments such as mines. The discrimination
faced by descendants has, on occasion, led to the death by
suicide of POWs who feel incapable of improving the lives of
their children.1352
2. POWs who joined the KPA voluntarily after capture were treated
somewhat better. However ultimately they too were subjected to
the same restrictions on freedoms as the general
population.1353
* One witness told the Commission that because he agreed to serve
for the KPA in a hospital after being taken in 1951, he was never
considered a POW and his family faced no discrimination. After
the war, he was assigned to work in the Hol Dong Goldmine in
Hwanghae Province without his consent, but his position did not
require him to work underground.1354
1. After the war, families in the ROK of unreturned POWs held in
the DPRK did not receive any information about the fate of
their POW family members. Nor could they have contact with
them. After the Inter-Korean Summit in June 2000, the DPRK and
ROK agreed to address the problem of POWs along with separated
families in the South-North Ministerial Meeting and the South-
North Red Cross Meeting.1355 In February 2006, at the 7th
South-North Red Cross meeting, both sides agreed to include
confirmation of life or death of "people whose identities are
not known at the wartime and after" with that of separated
families. These steps taken on both sides to establish contact
between POWs in the North and their families in the South are
welcome. However they have not resulted in contact with
families for most of the POWs estimated to be alive in the
North. They have permitted no more than a few mere hours of
contact time for some families.1356 From 2nd to 19th during
the South-North Separated Family Reunions (2000-2013), 19 POWs
were confirmed to be alive in the DPRK, 22 dead, and 105 could
not be confirmed. Just 17 POWs were able to meet their ROK
families in family reunions. In May 2013, an organization in
the ROK called "Dream Makers for North Korea" established a
centre for registration of POWs. The centre seeks to determine
whether unreturned POWs are still alive.1357
2. Despite commitment to establish contact between POWs in the
DPRK and their families in the ROK, the DPRK maintains that
the issue of POWs was settled at the time of exchange of POWs
in accordance with the Armistice Agreement. They contend that
all POWs remaining in the DPRK are there voluntarily.1358 The
former POWs who provided evidence to the Commission all
refuted the assertion by the DPRK that POWs remain in the
country voluntarily.
* In Seoul, Mr Yoo Young-bok, elaborated:
"North Korea continues to maintain that there is not one South
Korean POW in North Korea. If you have a home in South Korea, if
you have parents and siblings in South Korea, why would anybody
want to stay in North Korea, working in these incredibly difficult
working conditions of the mine? This is just unreasonable. And
still the North Koreans continue to maintain that the POWs in North
Korea are there because they wanted to. Now these men have become
70, 80, and according to the North Korean press, there are about
500 of such POWs alive [in the DPRK at present]. The North Korean
Government is not letting these 500 people to go to South Korea.
And they are actually preventing them from escaping or leaving to
South Korea. They catch them and punish them and execute them. And
they also repress the children of the POWs – this is completely
inhumane. The South Korean government as well as the international
community should understand this and try to solve the human rights
problem in North Korea."1359
* Further, on the issue of permanently reuniting POWs of war in the
DPRK with their families in the ROK, Mr Yoo pleaded:
"[A]ll the POWs (alive) in North Korea would be over 80 years old.
… [T]hey have children; they have grandchildren in North Korea. If
you just bring one old guy from North Korea to South Korea, how
will they live in South Korea because they have their families back
in the North? So if South Korean government wanted to resolve this
issue, they should be able to bring the families of the POWs in
North Korea together to South Korea."1360
1. The Commission heard allegations, relating to the fate of
missing soldiers serving under the United Nations Command,
particularly soldiers from the United States of America.
According to the Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War
Prisoners of War and Persons Missing in Action, at the end of
the Korean War during the exchanges of prisoners some United
States soldiers, who were known to have been alive and in
captivity with those who had been released, were not handed
over by the DPRK authorities. The Coalition alleges that they
numbered more than 900 and that the total figure could be as
high as 4,500.1361 According to the transcript of a strategy
meeting between the leaders of the Soviet, DPRK and Chinese
forces, in September 1952, 8,000 American soldiers were held
by Chinese forces, and approximately 4,000 foreigners were
held by the DPRK. In the same meeting, the Commander of the
Chinese forces Peng Denhuai acknowledged that "many of the
foreign POWs have died in view of the difficult material
conditions".1362 The families of US military men who did not
return have sought information from the DPRK, China, Russia
and the United States. However, many complain that they have
not received sufficient cooperation. This has caused much
anguish.1363
(c) 1955 -1992: Post-war abduction and enforced disappearance of
Republic of Korea citizens
1. Abductions and enforced disappearances of persons from the
Republic of Korea have continued long after the signing of the
Korean War armistice. Approximately 3,835 ROK citizens have
been arrested or abducted by the DPRK since the end of the
Korean War,1364 of which 3,319 people were returned to the ROK
within one and a half years, and nine have subsequently
escaped and returned the ROK.1365 Five hundred and sixteen ROK
citizens are believed to remain disappeared by the DPRK.
(i)Abduction and enforced disappearance of fishers
1. The majority of these abductees (89 per cent) were forcibly
disappeared after being captured on fishing boats at sea. In
some cases, their boats may have ventured into the DPRK's
territorial waters. In others, they appear to have been
captured on the High Seas or in ROK territorial waters. In
total, 124 ROK boats and 1,147 fishers were captured by the
DPRK.1366 Four hundred and fifty-seven ROK fishers remain
disappeared by the DPRK.
2. The exact location of the capture of each boat is not known.
However, credible evidence has been received from a former
DPRK security official that indicates all boats were captured
in a similar manner.1367 According to former DPRK security
officials, the capture of fishing boats and fishers was
conducted by naval units of the Workers' Party of Korea.1368
After their vessels were captured, the crew were investigated
for several months. On most occasions several crew members
were released after the period of investigation, while others
were retained by the DPRK.
3. The interception and capture of some boats by the DPRK became
known immediately in the ROK because South Korean fishing
vessels traditionally travel in pairs and the second boat
informed the government of the fate of the first. In other
cases, however, both boats disappeared, and it was not until
the DPRK released some of the crew members months after
capture, that the fate of the boats and crew became known. For
example, in the case of Mr Choi Won-mo who was aboard the
vessel Poongbook-ho, captured at seas on 5 June 1967, five of
the eight crew members were returned to the ROK on 16
September 1967 on another ship.1369 A comparison between
retained and returned crew members shows a trend on the part
of the DPRK authorities to retain younger crew members. A
former DPRK operative testified that the youngest and smartest
were taken for ideology training and turned into spies.1370
Other detained fishers are believed to have been required to
undertake ideological studies before being sent to work in
other industries.1371
4. In extraordinary cases, the confirmation of the abduction of a
boat and its crew was significantly delayed; information only
becoming known after the escape from the DPRK and return to
the ROK of an abducted crew member. For example, the escape
from the DPRK and return to the ROK of a fisher in August
2013, was the first confirmation of the fate of paired fishing
boats and 25 crew members that were thought to have been lost
at sea 41 years prior.1372
* Mr Lee Jae-geun, a fisher aboard a boat captured in 1970
described their capture to the Commission in Seoul:
"On the 29th of April 1970, two gunboats from North Korea came to
our boat. Our boat was about 50 miles away from the border. Anyway,
these two gunboats approached us. … I thought the [Republic of]
Korean navy was coming to us. But these ten armed people, North
Koreans, were shooting at us. And they were yelling at us, ‘come
down or we'll kill you'. So the captains, all of us, wouldn't know
what was happening. We just woke up. Our captain, at that time, was
about to rise. They shot a gun at him. They just said one
instruction, if we don't follow, they will shoot us right away.
That was very scary so we were not able to ask why they were doing
what they were doing. They asked us to step down so we did. And if
we didn't do what they asked us to do, they said that they would
kill us right away. So, we did what we were told to do, we went
into the dining room. Then they closed the door. Anyway, these two
gunboats from North Korea pulled our boat for about an hour. Right
about when we were about to cross the border, I think the [Republic
of] Korean navy discovered us and started attacking us. However,
our boat has already crossed the 38th line, so we were already in
the territory of North Korea. So we were not saved by the Korean
navy."1373
1. According to a former official, the youngest and most
physically fit among the captured crews were not returned to
the ROK.1374 They were sent to spy training facilities run by
the Workers' Party of Korea.
* Mr Lee Jae-geun was one of the captured ROK fishers who was
trained to become spy. He testified before the Commission:
"[i]n general, everyone who was abducted from South Korea was
relatively highly educated. We graduated from elementary school,
middle school, and some of them were high school dropouts but we
were relatively highly educated. And the North Koreans, they
monitored us, they observed us, they looked at our physical fitness
and tried to see if we could function afterwards, and see if we
could serve to protect Kim Il-Sung and the leaders."1375
1. At the spy school, the students were given lectures on Juche,
Kim Il-sung and revolutionary behaviour. They were trained how
to do taekwondo, drive, carry out abductions, break into
homes, steal, sneak into houses undetected and kill. Class
sizes are small, generally limited to four people per room.
Trainees are prevented from seeing all other trainees aside
from the three in their class, at all times; they are ushered
into and out of rooms at different times and in extreme cases
forced to wear eye-coverings while walking between rooms and
facilities.
"We were sent to the spy school. We didn't know why we needed
this school. They said to us, if you graduate from this school,
you will receive far more privileges or benefits than graduating
from other schools. And they were threatening us even, so we had
no choice but to go to this spy school. So, we received education
at that school for 3 years and 8 months."1376
1. The Commission also heard about the methods used to ensure
that the captives were wholeheartedly engaging in the learning
process at the spy training schools. Combinations of fear and
physical force were used to coerce the students.
* Mr Lee described being taken to the mountainside and threatened
with death unless he committed to taking the classes more
seriously and performing better in them.
"When I was in this school, I did not really study. I was not very
attentive for a few days, then one day, they took me and they said
they would just take me for a walk. They took me in a car, I think
we drove for about two hours, deep into a mountain. There was
nobody in the mountain where they stopped the car. The driver
showed me two guns that he had with him, and he said ‘will you
continue to be defiant? You have to kneel or you will have to eat
the bullets'. So I asked, ‘do you have to kill me?' And he said ‘if
you don't listen to us, why should I let you live?' So I said,
‘okay, I will kneel, I will be subservient'. So that is why I was
able to survive, I was able to live."1377
1. Those who were compliant and amenable to undertaking the
spying activities expected of them were kept by the state in
separate housing and presumably utilized at the will of the
state. Those who did not graduate with distinction from the
spy training schools were sent to work in factories. Students
at the schools were made to swear they would not share the
truth of their abduction before being released from the
school.
"We had to sign documents with our fingerprints pledging that we
would not talk about our abduction to North Korea. … If we told
anybody in society that we had been abducted, we would have been
taken to political prison camps. We graduated and we joined the
North Korean societyand we did whatever we were told to do."1378
1. Abducted fishers not selected for spy training were sent to
other ideological training schools before being allocated to
work in another industry and released into DPRK society.1379
One witness told the Commission that the DPRK portrayed these
persons as "courageous heroes who voluntarily came to the
DPRK".1380
2. Once released from the schools, abductees were placed under
strict surveillance by the SSD. One witness told the
Commission he was placed under seven levels of
surveillance.1381 Being of South Korean origin, fishers and
their descendants were classified into the hostile songbun
class, restricting their education and employment
opportunities.
* "The son, the child of a South Korean, is prevented from getting
higher education. The descendants of those who are loyal to the
government, who did service for the North Korean government, are
only permitted to go to university. … I told him that I would do,
even give my life for him to get higher education. In South
Korea, my son graduated from Korea University. He studied
electric engineering and he is doing very well. But in North
Korea, just because I came from South Korea, my kids, my son did
not have access to higher education, good education. Anybody who
has experienced life in North Korea is aware of this, of such
fact."1382
(ii)Abductions by agents of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea
1. Of the 516 ROK citizens who remain detained in the DPRK, 70
were abducted by covert DPRK agents deployed in the ROK and
other countries. These include passengers of a hijacked
commercial airline flight, vacationing teenagers and other
citizens taken from the ROK, ROK citizens captured abroad and
soldiers and coast guards.1383 All but one of these enforcedly
disappeared persons have not been permitted any contact with
their families or the authorities of the ROK, despite their
families' repeated pleas and petitions transmitted to the
DPRK. A former DPRK intelligence officer who testified before
the Commission advised that Office 35 of the Central Committee
of the Workers´ Party of Korea, an intelligence bureau under
the effective command of Kim Jong-il, was implicated in
abductions from the ROK.1384
2. Another former official stated that orders to abduct ROK
nationals were conveyed through the Director-General of the
KPA Reconnaissance Bureau (a Three Star General). The
selection of targets was apparently made on the basis of
advice from a research centre known as "Military Office
584".1385 The Commission received evidence that one of the
tasks of special operations unit within the KPA was to conduct
spying activities along the coast of the ROK and Japan. The
confidential source stated that Military Office 584 conducted
three types of operations, general infiltration, abductions
and study of coastal waters. Abducted fishers who passed
through the ideological training and spy school were used to
interpret data about these activities, and to guide agents
taking to the seas to undertake operations.1386
3. On 11 December 1969, a Korean Airlines aircraft on a domestic
flight was hijacked by a DPRK agent and flown to the DPRK. On
13 December 1969, the Pyongyang Broadcasting Station reported
that the airplane was flown into the DPRK voluntarily by the
two pilots. However, it was later discovered that the pilots
were threatened by a DPRK agent on-board.1387 Four crew
members and 46 passengers were aboard the plane. Thirty-nine
of the passengers were released 66 days after the hijacking
and returned to the ROK. The four crew members and the
remaining seven passengers were not returned to the ROK. The
DPRK claimed that the 11 remained in the DPRK of their own
will. Two of the flight attendants have been used in
broadcasts to the ROK.1388 In August 1992, Ms Sung Kyung-hee
spoke on the Pyongyang Broadcasting Station saying "the DPRK
is where my heart, body and everything is rooted".1389 In a
press conference with the 39 passengers who were returned to
the ROK, it became evident that those remaining in the DPRK
did not do so voluntarily.1390 The DPRK also rebuffed
petitions for their release transmitted through the Red Cross.
The 11 retained against their will were relatively young and
highly skilled individuals. They worked in professions such as
pilot, film production, a camera operation, publishing and
medicine.
* At the Public Hearing in Seoul, the son of abducted film producer
Mr Hwang Won, and the brother of the abducted flight attendant Ms
Jung Kyung-sook spoke to the Commission. Both expressed their
deep sense of loss and desperation at the abduction of their
family members. Mr Jung told the Commission,"for our family, that
incident was just truly sad. I mean, we were so happy because she
graduated from a good school, she got a great job, and then she
was abducted."1391
* Mr Hwang In-chul told the Commission that he stopped believing in
the ROK government after several years of seeking their
assistance to locate his father in the DPRK and being constantly
rejected.
1. Relatives of the abductees from the hijacked aircraft have
faced great difficulty in obtaining information about their
family members. According to relatives of the abductees, the
ROK government has not been willing to raise the issue with
the DPRK. They have been advised that abductees are considered
to be separated families and thus are dealt with within the
sequence of the larger number of separated families.1392 Mr
Hwang surmised that, as everyone in the ROK is focussed on
reunification, they think of the abductions in political
rather than humanitarian terms.1393
2. The abduction of a civil airliner and its passengers is a
serious violation of international law. On 9 September 1970,
the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 286 appealed
to the State parties concerned with the hijacking of aircraft
to immediately release all passengers and crew.1394 On 25
November 1970, the United Nations General Assembly adopted
Resolution 2645 at its 25th session, condemning aerial
hijacking and detention of its crew and passengers and urged
states in which the aircraft resided to provide for the care
and safety of the passengers and crew and enable them to
resume their journey.1395 Since 1983, the DPRK is also a State
Party to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful
Seizure of Aircraft, which requires it to facilitate the
onwards travel of any passengers aboard a unlawfully seized
plane that lands in the DPRK.1396 Despite these calls from the
international community, no adequate response to this
international crime has ever been received.
3. Five ROK high school students were abducted from seaside
locations in the ROK during the summer of 1977 and 1978. In
1977, two high school students, Mr Lee Min-gyo and Mr Choi
Seung-min were abducted from the same beach.1397 In the summer
of 1978, Mr Kim Young-nam was taken from a beach in Gunsan,
ROK, and Mr Lee Myung-woo and Mr Hong Gun-pyo were abducted
from a beach in Hongdo. Mr Kim Young-nam was able to reunite
briefly with his family at a separated family reunion in 2006.
4. A former DPRK intelligence officer testified before the
Commission that the abduction of high school students was
carried out by Office 35, under the command of Kim Jong-il.
According to the officer, the students were taken to the North
and schooled for the purpose of being sent to the United
States and ROK as foreign students.1398
5. ROK authorities list 30 ROK soldiers and coast guards to have
been abducted. The soldiers were abducted from either the
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) or during missions in the Vietnam
War, while the coast guards were taken during North Korean
attacks on the ROK sea guard.
6. The Commission heard allegations that some ROK soldiers who
served in the Vietnam War and were taken prisoner of war were
denied repatriation and handed over to the DPRK. Mr Ahn Young-
soo alleged that his brother, Mr Ahn Hak-soo, who disappeared
while serving in Vietnam and surfaced in 1967 in Pyongyang as
a newsreader, was handed over to the DPRK and executed in
1975.1399 In 2009, an investigative panel set up by the
Government of the Republic of Korea, which had originally
assumed Mr Ahn Hak-soo had voluntarily defected to the DPRK,
found that he had been captured in Vietnam and was sent to the
DPRK against his will.1400
* Mr Ahn Young-soo told the Commission about hearing his brother on
the radio:
"My brother's voice could be heard. His throat was really harsh. It
was as if he was reading a script; he was talking about his reasons
and how he came to be in North Korea. And it was not just my older
brother; everyone knows that those who had been taken to North
Korea forcefully at that time would have to read some script like
the one that my brother had read."1401
1. Twelve ROK nationals are believed to have been abducted during
overseas travel. Two abductees in this category were the well-
known ROK actress Ms Choi Un-hee and ROK director Mr Shin
Sang-ok who have since escaped. Others include two families of
eight people from West Germany, one student from Austria, and
one teacher from Norway.
2. In 1978, South Korean Actress Ms Choi Un-hee was abducted from
Hong Kong after travelling there to meet people in the movie
industry. After being forced onto a boat by DPRK agents, Ms
Choi demanded an explanation from the abductors, to which they
replied "Madam Choi, we are now going to the bosom of General
Kim Il-sung".1402 On her arrival in the DPRK on 22 January,
she was met by Kim Jong-il who took her on a tour of
Pyongyang.1403 Upon learning of her disappearance, Ms Choi's
ex-husband Shin Sang-ok, a leading filmmaker, went to Hong
Kong to look for her. He was also abducted from Hong Kong by
the same DPRK agent in July 1978.1404 Kim Jong-il said to Mr
Shin upon his arrival in the DPRK "I had ordered the
operations group to carry out a project to bring you here as I
wanted a talented director like you to be in the North."1405
This information is consistent with the accounts from former
DPRK officials who were personally involved in abductions who
indicated that Kim Jong-il personally signed off on abduction
orders.1406 During their time in the DPRK, Mr Shin Sang-ok and
Ms Choi Un-hee were involved in a number of DPRK-produced
movies of which Kim Jong-il was the executive producer. The
couple escaped into the United States Embassy while visiting a
film festival in Vienna in 1986. They later settled in the
United States; Mr Shin has since passed away.
3. A number of ROK citizens have also gone missing in Europe and
are believed to have been abducted by DPRK agents working
there. In April 1971, an officer of the Korean Embassy in the
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) Mr Yu Seong-geun,
his wife Ms Jeong Sun-seob, and two children, Yu Kyeong-hee
and Yu Jin-hyee, were abducted.1407 In June 1979, Ko Sang-moon
disappeared from Europe, and later the DPRK claimed he had
defected to the DPRK of his own volition after he had entered
the DPRK Embassy in Oslo.1408 In December 1985, Mr Oh Gil-nam,
his wife Ms Shin Suk-ja and two children, Ms Oh Hye-won and Ms
Oh Gyu-won, were lured to the DPRK by a DPRK agent in
Germany.1409 Mr Oh succeeded in escaping in Copenhagen whilst
on a mission to lure other ROK nationals to the DPRK. His
family remains detained in the DPRK. In August 1987,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Mr Lee Chae-hwan
disappeared in Austria during his summer vacation there.1410
(d) Efforts to resolve the abductions and enforced disappearances
on the Korean peninsula
1. Family members of ROK POWs and abductees have, over the years,
suffered discrimination from their own government in addition
to the mental anguish and loss from the sudden disappearance
of their loved ones. During the years of authoritarian rule in
the ROK (1963-1988), relatives of persons abducted and
forcibly disappeared by the DPRK were subjected to
surveillance and prevented from entry into government
education facilities and employment as they were considered to
be connected to leftist deserters and therefore untrustworthy.
* Mr Choi Sung-yong at the Seoul Public Hearing explained that the
ROK government's fears were exacerbated after the attack on the
Korean Blue House (the residence of the ROK President) in 1968:
"In 1968 there was an attack on the Korean Blue House by Kim Sin-
jo. Well before that when the fishers and others that had been
abducted to North Korea, if they returned to South Korea they were
welcomed and rewarded, but after that incident by Kim Sin-jo in
1968, anybody who's been to North Korea was arrested because of the
violation of our law against communism so there was this law that
was being guilty by association. We couldn't go abroad. We couldn't
become a public servant so the family members of the North Korea
abductees were victimized one more time by the South Korean
government."1411
1. The ROK policy of monitoring the relatives of persons forcibly
disappeared for national security reasons continued until the
late 1990s. Children of the disappeared suffered greatly from
this policy as they were denied access to higher education and
employment opportunities with the government. Many people
expressed their frustration and despair to the Commission at
being denied basic rights in their own country. For example,
one witness the daughter of an abducted fisher lost her job,
as her employer was not comfortable with the unwanted
attention received from the police as they routinely visited
her workplace to monitor the abductee's daughter.1412 Many
families chose to relocate in ROK to avoid the unnecessary
attention of the authorities. However, in some instances, this
only roused more suspicion and consequently more visits form
the police.1413
* Family members of ROK abductees and disappeared persons told the
Commission:
"The police was watching the families of the abductees, they were
watching who was coming or who was going, and if we moved, that is,
if we relocated, they would come visit us and ask us
questions."1414
"The police have done nothing to help us. The only thing they have
done is put a surveillance on us. It seems that the South Korean
government has never appealed or has complained to North Korea
about the abductees."1415
1. At the height of the tension between the North and South, some
family members of persons suspected to have gone to the DPRK
voluntarily, were are treated particularly harshly, as
intelligence agency staff were overzealous in the their
attempts to discover spies.
* The family of a ROK soldier transferred to the DPRK by the
communist forces during his service in Vietnam was treated
particularly harshly. Mr Ahn Yong-soo, the brother of the soldier
told the Commission:
"Well, soon after my brother had been abducted, we have gone
through many difficulties. As I said my father was the principal of
a school but he had to retire, and, since he was forcefully retired
from the school, we were defined as a potential spy family. And my
father was sent to… a factory in a mountainous region in Kangwon
and our family's human rights were violated. I have been beaten and
I have been tortured as well.
There was a really bad practice by the National Intelligence Agency
at that time. There were rewards that were given to the agents if
they were able to make somebody into spies, if they were able to
discover spies. So they used to make up, fabricate these spies, and
if they reported these spies, the agents were able to get
rewards."1416
1. During the "Sunshine Policy" years (1998 – 2008) initiated in
ROK by President Kim Dae-jung, because the focus of dialogue
with the DPRK was on establishing business ventures and
peaceful coexistence with the North, issues relating to the
enforced disappearance of ROK nationals were avoided. Under
President Kim Dae-jung, abductions were categorized within the
grouping of "separated families", absorption of the issue of
abductions into the larger category of separated families
meant there was no foreseeable short-term resolution which
caused additional anguish for family members.
2. While the absorption of the abduction and enforced
disappearance issue into the issue of separated families did
enable relatives to apply to attend separated family reunions,
in reality it benefited the relatives of very few of the
forcedly disappeared. From 2000 to 2010, 18 Separated Family
Reunions were held.1417 From 2005, families of abducted
citizens began to apply to participate in these reunions. In
order to apply to attend a Separated Family Reunion, families
were obliged to participate in a lottery in ROK. If selected
they had to then apply to the Red Cross for a life
verification status. If they received confirmation that the
family member was alive, they could meet their family member
at the next Separated Family Reunion. Family members of the
forcibly disappeared could apply to attend separated family
reunions, on the condition that no reference be made to how
the families became separated or the issue of the abduction
more generally. A mother of two disappeared fishers told the
Commission of the joy she experienced at being able to
reunite, albeit briefly, with one of her abducted sons at a
separated family reunion, but lamented that she was so
terrified about what she could say, they did not talk very
much.1418 For most relatives of abductees who applied to
attend a separated family reunion, the response they received
from the life verification request was either that their loved
one was dead or that a life verification status was not
possible.
3. Policy changes in recent years in the ROK have enabled family
victims of the disappeared to collectivize, share their
experiences and advocate for their rights. Since about 2003,
family members have lobbied the ROK government seeking to have
it commit to obtaining the life verification status of
disappeared persons and to provide compensation to the
families for the additional harm suffered through government
monitoring and discrimination. In 2007, a law was enacted to
provide restitution for families of abductions who applied
within a 3 year period.1419 The monetary payment was at first
framed as compensation for hardship faced from government
activities, but was later renamed to Ui-ro-geum, (lit. "reward
for suffering"- restitution). Awards of USD 30,000 – 45,000,
depending on when a victim was abducted, were awarded to
families, to divide between themselves. In 2007, the number of
abductions accepted by the government was about 400. By the
programme's close in 2010, the number had been extending to
517 official cases of abductions. Families of 516 abduction
victims applied for the restitution, and an estimated 1200
individuals received payment.
4. In 2010, the Korean War Abduction Truth Ascertainment and
Regaining Honour of Abductees Law was enacted in the ROK. The
law was an important rehabilitation measure for family victims
of wartime abduction, establishing the "Commission on Korean
War Abduction Damage Truth Ascertainment" charged with truth-
seeking in relation to the abductions to restore the dignity
of the abducted and their families. The legislation also bound
the state to establish and enforce policies such as confirming
the death of abductees and returning them (including their
remains if deceased), facilitating the exchange of letters and
family reunions.1420
5. The change in government attitudes and policies toward the
forcibly disappeared and their family members has also
resulted in the belated recognition of many service related
achievements for persons who have been disappeared by the
North. For example, in June 2013, Mr Choi Sung-yong received a
medal of honour on behalf of his father who served as the head
of a security unit during the Korean War, and was later
abducted from a vessel at sea in 1967.1421
6. The abduction issue is complicated by political realities in
both the DPRK and ROK. Both states claim that the population
of the whole peninsula belongs to their state. Nonetheless,
the systematic abduction of civilians during the war, and post
war, together with the denial of repatriation to POWs,
regardless of a view of citizenship, constitutes enforced
disappearance.
(e) 1959 - 1984: enforced disappearance of ethnic Koreans and
Japanese nationals who migrated to the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea from Japan during the "Paradise on Earth Movement"
1. In the aftermath of World War II, some 2.4 million ethnic
Koreans were residing in Japan. In 1945 the DPRK established
the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chae
Ilbon Chosonin Ch'ongyonhaphoe in Korean, or Zai-Nihon
Chosenjin Sorengokai in Japanese, abbreviated to Chongryon and
Chosen Soren respectively). Chongryon established schools,
businesses and a university in Japan offering alternative
education and employment prospects for Korean residents in
Japan. Many ethnic Koreans living in Japan at the time showed
allegiance to Chongryon. Faced with having to choose a between
the DPRK or ROK, Koreans living in Japan elected to be
registered as DPRK nationals residing in Japan. These people
became the target of the "Paradise on Earth" or "Return to
Paradise" propaganda campaign.
2. The Paradise on Earth movement began on 14 December 1959. It
officially ended in 1984. However by 1961, 81 per cent of the
93,340 "returnees" had already crossed to the DPRK.1422 At the
time the movement was seen as a humanitarian service and
organized between the Japanese Red Cross and the Red Cross of
the DPRK. The majority of the 93,340 "returnees" were Korean
residents living in Japan. Many of these people were not
originally from north of the 38th parallel. Rather, their
families were from the South and were living in Japan at the
time of the division of the Korean peninsula. Amongst the
"returnees", 6,730 were Japanese nationals who were the
spouses or children of Korean residents in Japan.1423 1,831
were "Japanese wives", Japanese women married to Korean men.
An indeterminate number of the Japanese nationals were men and
children.
3. At the time, the DPRK, referred to as Paradise on Earth, was
portrayed by Chongryon as a place where people would work
according to their ability and receive goods and services
(such as education and medical care) according to their needs.
The DPRK was said to have more mineral resources and food than
Japan, and was anticipated to overtake Japan in terms of
productivity in many sectors; it was commonly called "the
workers' paradise". At the time, Japan, still recovering from
its defeat in World War II, had insufficient food supplies,
and many were living in poverty. Korean residents in Japan
often lived in more dire circumstances than the Japanese due
to discrimination. Mr Kato Hiroshi, an expert on the return
movement and humanitarian activist, explained to the
Commission at the Public Hearing in Tokyo, that it was not
just Chongryon, but the Japanese media sources also that
"built up these dreams" enticing almost 100,000 people to move
to the DPRK.
* As Mr Kato explained, unfortunately for those that went to the
DPRK, they discovered the situation was very different:
"[However,] if you look at reality, North Korea was trying to
recover from the devastation of the Korean War. They were lacking
human labour, skills, manufacturing facilities as well as
materials, but that's when the country came up with this campaign
and called their country a ‘Paradise on Earth'. But [as I said,]
because of the conditions, the place that the ethnic Koreans called
their fatherland was a place where a very harsh reality was waiting
for them. However, nobody knew that back then. Now, many people
understand what the reality was."1424
1. The harsh truth that was awaiting the returnees was not just
the basic living conditions or allowances; they would lose
control over their lives. From the day they arrived, decisions
of where to live, where to work, what to eat, who to speak to
and how, were dictated to them. Their movement was restricted,
they were monitored, and encouraged to monitor others. Mail
they sent to family in Japan was checked and censored.
Frame2
2. Despite the censorship, coded and obscure messages sent to
family in Japan were able to convey the challenges and
difficulties faced in the DPRK. In one example shown to the
Commission, by prior arrangement, a ‘returnee' had written
their true sentiments on the back of a stamp that could
otherwise not be expressed in the letter for fear of
censorship. The author had written "We cannot leave the
village. Older brother do not come. Mother says she wishes to
see you. Tell our sister in Toyama also not to come. What
Bunto's father said is correct."1425
* One witness, the only member of his family to remain in Japan,
received similar messages from his family after they migrated to
the DPRK. A strong supporter of the DPRK, the witness had wanted
to migrate to the DPRK with his family. However, due to his work
with Chongryon,he was asked to remain in Japan and continue his
work there. Upon expressing an interest to his family in the DPRK
to send his daughter from Japan to live there in their care, his
family began to write cryptic messages to him such as "It is
better for children to stay with their parents", and "Grandmother
ate one piece of (something) and was very happy". The witness
understood from these messages that his family did not think it
was a good idea for him to send his daughter there. Later able to
visit the DPRK himself and see his family there, he saw how
malnourished they were and timid to speak, fearful of their
monitors.1426
1. Families in Japan became concerned about the prospect of life
in the DPRK because of persistent requests for family in Japan
to send goods and money; this stemmed the flow of Koreans
living in Japan into the DPRK. Reacting to this reality, the
DPRK government severely restricted contact between the
"returnees" and their families in Japan. Promises made to the
"Japanese wives" before departing for the DPRK that they could
return to Japan to visit their families after 3 years in the
DPRK were not kept, and the returnees increasingly felt
monitored and persecuted. Although they had travelled to the
DPRK voluntarily, by the mid-1960s the majority were
effectively being retained there against their will and were
no longer allowed to have any contact with family members they
had left behind.
2. Returnees and general DPRK citizens were both distrusting of
the other. Many "returnees" felt deceived when on their
arrival at Chongjin Port where they could see the
infrastructure and standard of living was extremely poor
compared to Japan. DPRK nationals were suspicious of the
"returnees" as they had been living in a capitalist
society.1427 The suspicion of the returnees resulted in most
being placed under strict surveillance, given "hostile"
songbun status, and being confined to remote districts.
Speaking in Japanese was at first discouraged and later
banned. Witnesses gave evidence to the Commission of the
punishments allocated for speaking Japanese or singing
Japanese songs including being taken to a police station and
beaten. The Commission received evidence from one witness who
was tied to a chair, beaten and stabbed in the stomach after
being caught singing in Japanese.1428
3. Many of the "returnees" had high levels of education, due in
part to opportunities afforded to them in Japan that were not
available in Korea during the years of conflict and subsequent
reconstruction. At first, these people were able to work in
high level positions in organs of importance and were
permitted to live in or near Pyongyang. At the Tokyo Public
Hearing, Mr Kato provided several examples of persons who at
first were welcomed for their talent and skills, but were
later persecuted as suspected spies.1429 The Commission also
heard in person from family members of "returnees" who were
among the highly skilled and valuable but ultimately fell from
favour and were banished to a political prison camp.
* Mr Shibata Hiroyuki, brother of Mr Shibata Kozo, told the
Commission how his brother became a political prisoner, because
he petitioned the DPRK Government to allow Japanese nationals to
go home:
"It was a clear sentence of a period of 20 years, and it was very
arduous. He was imprisoned in that first sentence because he was
aiding too much the Japanese spouses. That's why Kozo, my brother,
was arrested. That was the charge. During his 20-year sentence, he
didn't have so much responsibility or tasks during imprisonment,
but then later on after the 20 years' term, he got an additional 6
years. During these 6 years, he felt that – well, he served
already, so he will be released. That's what he expected. Even the
judge didn't say anything. However, suddenly at the end of the 20-
year term, the judge said that you have suspicion to be undertaking
spy espionage and as a result he got additional years."1430
Based on witness testimony from a fellow prisoner of Mr Shibata
Kozo, Amnesty International later reported that Mr Shibata Kozo had
been kept at Sungho political prison camp (kwanliso). Following
inquiries by Amnesty International, the DPRK claimed that Mr
Shibata Kozo and his entire family died in a train accident under
improbable circumstances.1431
* Mr Kang Chol-hwan's paternal grandparents, moved from Japan to
the DPRK in the 1960s to help build the country. In 1977, his
grandfather suddenly disappeared. Soon after, Mr Kang (then 9
years old) was arrested and taken, without indictment or trial,
to Political Prison Camp No. 15. Only his mother was spared,
because she accepted a forced divorce from Mr Kang's father.
After having survived ten years of starvation and forced labour
in the camp, he was released without any explanation. Mr Kang
described to the Commission that an entire section at Political
Prison Camp No. 15 was occupied by ethnic Koreans from Japan who
had been detained, apparently because they knew too much about
capitalist culture.1432
(f) 1970s – 1980s: abduction of Japanese nationals
1. In September 2002, the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi
Junichiro visited Pyongyang to negotiate with DPRK authorities
the return of Japanese nationals suspected of having been
abducted to the DPRK. The DPRK's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il
admitted to Prime Minister Koizumi that DPRK agents had
abducted 13 Japanese nationals (seven women and six men). The
admission came after years of speculation in Japan that many
Japanese nationals had been forcefully kidnapped by the DPRK.
In his admission, as reported by Prime Minister Koizumi, Kim
Jong-il acknowledged that "these were the work of persons
affiliated with North Korea in the past. He offered his
apologies, expressing his regret."1433 The Joint Pyongyang
Declaration issued by Kim Jong-il and Prime Minister Koizumi
on behalf of their states indicates that "With respect to the
outstanding issues of concern related to the lives and
security of Japanese nationals, the DPRK side confirmed that
it would take appropriate measures so that these regrettable
incidents, that took place under the abnormal bilateral
relationship, would never happen in the future."1434Prior to
this admission to Prime Minister Koizumi, the DPRK had denied
all allegations of connections with disappeared persons
believed to have been abducted or forcibly disappeared by the
regime.
2. The Commission received testimony from former DPRK officials
who worked in the office charged with conducting abductions. A
former official who worked in Office 35 of the Workers' Party
of Korea, stated it is charged with "normal intelligence
activities, such as kidnappings and abductions". One unit in
the office dealt specifically with the abductions of nationals
from Japan. The former official joined the office in 1990, and
at that time the order to "bring" people to the DPRK came from
Kim Jong-il. The director then wrote the plan to implement the
order, and Kim Jong-il signed it. The general instruction was
to persuade foreigners to go to the DPRK. However, if that was
not possible, then they should be kidnapped.1435
3. Kidnappings of nationals on land in Japan mostly occurred in
the countryside, near the coast. Agents approach Japan by sea,
and landed onshore. Women walking alone were often targeted
for the ease at which they could be overcome. The former
official cited various methods used to overcome victims. These
included, surrounding the victims, choking them and/ or tying
a bandage soaking in anaesthetic over their mouths before
putting them in a sack for transportion to the boat. Other
witness testimony received by the Commission points to
abduction tactics being a regular component of spy
training,1436 and that 50 per cent of spies are taught
Japanese, and 50 per cent the South Korean dialect.1437 The
former official working with Office 35 personally knew of 10
Japanese women who had been abducted.1438
4. A second former official working with the Bureau of
Reconnaissance of the KPA was involved in the abduction of
Japanese nationals from sea. According to the former official,
abduction operations required the signature of Kim Il-sung or
Kim Jong-il. Kim Jong-il also frequently visited the
Reconnaissance Department, one of the major agencies involved
in the abductions. Abductions from sea generally took place
between midnight and 3 am. The DPRK vessel were disguised to
look like a Japanese vessel (with Japanese inscriptions), and
approached isolated Japanese boats close to the coast of
Japan. The boats were attacked, the youngest and smartest crew
taken and the boat sunk, drowning the unwanted members of the
crew. DPRK spies sunk Japanese vessels by disconnecting the
pump in the engine room which caused the boat to flood and
sink within one to two hours.1439
5. Japanese nationals were commonly kidnapped to further
espionage and terrorist activities. They were used to teach
the Japanese language, accent and culture to DPRK spies in
training; to enable the study of Japanese identification
documents in order to better falsify them; and allow DPRK
agents to pass themselves off as being Japanese, using the
identity of the abducted person.1440 For example, in 1987, two
DPRK agents travelling on Japanese passports and passing
themselves off as Japanese nationals planted a bomb in an
overhead luggage compartment on Korean Air Flight 858 from
Bagdad via Abu Dhabi and Bangkok to Seoul causing its
explosion over the Andaman Sea, killing all 115 people on
board. The two agents were arrested at the airport of Bahrain
after which they attempted suicide. The male agent died, but
the female agent, Ms Kim Hyon-hui, survived and later
confessed that she and her partner were DPRK nationals and
received orders to blow up the airplane from Kim Jong-il in an
effort to disrupt the presidential election and 1988 Seoul
Olympics. Accounts of abductions of other nationals reveal
abductors to have been persons who held themselves out to be
Japanese.1441
6. Office 35 and the Operations Department of the Central
Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and the Bureau of
Reconnaissance under the KPA were amalgamated in 2009 to form
the "General Reconnaissance Bureau", which formally belongs to
the KPA.
7. At the press conference in 2002, Japanese Prime Minister
Koizumi said "I stated that there must be no more cases of
unidentified ships. Chairman Kim Jong-Il responded that it was
thought to be the work of certain elements of the military
authorities and that he intended to look into the matter
further and take appropriate measures to ensure that no such
case ever occurs again" (emphasis added).1442 The Commission
finds that these abductions have not been conducted by rogue
elements of the military. Instead, they were targeted attacks
carried out under the apparent orders of Kim Il-sung and
subsequently Kim Jong-il.
8. The admission, by Kim Jong-il, of the abduction of 13 Japanese
nationals is clearly not the full truth. The Government of
Japan has satisfied itself beyond reasonable doubt that 17
Japanese nationals (nine women and eight men) have been
abducted, five of whom have returned to Japan. The Japanese
police continue to investigate approximately 860 cases of
missing persons that have not been ruled out as being
abductions of Japanese to the DPRK.1443 The International
Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea
(ICNK) Japan team, a consortium of Japanese groups working on
issues relating to the disappearance of Japanese nationals
(and human rights in the DPRK), submitted to the Commission
that the number of Japanese nationals abducted by the DPRK is
at least 40, and probably over 100.1444
9. In the absence of the full cooperation by DPRK, the Commission
is unable to resolve exactly the number of Japanese nationals
who were abducted from Japan and taken to DPRK. However, the
Commission finds that it is probable that at least 100
Japanese nationals have been abducted by the DPRK. Reasons for
the abductions are believed to include the teaching of foreign
languages in spy and military training schools, for the
technical expertise of the abductees and, in the case many of
the abductees, to be "given" in marriage to foreigners in the
DPRK. As noted in section IV.C, the protection and maintenance
of a "pure Korean race" is a key feature of DPRK society and
great effort is made to prevent the birth of mixed race
Koreans. Japanese nationals, in particular, appear to have
been segregated from other groups in an effort to encourage
growth of the Japanese population in the DPRK with a view to
inspiring a revolution in Japan at a later date.
(i)Abductions from Japan
1. In 2002, at his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi,
Kim Jong-il admitted to the abduction of 13 Japanese
nationals.1445 After the admission, five nationals were
permitted by the DPRK to visit Japan, and all remained there.
The DPRK has stated that the additional eight Japanese
nationals whom it abducted had subsequently died. However no
plausible evidence was provided in support of their assertion.
Ms Yokota Megumi - 15 November 1977
1. Ms Yokota Megumi was 13 years old when she was taken by force
on her journey home from school in the coastal area of Niigata
prefecture, Japan. In 2002, when Kim Jong-il admitted to her
abduction, Ms Yokota was alleged to have died at the age of
29. However, the death certificate provided in support of this
assertion appears to have been falsified, and DNA tests on the
remains said to be hers were not a positive match. Megumi
appears to have married Mr Kim Young-nam of the ROK, also
abducted in his teens by the DPRK. Together they have one
daughter.1446
2. Ms Yokota's parents, Mrs Yokota Sakie and Mr Yokota Shigeru,
are tireless campaigners for all abductees. They appeared
before the Commission at the Tokyo Public Hearing in August
2013:
"[When] I saw the photos for the first time [of Megumi as a]
grownup... We wept so much. … For the first time, I saw her in the
photo, and we really were so sad. We looked for her everywhere last
20 years, and now she is in Pyongyang, and we felt so bad. I
finally discovered her, and still we cannot save her, and we said
sorry for her … I wept so much that we still cannot help her."1447
Ms Taguchi Yaeko – June 1978
1. Ms Taguchi Yaeko disappeared from Tokyo in June 1978, leaving
behind two very young children. Former DPRK agent Kim Hyon-
hui, convicted of bombing a Korean Air jet in November 1987,
is believed to have been taught how to pass herself off as
Japanese by Ms Taguchi. The DPRK alleged that Ms Taguchi died
at age 30. However, the DPRK authorities have not provided any
credible evidence in support of their claim.
Mrs Chimura (formerly Hamamoto) Fukie and Mr Chimura Yasushi – 7
July 1978
1. Mrs and Mr Chimura were abducted whilst enjoying a social
evening together near the coast of Obama, Fukui Prefecture,
Japan. Mrs and Mr Chimura were two amongst the five abductees
permitted to return to Japan in 2002 after the acknowledgment
of their abduction. They did not return to the DPRK. Their
children were subsequently able to join them in Japan in 2004.
In 2006, the Japanese Government issued an arrest warrant for
Shin Gwang-su, the North Korean agent believed to have been
responsible for their abduction.
Mrs Hasuike Yukiko (formerly Okudo) and Mr Hasuike Kaoru – 31 July
1978
1. Mrs and Mr Hasuike were abducted from the coast of Kashiwazaki
in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. Mrs and Mr Hasuike were two of
the five abductees returned to Japan in 2002, and their
children in 2004. In 2006 and 2007, the Japanese authorities
issued arrest warrants for three DPRK agents believed to be
associated with the couples' abduction: Choi Sun-chol, Han
Myeong-il and Kim Nam-jin.
Ms Masumoto Rumiko and Mr Ichikawa Shuichi – 12 August 1978
1. The third couple acknowledged to have been taken in the summer
of 1978, Ms Masumoto and Mr Ichikawa disappeared after going
to watch the sunset on a beach in Fukiage, Kagoshima
Prefecture, Japan. The DPRK claimed that the two married in
July 1979 and died at the ages of 27 and 24 respectively. As
with the other victims alleged to be deceased, credible
evidence establishing the deaths has not been provided. Ms
Masumoto's brother, Mr Masumoto Teruaki, submitted to the
Commission:
"My family was worried sick about Rumiko. Every single day we
prayed that she was alive somewhere. We grieved for a long time,
but after a while we stopped talking about it, because every time
we did, it reopened the wounds and my mother would start crying
again as if it happened yesterday.
We tried to get on with our lives, but our smiles were forced.
Rumiko was always in our thoughts. We lost the ability to enjoy
life at all. The pain of losing a sister I loved has never gone
away, so I can only imagine what torment my parents have gone
through."1448
Ms Soga Hitomi and Mrs Soga Miyoshi– 12 August 1978
1. Ms Soga and her mother were abducted from Sado Island, Niigata
Prefecture, Japan, on their way home from shopping. The DPRK
has acknowledged the abduction of Ms Soga Hitomi, but not that
of her mother Mrs Soga Miyoshi. Ms Soga Hitomi was permitted
to return to Japan in 2002 after the acknowledgment of her
abduction.
2. In the DPRK, Ms Soga Hitomi was married to Mr Charles Jenkins,
one of the five US Army deserters who crossed over to the DPRK
from their posts in the ROK voluntarily after the Korean War.
Mr Jenkins - who deserted his post in the ROK in 1965 –
reports having lived in close proximity to the three US
nationals who crossed over to the DPRK before him, Mr Larry
Allen Abshier (1962), Mr James Joseph Dresnock (1962) and Mr
Jerry Wayne Parrish (1963).1449 According to Mr Jenkins, the
four were closely monitored and managed with their freedom of
movement seriously constrained. The four unsuccessfully
attempted to escape in 1966 by seeking asylum in the Russian
Embassy, after which they were convinced there was no chance
they could leave the DPRK. They had crossed voluntarily, but
found themselves trapped in captivity.Mr Jenkins and the
couple's two daughters were able to reunite with Ms Soga in
Japan in 2004.1450
3. Ms Soga, who was only 19 at the time of her abduction, was
detained at the same location as Ms Yokota Megumi during the
first year after her arrival. Although the two were closely
monitored and prevented from communicating in Japanese
together, they became close.
Mr Hara Tadaaki – June 1980
1. Mr Hara Tadaaki disappeared in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, in
June 1980. DPRK agent Shin Gwang-su later passed himself off
as Mr Hara in Japan.1451 He also used his passport and
travelled to different countries including to the ROK. He was
arrested, tried and imprisoned in the ROK. After his arrest,
he admitted to the ROK authorities that he was involved in
abducting Mr Hara and relocating him to the DPRK. The DPRK
claimed that Mr Hara died of hepatic cirrhosis in 1986.
Journalist Mr Ishidaka Kenji, who uncovered much of the
information about the abduction of Japanese nationals in the
course of his work, told the Commission of the abduction
process of Mr Hara:
* "The three people cooperated with Shin Gwang-su, followed his
order, and kidnapped a chef working in Osaka whose name was Hara
Tadaaki, and he brought this man to Kyushu where there he was met
by other spies from North Korea put him in a bag, and forced him
to get on the vessel to take him back tothe DPRK."1452
1. The Government of Japan has asserted that an additional four
Japanese citizens have been abducted by the DPRK and have
sought their release and return to Japan.1453 DPRK authorities
maintain that these four Japanese nationals never entered the
DPRK.
Mr Kume Yutaka – 19 September 1977
1. Mr Kume Yutaka disappeared from the coast of Ushitsu, Ishikawa
prefecture, Japan. A former security guard, Mr Kume was
deceived by a money-making idea by a Japanese Korean, working
as a DPRK agent. The agent asked Mr Kume to take money on a
rubber boat to people on a boat anchored away from the shore.
Mr Kume did not return. Police were aroused to the suspicious
behaviour and held the agent for 23 days, but ultimately were
unable to gather enough evidenvce to prove that he was
responsible for Mr Kume's disappearance as they were unaware
of Mr Kume's intentions before departing Japan.1454 The DPRK
maintains Mr Kume did not enter the DPRK.
Ms Matsumoto Kyoko – 21 October 1977
1. Ms Matsumoto Kyoko disappeared on the way to a knitting school
in Tottori prefecture, Japan. A neighbour witnessed Ms
Matsumoto talking to two strangers. Ms Matsumoto's sandal was
found near the beach, giving rise to the suspicion she was
taken by boat by the strangers.1455 During talks between the
DPRK and Japan, DPRK has stated that it cannot confirm that
Matsumoto Kyoko entered the DPRK.
Mrs Soga Miyoshi – 12 August 1978
1. Mrs Soga Miyoshi was abducted with Ms Soga Hitomi (see above).
The DPRK maintains Mrs Soga did not enter the DPRK.
(ii)Abductions from abroad
1. A group of Japanese nationals attracted to Communism, and/ or
Juche ideology, travelled to the DPRK of their own volition in
the early 1970s, and later participated in the abduction of
Japanese nationals abroad.
2. The Yodo-go group comprised nine Japanese nationals who
hijacked a plane and flew it to the DPRK in 1970. The group
belonged to the Red Army Faction, a small group of radical
left activists that split from the Japanese Communist League
in 1969. Police uncovered the faction's plot to kidnap the
then Japanese Prime Minister Sato Eisaku, leading to the
arrest of over 50 members and the decision of the nine to flee
the country.1456 On 31 March 1970, under the direction of the
ideological leader Mr Shiomi Takaya and operational leader Mr
Tamiya Takamaro, the group hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351
carrying 129 people from Tokyo to Fukuoka, flying it to the
DPRK (after offloading the passengers in Fukuoka and
Seoul).1457 The nine became known as the "Yodo-go Group" as
the plane they hijacked was the "Yodo-go". The group had
planned to go to Cuba and hoped the DPRK would send them
there, but they remained in the DPRK.
3. The wives and partners of the Yodo-go Group were later allowed
to travel to the DPRK. The unmarried members were married to
Japanese women in the DPRK. The Group and their spouses
resided in the purpose built "Japan Revolutionary Village" in
the outskirts of Pyongyang. One of their primary tasks was to
have children to build future generations of revolutionaries
that could together bring about a revolution in Japan as Kim
Il-sung believed that three generations of revolutionaries
were needed to create the ultimate communist paradise. The
Yodo-go members and their spouses received extensive training
in Juche ideology and Kimilsungism, before being tasked with
carrying out revolutionary activities at the request of the
Kim Il-sung.1458
* Ms Yao Megumi, a Japanese citizen with an interest in Juche
ideology, travelled to the DPRK in February 1977 to visit the
DPRK for several months. Once there, she was held captive, forced
to marry Mr Shibata Yasuhiro, a Yodo-go member, and have
children. In 1983, whilst captive in the DPRK, she was forced to
lure a young Japanese woman to the DPRK under the orders from Kim
Il-sung and under the monitoring of the Workers' Party of Korea
56th Division. This order resulted in Ms Yao luring Japanese
student Ms Arimoto Keiko from London to the DPRK for the purposes
of marrying and having children with Japanese abductee Mr Ishioka
Toru or Mr Matsuko Kaoru, as part of the plan populate a group to
be revolutionaries in Japan.1459
1. The Workers' Party of Korea, 56th Division, conducted its
European operations from the DPRK consulate in Zagreb.1460 The
Vice-consul in Zagreb, Mr Kim Yu-cheol, worked within the 56th
Division and supervised the activities of the Yodo-go Group
and their spouses. Vice-consul Kim and Yodo-go leader Tamiya
orchestrated the abduction of Japanese people from abroad upon
orders from Kim Il-sung to "acquire" Japanese and bring them
to the DPRK to join the revolutionary force.1461
Mr Tanaka Minoru – in or around 1978
1. Mr Minoru disappeared after departing for Europe in 1978. In
2005, the Government of Japan identified Mr Tanaka as an
abductee and demanded his release from the DPRK. The DPRK has
not responded to these demands.
Mr Ishioka Toru and Mr Matsuki Kaoru – May 1980
1. Friends Mr Ishioka and Mr Matsuki, have been acknowledged to
have been abducted from Europe by DPRK Agents. The two were
lured to the DPRK by two Japanese women married to Yodo-go
members, Ms Mori Yoriko and Ms Wakabayashi (formerly Kuroda)
Sakiko.1462 Although acknowledging their capture, the DPRK
maintains the two men died at relatively young ages. However,
the DPRK has failed to provide credible evidence to
substantiate this claim.
Ms Arimoto Keiko – July 1983
1. Ms Arimoto was lured to the DPRK by Ms Yao Megumi in 1983. Ms
Arimoto had completed study at language school in London and
was about to return to Japan in July 1983, when she met Ms Yao
who convinced her to consider taking a part time marketing job
in the DPRK. Under the instruction of the Yodo-go leader (in
the DPRK) and the supervision of Uomoto (formerly Abe)
Kimihiro (Yodo-go member) and North Korean agent Kim Yu-cheol
(vice-consul of the DPRK to the former Yugoslavia based in
Zagreb), Ms Yao arranged for Ms Arimoto to meet the marketing
company managers (Uomoto and Kim) in Copenhagen. The four met
in a restaurant after which Ms Arimoto travelled to the DPRK
with Kim, and was never seen again. Ms Arimoto was targeted by
DPRK agents because they "needed" a young Japanese woman to be
the wife of a Japanese man that had earlier been abducted.
2. A letter received by Mr Ishioka's parents in Japan in 1988
informed them Mr Ishioka, Mr Matsuki and Ms Arimoto were in
the DPRK. The letter appeared to have been sent from Poland
and was written on the insurance document of Ms Arimoto
Keiko.1463 The letter did not contain much detail except to
say that they cannot write why they are there but they are
well. Enclosed with the letter was a photograph of a baby
believed to be Mr Ishioka and Ms Arimoto's child. Mrs and Mr
Arimoto attempted for many years to seek consular assistance
to make contact with their daughter, but as Japan and the DPRK
do not have diplomatic relations, the Government of Japan
consistently advised there was nothing that could be done.
3. In 2002, in acknowledging the abduction of the three, the DPRK
advised that Ms Arimoto, Mr Ishioka and their young child had
all died by gas poisoning in their home, considered to be
somewhat unlikely circumstances in the DPRK. No further detail
or credible evidence has been provided to substantiate their
alleged deaths. Despite the DPRK's insistence that eight
abductees were deceased, on behalf of all the families of
abductees, Ms Arimoto's mother, Mrs Arimoto Kayoko told the
Commission in Tokyo that they continue to seek answers about
their daughter and all of the abductees: "We cannot stop our
activities to save the victims of abductions."1464
Mr Tanaka Minoru – June 1978
1. In 2005 the Japanese government identified Mr Tanaka Minoru as
an abductee, lured to the DPRK from Europe.
2. Mr Tanaka Minoru a former restaurant worker in Hyogo
Prefecture, Japan, disappeared after departing Japan for
Europe in June 1978. During talks between the DPRK and Japan,
DPRK has stated that it cannot confirm that Mr Tanaka entered
the DPRK.
(iii)Additional cases
1. The Commission finds that there is credible evidence that many
more Japanese nationals have been abducted.
* A former official in Office 35 of the Central Committee of the
Workers´ Party of Korea personally knew 10 Japanese women to have
been abducted (one more than officially recognized by the
Japanese government).1465
* Ms Yao who was directly involved in the abduction of one Japanese
national has indicated that hundreds of people could have been
abducted. She told the Commission:
"I don't know exactly, but probably hundreds of Japanese
nationals. Everyone [Yodo-go members and spouses at the
Revolutionary Village] was carrying out abductions, they were
only ever spoken about as ‘jobs' or ‘activities'; people would
say x person completed two successful jobs. That is how I knew
everyone was doing it."1466
* A former official engaged with the Reconnaissance Bureau of the
Korean People's Army, who was involved in the abduction of
Japanese nationals at sea, told the Commission of his involvement
in the abduction and enforced disappearance of Japanese nationals
at sea.
In November 1979, that former DPRK official went on a disguised
ship near the coast of Japan in search for isolated vessels with
few crew members on board. The targeted boat had six crew members
on board. They captured the youngest and took him back to the
DPRK, killing the other five crew members.1467
* The Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related
to North Korea (COMJAN), a non-government investigative body in
Japan is investigating 470 missing persons cases in Japan. From
its research, COMJAN, believes there to be approximately 280
"likely" Japanese abductees, of which 77 are considered to be
"highly likely".1468 The Commission believes that many, if not
all of the cases COMJAN currently considers to be "highly likely
abducted" have in fact been abducted. Of the cases that are very
likely linked to the DPRK, several patterns can be seen. These
include the abduction of persons of similar professions (such as
engineers and printers), disappearances in particular timeframes,
adults who were orphans, and women from a particular area.
1. Several of the persons suspected to have been abducted have
been seen in the DPRK. For example, a DPRK citizen has
reported seeing a person that resembles Mr Hidaka Nobuo, one
of three "missing printers". He disappeared from Tokyo in
September 1967. Three printing engineers are believed to have
been abducted by the DPRK from Tokyo between 1966 and 1968.
Each of the three derived from a different province in Japan,
lived alone in Tokyo and worked at printing companies. They
are believed to have been targeted for their knowledge and
skill with printing machinery, potentially for the purpose of
producing counterfeit money.
2. One of the higher profile cases of suspected Japanese
abductees is Mr Fujita Susumu. Mr Fujita, a university student
disappeared after leaving home for a part-time job on 7
February 1976. According to information COMJAN has received,
he was detained at a hospital by DPRK agents, and taken to the
DPRK. A photograph provided by a former DPRK citizen is
believed to be that of Mr Fujita. Expert examination of the
photograph has revealed similarities between it a photograph
of Mr Fujita prior to his disappearance. Investigators in
Japan have also received testimony from a former DPRK spy who
saw Mr Fujita at the Kim Jong-il Political and Military
Academy in Pyongyang. Mr Fujita's case is being pursued by the
Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
However to date, the DPRK denies any knowledge of Mr Fujita.
3. The Japanese abductees brought to the DPRK by Division 56 of
the Workers' Party of Korea live in a compound near the
Japanese Revolutionary Village in which the wider Yodo-go
group lived.1469 Japanese women abducted to the DPRK by Office
35 lived in Pyongyang. Some of the Japanese women abducted by
Office 35 became pregnant by DPRK agents and were sent to live
in a Milbong Chodeso, guarded houses in several locations.
Once the children were born, they were taken to live with the
agent's parents. The mothers were then only permitted to visit
their children on a weekend. The women remain under the
supervision and surveillance of Office 35 whilst in the DPRK.
They require permission to leave their house, visit their
children or engage in any other activity.1470
(g) Late 1970s: abduction and enforced disappearance of women from
other countries
1. From 1977, foreigners of other countries were similarly
abducted by the DPRK. The abductions have been carried out by
force at times, and by luring the foreigners to the DPRK in
other cases. Reasons for the abductions include teaching
foreign languages in spy and military training schools, for
technical expertise, and, in the case of many abductees, to be
"given" in marriage to foreigners in the DPRK, to prevent
inter-racial marriage with ethnic Koreans. As noted in section
IV.C, the "pure Korean race" is a key feature of DPRK society
and great efforts have been made to prevent the birth of mixed
race Koreans.
* For example, the US army deserters were provided with cooks who
had been divorced from their husbands because they were believed
to be infertile. According to Mr Jenkins, the cooks were
"basically supposed to be unofficial wives, fulfilling all of the
roles that wives traditionally fulfil". The Americans were
expected to have sexual relations with the cooks, and, on at
least one occasion, the lack of sexual relations in one house
resulted in the beating of the man. At In 1978, the cook assigned
to Mr Abshier became pregnant and "disappeared overnight".
"Following Abshier's cook accidentally getting pregnant, our
leaders told us that the Organization had decided that the policy
of providing us female North Korean cooks was not working and that
they had found us four Arab women from Lebanon to be our
wives."1471
1. It is notable that all of the documented abductions of
nationals from countries other than the Republic of Korea and
Japan occurred after Mr Abshier's Korean cook became pregnant
by him, and the four deserters were later paired with non-
Korean women. This suggests that at least some of the non-
Korean women abducted by the DPRK were taken for the purpose
of becoming (sexual) partners to non-Koreans within the DPRK
as a means to avoid compromising the purity of the Korean
race.
1978: enforced disappearance of four Lebanese women
1. In 1978, four Lebanese women were lured to the DPRK;1472
According to Mr Charles Jenkins, they were to be the wives of
four US army deserters.1473 They had been told that they were
going to secretarial jobs in Tokyo paying $1000 per month. Two
of the women escaped a year and a month after their abduction
when visiting Belgrade. The other two women were "given" to US
deserters Mr James Dresnock and Mr Jerry Parish to be wives.
The mother of one of the abductees remaining in the DPRK found
where the women were, and negotiated their release. According
to Mr Jenkins, one of the women was pregnant by US Army
deserter Mr Parish when she left the DPRK. As this created
difficulty for her and her family, elected to return to the
DPRK to be with the child's father.
1978: abduction of a Thai woman from Macao
1. Ms Anocha Panjoy was abducted on 2 July 1978 from Macao.
According to Mr Jenkins, who lived in the apartment alongside
Ms Panjoy in the DPRK, Ms Panjoy has said she had been taken
against her will to the DPRK after being forced on a boat in
Macao. According to a newspaper article published three days
after her disappearance, Ms Panjoy had gone on an outing with
a man who held himself out to be Japanese. The article quoted
a friend of Ms Panjoy who said Ms Panjoy had told the friend
that if she did not return from her outing by 6 pm the police
should be notified.1474 This information is consistent with
the information Mr Jenkins said he was told by Ms Panjoy after
her arrival in the DPRK. Ms Panjoy was "given" to US Army
deserter Mr Abshier.
2. The Commission conducted an investigation in Bangkok, Thailand
in September 2013 and received testimony from the family of Ms
Panjoy. The Royal Thai Government has never acknowledged Ms
Panjoy's disappearance as a case of abduction, rather it holds
that her disappearance is a case of "missing person".
Nonetheless, the Government said that it has repeatedly
requested information about Ms Panjoy from the DPRK
authorities but none has been forthcoming. The National Human
Rights Commission of Thailand finalized its report about Ms
Panjoy's case in January 2014. The Commission has recommended
to the Royal Thai Government that the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs should continue to pursue her case.
3. The Commission finds that the evidence is available and
sufficient to prove that Ms Panjoy was abducted while in Macao
and then taken to DPRK. A key factor in this conclusion is the
testimony of Mr Charles Jenkins and evidence including a
photograph of his family in which Ms Panjoy is also depicted.
The Commission concludes that she is still in the DPRK today.
1978: abduction of two Chinese women from Macao
1. Two Chinese women, Ms Hong Leing-ieng (alternate spelling:
Kong Lingying) and Ms So Moi-chun (alternate spelling: Su
Miaozhen) were abducted from Macao and taken to the DPRK at
the same time as Ms Anocha Panjoy.1475 Ms Hong and Ms So
worked together at a jewellery store in Macao. According to
the accounts of their families, the two women came to know a
man they believed to be Japanese in the jewellery store. The
man, who is believed to be a DPRK agent, had been generous
with the two women, taking them out on occasions to dinner and
other forms of entertainment.1476
2. Ms Panjoy reportedly told Mr Jenkins, that there were two
other abducted Asian women on the boat with her from Macao,
but that she was not allowed to speak with them. Shortly
before their arrival in the DPRK, the three women were ordered
to take off their clothes. Their clothes were later returned
to them clean, having been washed. Upon arrival, the three
women were lined up for inspection by two senior leaders whose
identities are known to the Commission. Each leader reportedly
took one of the Chinese women away in their cars. Ms Panjoy
did not see either again. Former North Korean agent Ms Kim
Hyon-hui has revealed that she was taught Chinese by Ms Hong.
Abducted South Korean actress Ms Choi Un-hee (see above) also
reported liaising with Ms Hong in the DPRK.
1978: abduction of four Malaysian women and one Singaporean woman
from Singapore
1. According to the National Association for the Rescue of
Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, on 20 August 1978, four
Malaysian women - Ms Yeng Yoke (age 23), Ms Seetoh Tai Thim
(age 19), Ms Yap Me Leng (age 22) and Ms Margaret Ong Guat
Choo (age 19),1477 and one Singaporean woman Ms Diana Ng
Kum1478 - were kidnapped from Singapore. Two men claiming to
be Japanese asked an escort agency to send five women to a
party on a boat. The five women aged between 19 and 24
disappeared and the boat was never seen again. Ms Choi Un-hee
allegedly heard of the Malaysians living nearby in the DPRK.
2. The Commission enquired of both Governments of the Republic of
Singapore and Malaysian in pursuit of further details about
the alleged North Korean abduction of their nationals. The
Singaporean government advised that they do not have any
information regarding the case, nor have they been approached
by any next-of-kin for consular assistance. The Malaysian
government did not respond to this request for further
information.
1979: enforced disappearance of a Romanian woman
1. Ms Dona Bumbea disappeared from Italy in 1978 and is believed
to have been lured to the DPRK. Ms Bumbea had been studying
art in Italy at the time when she met an Italian man claiming
to be an art dealer, who convinced her to hold an exhibition
in Hong Kong. The two travelled to Pyongyang en-route to Hong
Kong at which point the Italian disappeared. Ms Bumbea was
kept in the DPRK and "given" to American army deserter Mr
Dresnock. Ms Bumbea died in the DPRK and is survived by her
two sons, Mr Ricardo Dresnock born in 1981 and Mr James
Gabriel Dresnock, born in 1983,1479 both of whom have been
seen in several documentaries including "Crossing the line"
(2006) and "Aim High in Creation" (2013). Ms Bumbea's family
in Romania have been unable to have any contact with Ms
Bumbea's sons despite their wish to.
2. The Government of Romanian has indicated to the Commission
that since the publication of Mr Charles Jenkins' book in 2006
providing clear evidence of Ms Bumbea's life in the DPRK, they
have requested information of the DPRK authorities about Ms
Bumbea. The demarches of the Romanian authorities have been
met by the following response from the DPRK: "there are no
evidence or indications certifying that a Romanian national
was abducted under the circumstances."1480
A French woman
1. The Commission of Inquiry has also received information about
the alleged abduction of an unknown French woman. According to
Ms Choi Un-hee, the French woman was lured to the DPRK after
becoming romantically involved in France with a DPRK agent
claiming to be a rich Asian heir. The woman apparently
travelled to Pyongyang with the man who subsequently
disappeared. She was kept in a "guest house" (guarded house)
in the DPRK.1481 It is also believed that Ms Kim Hyon-hui saw
the same French woman. Mr Jenkins recalls seeing a French
woman during the filming of a movie in which they both
participated. However, he does not know if the woman was
abducted.1482
1. According to contemporaneous reports made by the returned
Lebanese abductees, there were three French women in the same
camp in the DPRK in which the Lebanese women were kept in.1483
2. The Commission considers it very possible that other
foreigners, especially foreign women, were abducted by the
DPRK. Upon their return, the Lebanese women referenced above
reportedly told the Lebanese media they were held in a camp
with 28 foreign women, including three French women, three
Italian women, two Dutch women and other women from Europe as
well as women from the Middle East.1484
(h) 1990s to present: abductions from China
1. In reaction to the movement of large numbers of citizens to
China that started in the 1990s, operatives of the DPRK's
State Security Department have carried out organized
abductions in the Republic of China. The victims have been
subject to enforced disappearance in the DPRK. Former DPRK
officials and others whose flight might reveal sensitive
information to the outside world or ROK authorities have been
among the primary victims, in addition to nationals of China
and ROK who help DPRK citizens escape to China and from there
to the ROK.
* Mr Kim Young-hwan, a human rights activist from the ROK who has
worked extensively in the border region, testified that at least
six ROK nationals and a number of Chinese nationals, mainly of
Korean ethnicity, had been kidnapped over the past 15 years. Mr
Kim also indicated that the abductions targeted a specific
profile of DPRK nationals:
"There is a lot of kidnapping and terrorism going on at least over
the past 15 years. North Korea has set up and managed a kidnapping
organization. … they have sent people to [major cities in China] to
kidnap and these kidnappers went as far as cities like Shenyang.
But they do not indiscriminately kidnap North Koreans or South
Koreans, they abduct important people like those who are still in
serving in Bowibu (State Security Department], in the police or
those who are in a special relationship with the state. They target
North Korean defectors who had once been or have started in
important positions. Even if the targeted person to be kidnapped
was not from a special position, if they were found to have been
engaged in anti-state political activities in China, they would be
the targets of abduction."1485
1. The Commission was able to obtain two court judgments – one
from the Republic of Korea; the other from the People's
Republic of China – convicting operatives who carried out
abductions on behalf of DPRK State Security Department in
China. The detailed findings set out in these judgments on the
organization of the abductions and the methods followed are
mutually reinforcing and are also corroborated by information
that the Commission independently obtained during its public
hearings, confidential interviews and through submissions.
2. The first judgment was issued in 2005 by the Seoul Central
District Court, Republic of Korea.1486 The findings presented
therein build on the confession of the defendant, a Korean-
Chinese SSD operative, as well as the testimony of a former
DPRK agent who was also directly involved in the abductions.
It meticulously details the DPRK's abduction of a pastor from
the ROK, Reverend Mr Kim Dong-shik, the abduction of former
Japanese national Ms Ryang Cho-oek and her family, and 12
other abductions of DPRK nationals. The defendant was
convicted and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment.
3. The second judgment was issued in 2006 by the Intermediate
People's Court of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin
Province, China. 1487 It convicts two DPRK nationals and four
Chinese nationals with six cases of abduction and a case of
illegal detention. The judgment finds that they carried out
abductions based on orders issued from the DPRK by senior
officials of the DPRK's State Security Department. Among the
victims named in the judgment were former Japanese national Ms
Ryang Cho-oek and ROK national Reverend Kim Dong-shik. The two
DPRK nationals among the SSD operatives were convicted to
imprisonment of 3 years and 7 months and 3 years and 6 months.
The Chinese nationals received sentences ranging from 6 months
to two years of incarcerations.
4. The judgments, additional witnesses testimony heard by the
Commission and other information received shows that an entire
team of SSD operatives of DPRK and Chinese nationals carried
out a large number of meticulously organized abductions on
behalf of the DPRK . They were retained by and acted under the
orders and close operational guidance of SSD agents stationed
in Hoeryoung, North Hamgyong Province, DPRK. An SSD "safe
house" in Hoeryoung known as the Goksan factory was used as
the base for the operations. The judgments, from China and the
ROK, name particular SSD commanding officers stationed in
North Hamgyong Province who masterminded the operations.
Independently, the Commission received information implicating
the same individuals from a former SSD agent who had been
stationed in China, and another witness who runs operations to
help DPRK citizens flee their country.1488
* In January 2000, a team of SSD operatives abducted the Reverend
Kim Dong-shik in Yanji City, in eastern Jilin Province, China.
Reverend Kim was targeted by the DPRK, because he was helping
DPRK citizens flee from China to the ROK. The SSD operatives
lured him into a trap and took him by force to the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, where he was received by SSD
operatives. In the DPRK, Kim Dong-shik was detained in an
underground interrogation detention centre of the SSD in
Hoeryoung, North Hamgyong Province. Mr Jeong Gwang-il, who was
detained in the same SSD underground prison at the same time as
Mr Kim Dong-shik, testified before the Commission that he saw and
spoke with Kim Dong-shik there. Mr Kim Dong-shik walked with a
crutch and he appeared to have sustained injuries pointing to
torture.1489 According to the Korea Institute for National
Unification, Mr Kim Dong-shik died in detention in February 2001
as a result of injuries sustained under torture.1490
* In February 1999, SSD agents abducted Ms Ryang Cho-oek and three
of her family members. The primary victim was a 61-year old
Japanese women, who had migrated from Japan in the 1960s and
later became a DPRK citizen. According to the orders transmitted
to the operatives on the ground, the SSD in Hoeryoung had
received "superior orders" to abduct the victim and her family by
any means necessary as it would become a "disgrace for the DPRK
if Ms Ryang Cho-oek and her family make it to Japan."1491
1. In the period of 1998-2000, the following people were also
abducted from China through meticulously planned operations
ordered by and carried out on behalf of the DPRK's State
Security Department:1492
* In March 1998, Mr Chun Sung (Chinese: Qian Cheng), a DPRK
national, was abducted by the DPRK in 1998 in Yanji, Jilin
Province, China. He was apparently targeted because the State
Security Department suspected him of having cooperated with
intelligence authorities of the Republic of Korea.
* In August 1998, Mr Choi Chun-sok (Chinese: Zhu Yuan), a former
journalist from the DPRK who had fled and obtained ROK
nationality, was abducted by the SSD in Yanji Jilin Province,
China.
* Mr Ryu Young-beom was abducted by the DPRK in January 1999 in
Longjiang City, Jilin Pronvince, China. Ms Park Bun-oek, who
worked with him, was abducted one month later in Antu County,
Jilin Province, China.
* In February 1999, Ms Seok Du-oek, was abducted by the DPRK in
Longjiang City, Jilin Province, China.
* In February 1999, Mr Paek Seung-kuk suspected by the DPRK of
working for the intelligence services of the Republic of Korea,
was abducted in Longjiang City, Jilin Province, China.
* In February 1999, SSD operatives abducted a soldier of the Korean
People's Army, who had fled to Sanhe Town, Longjiang City, Jilin
Province, China.
* In February 1999, SSD operatives, acting in collusion with two
KPA military security command officers, unsuccessfully attempted
to abduct two soldiers from Longjiang County, Jilin Province
China. They had been involved in helping people flee the DPRK.
* In March 1999, SSD operatives abducted Mr Hwang Young-chan from
Longjiang City, Jilin Province. He had been a high-ranking
official in Pyongyang before his escape to China.
* In March 1999, Ms Rim In-Sook, her husband Han In-chan, two of
their daughters, a son and an 8-year old grandson were abducted
by the DPRK from Antu County, Jilin Province, China.
* In June 1999, Mr Kim Chang-roek, whom the SSD suspected of being
involved in the theft of grain, was abducted from Sanhe Town,
Longjing City, Jilin Province by SSD operatives.
* In October 2000, DPRK agents abducted Chinese nationals Jin
Zhonglu from Yanji, Jilin Province, China. The victim had earlier
defected from the DPRK to China with intelligence information and
become a Chinese citizen.
* In April 2001, DPRK agents abducted Mr Jin Huzhe in Jilin
Province, China. They threatened to drown him in the Tumen River
in order to extract information about another DPRK national, who
was their actual target. When the agents discovered that their
primary target had already moved from China to ROK, they released
Jin Huzhe.
1. The Commission has reason to believe that the DPRK practice of
abducting individuals from China was not limited to these
abductions, carried out between 1998 and 2001, but has gone on
for a long time.
* A former member of the DPRK Escort Command assigned to protect
the Supreme Leader and his family, testified that he escaped to
China in 1989. After he reached Beijing, DPRK agents who
pretended to be diplomats of the Republic of Korea lured him into
the Embassy of the DPRK, from where he was forcibly transferred
back to Pyongyang. The witness was subsequently detained for
several years in Political Prison Camp No. 15 at Yodok, before
finally being released.1493
* In July 1995, Reverend Ahn Seung-woon was abducted.1494 He was
reportedly later seen on DPRK television and has not been heard
of since.
* According to information provided to the Commission by Christian
Solidarity Worldwide, DPRK citizens Gil Ji-Man, Kim Cheol-Hun,
Kim Cheol-Su and Shim Seong-Shin were allegedly all abducted from
China in April 2003. Ms Jin Kyeong-Suk, who had fled from the
DPRK to the ROK in 2002, was abducted during a visit to China in
August 2004. Mr Kang Jeong, a former DPRK army officer, and Lim
Yeong-Hak, who were both involved in helping DPRK citizens flee
the country, were allegedly abducted in 2005 from Yanji City,
Jilin Province, China.1495
* North Korea Freedom Coalition, which brings together 70 non-
governmental organiations, reported that Ms Lee Ju-Im, a 73-year
old woman, was abducted by DPRK agents from a hospital in China.
The agents apparently targeted her, because the DPRK had abducted
Ms Lee as a young woman during the Korean War. In April 2008, Mr
Lee Gi-Cheon, a 42 year old Chinese citizen of Korean ethnicity,
was seized by DPRK agents near the Tumen River. Mr Lee was
involved in helping DPRK citizens escaped and was abducted as he
was leading newly arrived DPRK citizens from the border to Yanji,
China.1496
* A witness testified before the Commission about the 2010
abduction of Mr Chu (full name withheld) from Yanji City, Jilin
Province, China. Mr Chu, a Chinese man of Korean ethnicity was
also involved in helping people flee the DPRK.1497 Another
confidential submission to the Commission suggested that up to
200 Chinese nationals, mostly ethnic Koreans, may have been
abducted.
* Several other witnesses who all run operations helping people
flee the DPRK on the Chinese side of the border and regularly
visit the area, testified about the continued presence of SSD
agents and abduction threats.1498 One Witness was physically
attacked on two occasions by people he identified as SSD agents.
He narrowly managed to escape on both occasions.1499 Other
witnesses recounted how they escaped planned abductions, because
they received specific warnings by friendly contacts in the
Chinese security services.1500 One former DPRK official who
recently escaped the DPRK, reported that he had approached
several churches in the border region for help, but was turned
away, because the church leaders feared becoming victims of
abductions if they helped the witness.1501
* A former official related that DPRK officials stationed in
Thailand were also instructed to find and abduct high-level
defectors that made it to Thailand.1502
2. Suffering, discrimination and persecution resulting from
disappearances
(a) Suffering and treatment of the disappeared and their
descendants in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
1. The Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearancecategorizes enforced disappearance as a grave and
flagrant violation of the human rights and fundamental
freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, and an offence to human dignity.1503 The disappeared
faced many additional human rights violations beyond the
violation of the right to leave the DPRK, including
discrimination.
2. All persons forcibly disappeared to the DPRK appear to be
under special surveillance and had restrictions placed on
their movements in the DPRK.1504 They have been denied the
right to recognition as a person before the law,1505 and the
right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment.1506 Different offices of the Workers'
Party of Korea and the Korean People's Army are tasked with
the surveillance of different groups of abducted persons. For
example, Office 35 (of the Workers' Party of Korea) monitors
persons it has abducted, and Department 519 (KPA) monitors
many of the non-Korean abductees.1507 Monitoring and
surveillance of non-Korean disappeared persons in the DPRK can
include the bugging of houses to record all sounds, being kept
at premises surrounded by guards, and only being permitted to
leave their homes weekly in the company of a monitor.
Disappeared Koreans (including the ethnic Koreans and their
spouses from Japan) integrated into society and under the
regular levels of surveillance and monitoring,1508 have been
placed under additional levels of surveillance at work and in
their neighbourhoods. Disappeared persons have reported being
under "constant surveillance", which was increased around
times of international incidents such as the DPRK´s capture of
the U.S. naval intelligence vessel USS Pueblo in 1968.
3. Surveillance on the family members of persons disappeared by
the DPRK is increased when it is suspected the person could or
has escaped from the DPRK.1509 In the case of Oh Gil-nam (see
above), Mr Oh's family was detained, to ensure his loyalty
whilst he was deployed to lure other ROK nationals from
Germany to the DPRK. After his escape during the mission was
reported to the DPRK, his wife and two daughters were sent to
Yodok political prison camp.1510
4. Surveillance and restrictions on movement are so severe that
persons forcibly disappeared by the DPRK, who have escaped
from the DPRK, have been pursued across the Chinese-Korean
border and forcibly returned to the DPRK. For example, Ms
Ryang Cho-oek, a Japanese woman who had migrated from Japan in
the "Paradise on Earth Movement", and her family were tracked
down to their new home in China. The family of four were then
forcibly taken from their home and returned to the DPRK.
5. As noted in section IV.B, discrimination based on the Songbun
system is pervasive in the DPRK. Although most Korean War
abductees and non-repatriated POWs were able to integrate into
society, because of their origins, they were classified into
the hostile class and therefore suffered discrimination from
the state as well as discrimination from DPRK citizens for
being from the South. For example, the wife of a POW was
pressured by authorities to divorce her POW husband in order
to save her songbun. The woman was then married to a police
officer and the POW disappeared.1511 For this reason, many did
not reveal their origins to others, in some cases even to
their own family. This double-discrimination, from both the
state and DPRK nationals, resulted in restrictions on
relations, being placed under special surveillance,
restrictions on movements and having limited access to
education and employment opportunities, food and medical care.
6. Disappeared persons have been denied access to education and
employment opportunities and denied the right to vote.
Disappeared ROK nationals have been particularly discriminated
against in this regard.1512 Their children have been unable to
join the military or to go to universities.
* Mr Lee Jae-geun, an abducted fisher whose son, born in the DPRK,
was unable to go to university, left the DPRK in order that his
son could access education "I left North Korea because they would
not allow my son to go to university. If you don't educate your
children, the children will not be able to succeed."1513
* According to a returned POW, children of disappeared Korean
nationals working in mines do so by force. He also testified to
the Commission that although integrated into DPRK society and in
receipt of an identification card, they were precluded from
voting for 5 years.1514
1. As a vast majority of the forcibly disappeared were
subsequently categorized as "hostile" and sent to regional
areas, particularly North Hamgyong Province, it is anticipated
that those who survived the harsh treatment were likely the
first victims of the famine in the 1990s because of their
lower status. Being forced to live in remote areas with
limited resources has also resulted in the forcibly
disappeared having limited access to medical facilities.
2. Although non-Korean abductees were generally kept closer to
Pyongyang, spared the full impact of the famine in the 1990s,
and provided with access to medical services, they suffered
other violations. Not being able to integrate into DPRK
society, they were denied the right to work, precluded from
leaving their residence and moving freely in society, unable
to choose education opportunities for their children and
facing sexual and gender-based violations, such as unwanted
sexual advances from their monitors and forced marriages.
3. States are under an obligation to guarantee that a child born
during the enforced disappearance of her or his mother shall
be fully protected.1515 The birth of each child in such
circumstances should be registered to guarantee the child's
true identity and information should be provided to relatives
and/or legitimately concerned persons.1516 In violation of
these requirements, the DPRK has not enabled children born to
abducted persons to be registered with the state of their
parents' nationality, nor has it permitted the children
contact with their extended family in other countries.
(b) Suffering of the families of the disappeared
1. Family members of the disappeared have been subjected to
torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.1517
They have been denied the right to an effective remedy for
human rights violations,1518 including the rights to the
truth,1519 family life and cultural practices.
(i)Violations of the right to truth
1. Although the Korean War ended 60 years ago, it has not ended
for the families of Korean War Abductees and POWs denied
repatriation who to this day have no contact with their family
members or knowledge of their fate. Relatives of post-war
abductees have told the Commission of the torture of not
knowing which they continue to suffer. The mother of an
abducted fisher described to the Commission the sadness she
feels not being able to communicate with her abducted son, and
how she longs to at the very least be able to mail letters to
him or telephone him.1520
(ii)Violations of the right to family life
1. Human rights law recognizes the family is a fundamental and
natural unit which requires the full protection of the state.
It specifies state obligations to keep families together and
reunify them when they become separated.
2. Despite the establishment of the separated family reunions
between the two Koreas, very few family members of the
forcibly disappeared in the ROK have been able to participate
and reunite even temporarily with their loved ones.
3. Few postwar ROK abductee family members have been able to
attend, but they do so on the condition that no mention is
made of the abduction.1521 Most postwar abductee family
members that have applied to attend a separated family reunion
have received notification at the life status verification
stage of the process, that their loved one has since deceased
or their life status cannot be verified. Given the high level
of surveillance on those of South Korean origin, and the
nature of DPRK monitoring in society in general, from the
Inmin-wiwon-oei (regional level) down to the Inminban
(Neighbourhood Watch), the Commission finds it difficult to
believe that life status verification is not possible in the
DPRK.
4. For victims from countries other than the ROK, aside from the
five abducted Japanese nationals returned to Japan in 2002,
there have not been any initiatives to permit the forcibly
disappeared to communicate with their families nor allow their
return. Several witnesses articulated to the Commission their
pain resulting from the denial of their family life.
* Mrs Kim Hang-tae, an 85 year old woman, spoke of the torment of
seeing loving relationships around her and wishing she could have
had the same:
"If at least I could find the body of my husband, I would like to
lay over his body… Whenever I see somebody holding hands, whenever
I see somebody, grandfather holding hands with their grandchildren,
I wish I could do the same. Whenever I see children loved by their
father, I mean, my husband didn't do anything wrong. If he had
committed a crime and he was beaten up and killed for that, I
wouldn't feel this bad. But this is just unbelievable. I cannot
admit what happened to me. My husband was a good man, a decent man.
Half of her is gone when a wife was lost her husband. It's like
having lost an arm. I am waiting until this day. I am holding hands
with my daughter waiting the return of my husband."1522
* Mrs Yokota Sakie, mother of abducted 13 year old Ms Yokota Megumi
told the Commission how she hoped the right to family would be
understood by the new leader, and all the abductees returned:
"Kim Jong-un is also part of a family. He is a father. He has
family members. He should understand how it feels for a family
member to lose someone, a beloved one. That is something I would
like to communicate to them through the Japanese Government. These
wrongdoings should be stopped from both parties so that we can
create a peaceful world from both parties."1523
(iii)Violation of cultural rights: iInability to practice cultural
customs relating to death
1. Many of the victims of historical abductions such as Korean
War Abductees, POWs, fishers and returnees that disappeared in
the 1950s are believed to have died in the North as a result
of the passage of time since their abduction. For family
members of these abductees, not only have they endured immense
suffering for the loss of their loved one, but have been
unable to satisfactorily mourn their deaths.
Death in Korean society
1. Knowing and acknowledging the date of a loved one's death in
both Koreas and in Japan is fundamental to cultural practices
and beliefs about the after-life. After death, the body of the
deceased is kept at the family home for 3 to 5 days to enable
friends and family to gather and pay their respects to the
deceased and their family. Families unable to carry out this
practice forgo not only their own opportunity to say good-bye
to their loved one, but the opportunity for their community,
friends and family to do so.
2. The body, bones or ashes of the deceased are traditionally
held in a safe place after death to enable the deceased's
spirit to be at peace. As families feel a responsibility to
put their loved one to rest, being unable to do so causes the
families of the deceased to worry about the peace of their
loved one's spirit. Family members feel guilty for not being
able to carry out their responsibility.
3. In addition to any religious beliefs about life after death,
most South Koreans and Japanese, and to a certain extent DPRK
nationals, believe that their loved ones visit them on the
anniversary of their death to reunite with the family. In
preparation for this event, known as Jaesain Korean, the
family prepare food the deceased favoured during their life,
and offer it to their spirit. Families who do not know their
family member's date of death are unable to carry out this
important practice on the correct date of death, and therefore
miss the opportunity to reunite with their loved one's spirit
each year. The Korean calendar makes allowances for this
practice by nominating 9 September on Lunar Calendar as Jung-
jang-jeol (重陽節- the day of the dead) on which people who do
not know the date of their loved one's death carry out Jaesa.
However, the practice of Jaesa on Jung-jang-jeol is not widely
known and family members have a strong preference to carry out
Jaesa on the correct date of death.
4. Individual efforts to locate and repatriate the remains of
other forcibly disappeared persons have resulted in the
repatriation of remains of six POWs to the ROK. The
repatriation of remains has been a significant and positive
step for the family members of the disappeared, enabling them
to fulfil cultural practices which guide the grieving process.
(c) Gendered impact of enforced disappearances
1. The Commission recognizes that women and girls, men and boys
have been the victims of enforced disappearance by the DPRK
and suffered harm as a result of being relatives of someone
who has been disappeared. The Commission further acknowledges
that women, girls, men and boys suffer differently from these
harms due to gender roles, tradition and culture.
2. The wartime abductions, denial of repatriation of POWs and the
post-war abduction of fishers have involved a disproportionate
number of men from the ROK. The disappearance of between
100,000 and 170,000 men had an enormous impact on the lives of
women, girls and boys in a culture in which gender roles are
deeply embedded in history and tradition, at a time when those
roles were more pronounced than they are today. Many women
suddenly found themselves to be the head of households.
Without the support of a main income earner in the family,
they had to shoulder the entire burden of family life
themselves, at a time when relatives of the disappeared were
under surveillance and treated with great suspicion.
3. At the Seoul Public Hearing, the Commission heard from
relatives of the disappeared about the extreme hardship they
faced when a husband and father was disappeared. Mr Nam Jang-
ho, the son of a fisher taken at sea and disappeared, told the
Commission:
"I think my mom did everything she could. She held different jobs.
And our siblings did not get enough education. We were only able to
graduate from elementary school. I didn't even get to graduate from
elementary school because things were so bad at home. Since there
was no father at home, my mom used to steal sweet potatoes and
potatoes from the fields of other people to feed us. And I wanted
to lessen her burden. And that is why I left home. I thought that
would be better for her. It was difficult for us, the children, but
I think it was even more difficult for my mom."1524
1. The Commission also notes that the post-war abduction of women
on the basis that they are women is an act of gender-based
violence. In this regard, the Commission notes the specific
instructions provided to Ms Yao Megumi to find and abduct a
Japanese female in Europe to be the wife of Japanese abductee,
the abduction of seven foreign women to be "given" as wives to
the US army defectors,1525 and the two women taken from Macao
who are believed to have become victims of sexual exploitation
in the DPRK. The Commission emphasizes its concern that these
women together with the other women who have been forcibly
disappeared by the DPRK were/ are disproportionately at risk
of sexual violence.
(d) Discrimination against children
(i)Abducted children
1. The enforced disappearance of a child is not only a violation
of many rights afforded by the Declaration on the Protection
of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, but is also an
extreme form of violence against children.1526 The Commission
notes that many of the abductees were under the age of 18 at
the time of their abductions. These include:
* Thousands of the Korean War abductees were children at the time
of their abduction.1527
* Mr Kim In-cheol who was a high school student when abducted from
the fishing boat Deoksu 2-ho in 1968.
* Five ROK high-school students taken from beaches in the ROK in
the summers of 1977 and 1978.
* Ms Yokota Megumi, abducted from Japan at age 13 on 15 November
1977.
1. These children have not only been denied the right not to be
disappeared, but also the right to family life, the right to
not to be separated from their parents,1528 and the right to
be cared for by their parents.1529 The Commission is also
concerned that these children will have been denied other
fundamentals rights in the DPRK such as those relating to the
freedom of expression,1530 freedom of thought, belief and
religion1531 and right to privacy.1532 Parents of these
children have also been denied the right to family, and the
right to guide their children.1533
(ii)Children left behind
1. The Commission recognizes that the children of persons who
have been disappeared by the DPRK have been denied the right
to found and maintain a family and the right not to be
separated from their parents.1534 Several witnesses testified
before the Commission about being separated from a parent at a
young age, and missing them constantly.
* Mr Hwang In-chul, son of Korean airline hijacking abductee Mr
Hwang Won, told the Commission:
"I was two, and my sister was only 100 days old. So my mother had
to raise us all on her own. I repeatedly asked my mother
whereabouts about my father. I had no memory of my father, but I
remember he loved me very much, and I missed him. So the memory is
very clear. I have very clear memory of my father. I asked my
mother, and every time I asked my mother about the whereabouts of
my father, she said that he was on a business trip in the United
States and that was her answer and I kept asking her and kept
waiting for my father. When I was on the third grade in the
elementary school, my uncle, the younger brother of my father, told
me that my father had been abducted when he got on that plane and
ever since I have missed my father so much until this day."1535
1. Several witnesses also told the Commission of their yearning
to know whether their parent is alive or not, and to have the
bodies of their parents presumed to be dead because of their
age, returned to them.1536
3. Principal findings of the commission
1. The Commission finds that, from 1950 until the present, the
DPRK has engaged in the systematic abduction, denial of
repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons
from other countries on a large scale and as a matter of State
policy. Well over 200,000 persons who were taken from other
countries to the DPRK may have potentially become victims of
enforced disappearance, as defined in the Declaration for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. More
information would have to emerge from the DPRK to provide a
more reliable estimate on the number of victims.
2. For a nation state which seeks to live alongside other nation
states, to act in this way for such a long time, in defiance
of the sovereignty of other states and the rights of foreign
nationals guaranteed under international law, is exceptional.
3. The vast majority of abductions and enforced disappearances
occurred during or are otherwise linked to the Korean War and
the organized movement of ethnic Koreans from Japan that
started in 1959. However, hundreds of nationals of the ROK,
Japan and other states were also abducted and disappeared
between the 1960s and 1980s. In more recent years, the DPRK
abducted a number of DPRK and ROK nationals from the People's
Republic of China.
4. The DPRK used its land, naval and intelligence forces to
conduct abductions and arrests. Both Korean War and post-war
operations were approved at the level of the Supreme Leader.
The vast majority of victims were forcibly disappeared to gain
labour and other skills for the DPRK. Some victims from the
Republic of Korea and Japan were used to further espionage and
terrorist activities. The DPRK often targeted non-Korean women
because they are women, an act of gender-based violence. Women
abducted from Europe, the Middle East and Asia were subjected
to forced marriages with men from other countries to prevent
liaisons on their part with ethnic Korean women that could
result in inter-racial children. Some of the women have also
been subject to sexual exploitation.
5. Some of the forcibly disappeared initially travelled to the
DPRK voluntarily. Others were abducted through physical force
or fraudulent persuasion. Subsequently, they were all denied
the right to leave the DPRK. They have been subject to severe
deprivation of their liberty and freedom of movement within
the DPRK, denied the right to recognition as a person before
the law, and the right not to be subjected to torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. All of the
forcibly disappeared have been placed under strict
surveillance. They have been denied education and employment
opportunities.
6. Ethnic Koreans from the Republic of Korea and Japan forcibly
disappeared by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have
been discriminated against for their origins and background.
They were categorized as "hostile" and forced to work in mines
and farms of remote marginalized areas. It is anticipated many
of them were likely to have been the first victims of the
famine in the 1990s because of their lower social status.
Being forced to live in remote areas with limited resources
has also resulted in the forcibly disappeared having limited
access to medical facilities.
7. Non-Korean abductees were not able to integrate into social
and economic life in the DPRK as they were detained in tightly
controlled compounds. They were denied the right to work,
precluded from leaving their residence and moving freely in
society, and unable to choose education opportunities for
themselves and their children.
8. Many of the forcibly disappeared were under the age of 18 at
the time of their abduction or arrest. These children have not
only been denied the right not to be disappeared, but also the
right to family life, the right to not to be separated from
their parents, and the right to be cared for by their parents.
9. Family members abroad and foreign states wishing to exercise
their right to diplomatic protection have been consistently
denied requested information establishing the fate and
whereabouts of the victims. Family members of the disappeared
have been subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment. They have been denied the right to an
effective remedy for human rights violations, including the
right to the truth. Parents of disappeared children have been
denied the right to family and the right to guide their
children. Children of persons who have been disappeared by the
DPRK have been denied the right to found and maintain a family
and the right not to be separated from their parents.
10. Despite admitting to the abduction of 13 Japanese nationals by
agents of the state, the DPRK has never disavowed the practice
of international abductions. Since the 1990s, its agents have
abducted a number of citizens and nationals from Chinese
territory including nationals of the People´s Republic of
China and the Republic of Korea, and in at least one case a
former Japanese national.
11. The Commission finds that almost all the foregoing victims
remain disappeared and human rights violations continue
against them and their families.
V. Crimes against humanity
1. Resolution 22/13 requires the Commission to carry out its
inquiry "with a view to ensuring full accountability, in
particular where these violations may amount to crimes against
humanity". Paragraph 31 of the Special Rapporteur's report, to
which Resolution 22/13 refers, provides that the "inquiry
should examine the issues of institutional and personal
accountability for [grave, systematic and widespread
violations], in particular where they amount to crimes against
humanity" and provide a "detailed examination and legal
analysis of whether crimes against humanity are being
perpetrated".1537
2. The Commission has approached this element of its mandate in
recognition of the fact that it is neither a judicial body nor
a prosecutor. It cannot make final determinations of
individual criminal responsibility. It can determine whether
its findings establish reasonable grounds that crimes against
humanity have been committed so as to merit a criminal
investigation by a competent national or international organ
of justice. Where the Commission makes findings on crimes
against humanity in this sections, these findings must be
understood as being on the basis of the ‘reasonable grounds'
standard of proof.1538
3. The Commission has focused its consideration of crimes against
humanity on those patterns of gross human rights violations,
where the Commission's factual findings, as determined in
section IV of this report, established a particularly
compelling case.1539 Accordingly, the Commission focused its
analysis on six groups of victims:
1. inmates of political prison camps;
2. inmates of the ordinary prison system, in particular political
prisoners among them;
3. religious believers and others considered to introduce
subversive influences;
4. persons who try to flee the country;
5. starving populations; and
6. persons from other countries who became victims of
international abductions and enforced disappearances.
1. Crimes against humanity require (1) intentional inhumane acts
that (2) form part of a widespread or systematic attack.1540
With regard to each of these six victim groups, the Commission
will therefore first establish what inhumane acts have been
committed against them. The Commission will then address the
question of why the inhumane acts committed against each of
the six groups form part of systematic and widespread attacks
against a civilian population. In this regard, the Commission
will establish that three distinct state attacks against
civilian populations are underlying crimes against humanity in
the DPRK:
* The State is carrying out a systematic and widespread attack
against anyone who is considered to pose a threat to the
political system and leadership of the PDRK. Crimes against
humanity targeting inmates of political prison camps and the
ordinary prison system, persons who try to flee the DPRK,
religious believers and others considered to introduce subversive
influences all form part of this attack.
* The State has led a systematic and widespread attack against the
general population by knowingly aggravating its starvation and
sacrificing the lives of large numbers of innocent, ordinary
citizens in order to preserve the political system and its
leadership.
* The State abducted and forcibly disappeared a large number of
persons from other countries in a systematic and widespread
manner in order to gain labour and skills to enhance the DPRK and
strengthen it in the struggle for supremacy on the Korean
peninsula.
A. Definition of crimes against humanity under international law
1. Crimes against humanity entail gross human rights violations
of a scale and level of organization that shock the conscience
of humanity. First set out in the Charter of the International
Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945, the definition of
crimes against humanity has been shaped by the body of
jurisprudence emanating from the Nuremberg and Tokyo
tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), the Special Court for
Sierra Leone (SCSL); and national courts. The state practice
emerging from the negotiations leading to the adoption of the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome
Statute) and its subsequent ratification by 122 states has
further clarified and elaborated the definition of crimes
against humanity. For the most part, article 7 of the Rome
Statute, and the specifications in the Rome Statute's Elements
of Crimes, reflect the definition of crimes against humanity
under customary international law as that concept stands
today.1541
2. Crimes against humanity have a high legal threshold. Two
elements must coincide:
(a) Individuals must commit inhumane acts with the requisite
criminal intent; and
(b) These inhumane acts must form part of a widespread or
systematic attack directed against a civilian population. The Rome
Statute also requires that the attack must be pursuant to, or in
furtherance of, a state or organizational policy.1542
1. Inhumane acts
1. The types of conduct amounting to inhumane acts largely
overlap with those recognized as constituting gross human
rights violations. The inhumane acts relevant for the purpose
of this inquiry are:
* murder;
* extermination;
* enslavement;
* deportation or forcible transfer of a population;
* imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in
violation of fundamental rules of international law;
* torture;
* rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy,
enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of
comparable gravity;
* persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on
political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender
or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible
under international law;
* enforced disappearance of persons; and
* the "residual category" of inhumane acts of a similar character
intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body
or to mental or physical health.1543
1. The inhumane acts must be committed with criminal intent.
According to the Rome Statute, such intent requires that the
perpetrator acts with the objective of carrying out the
inhumane act or is aware that the consequence defining the
inhumane act will occur in the ordinary course of events.1544
Gross negligence or inadvertent recklessness are not
sufficient for the commission of crimes against humanity.
2. Systematic or widespread attack
1. The inhumane acts listed above do not amount to crimes against
humanity, if they constitute isolated or sporadic events.
Instead, they must form part of a larger attack against a
civilian population. Such an attack "is not limited to the use
of armed force and encompasses any mistreatment of a civilian
population".1545 This attack must be either widespread or
systematic (in practice, it is often the case that the attack
is both).
2. An attack is widespread, if it involves "massive, frequent,
large scale action, carried out collectively with considerable
seriousness and directed against a multiplicity of
victims."1546
3. A systematic attack requires "organized action, following a
regular pattern, on the basis of a common policy and involves
substantial public or private resources… there must exist some
form of preconceived plan or policy."1547 Indicators that can
be considered as establishing the systematic nature of an
attack include that:
* the violations are in line with an underlying political
objective;
* there is an ideology to destroy, persecute or weaken a community;
* high-level political and/or military authorities are implicated
in the definition and establishment of a methodical plan to
commit violations;
* propaganda, indoctrination or psychological oppression are used
to create an environment in which crimes will occur;
* criminal acts are being perpetrated on a very large scale and
follow a regular pattern making it improbable that the acts could
occur randomly;
* there is a repeated and continuous commission of inhumane acts
linked to one another; or
* organized efforts are made to conceal the crimes committed.1548
B. Crimes against humanity in political prison camps
1. Based on the body of testimony and information received,1549
the Commission finds that DPRK authorities have committed and
are committing crimes against humanity in the political prison
camps, including extermination, murder, enslavement, torture,
imprisonment, rape and other grave sexual violence and
persecution on political, religious and gender grounds.
1. Inhumane acts
1. The Commission finds that the following inhumane acts have
been and are still being committed:
(a) Imprisonment
1. Imprisonment in violation of fundamental rules of
international law includes detention that fails to respect the
basic principles of due process.1550 These principles are
enshrined in articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Minor failures in
ensuring due process to detainees do not amount to
imprisonment under international criminal law. However, the
requisite level of gravity is reached when persons are
detained for long periods of time without ever being brought
before an independent judge or being charged, tried or duly
convicted for any crime.1551 Fundamental rules of
international law are also violated where a person is detained
without any valid legal basis that would be compatible with
international law, including where the imprisonment resulted
from the prisoner's exercise of human rights guaranteed by
international law.1552
2. The Commission finds that inmates of political prison camps
are victims of the crime of imprisonment. Inmates are
imprisoned, usually for life, in camps without ever having
been brought before a judge in accordance with article 9 (3)
and (4) of the ICCPR. They have never been charged, convicted
or sentenced to imprisonment, following a fair and public
hearing, by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal
established by law as would be required by article 14 (1) of
the ICCPR.
3. In addition, inmates are generally not imprisoned for reasons
that conform to international human rights law. In many cases,
their only transgression was to freely express themselves on
political questions, to leave their own country, to hold a
religious belief, or to exercise other human rights guaranteed
to them under international law. Many inmates are not accused
of any personal wrongdoing. They are incarcerated based solely
on the principle of guilt by family association. Some are even
born prisoners.
(b) Enforced disappearance
1. International criminal law defines "enforced disappearance" as
the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by or with the
authorization, support or acquiescence of a state or a
political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge
that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate
or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of
removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged
period of time.1553
2. Based on the information received, the Commission finds that
inmates of the DPRK's political prison camps are victims of
the crime of enforced disappearance. They are stripped of
their citizenship rights and detained incommunicado in remote
political prison camps that officially do not exist. Most
inmates are imprisoned for life, without any prospect of
release. The families of detainees are not informed of the
fate or whereabouts of their detained family member. The DPRK
authorities commonly refuse to acknowledge the imprisonment
outright. In the case of the death of an inmate, the family is
not notified, and they are not permitted to collect the body
for burial.
3. The camps are removed from the oversight that the Office of
the Prosecutor exerts over ordinary prisons according to DPRK
law. The DPRK authorities also consistently deny access to or
information about the camps to United Nations human rights
bodies. The authorities falsely claim that the camps and their
inmates do not exist. These considerations establish that the
camps have been set up in order to deprive inmates over a
prolonged time period of the protection that oversight bodies,
set up under national and international law, could potentially
exercise.
(c) Extermination
1. International criminal law defines extermination as the
intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the
deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to
bring about the destruction of part of a population.1554 The
crime of extermination therefore requires killing on a massive
scale.1555This can also be carried out by imprisoning a large
number of people and withholding the necessities of life so
that mass deaths ensue.1556 In determining whether the
threshold of mass killing has been reached, the accumulated
deaths that are linked to the same overall extermination
episode may be aggregated, even if the killings are dispersed
in terms of time or geography.1557
2. The death of large numbers of people does not have to be the
goal pursued by the perpetrators for the criminal intent
requirement to be satisfied. In the opinion of the Commission,
it is sufficient that the perpetrators impose living
conditions in calculated awareness that such conditions will
cause mass deaths in the ordinary course of events.1558
3. The Commission's factual findings on the political prison
camps in the DPRK1559 match the definition of extermination.
Across the various camps, the living conditions imposed on the
political prisoners cause the deaths of thousands of inmates
every year. Over the period of the existence of the camp
system, hundreds of thousands have died.
4. The Commission finds that the living conditions in the
political prison camps are calculated to bring about mass
deaths. Forced to carry out grueling labour, inmates are
provided food rations that are so insufficient that many
inmates starve to death. Those prisoners who survive do so by
devising their own coping mechanisms, often having to resort
to means, such as stealing food, that are illegal in the camp
and subject to harsh punishment. The death toll is further
exacerbated by executions, deaths from torture, the denial of
adequate medical care, high incidence of work accidents, lack
of shelter and lack of appropriate clothes.
5. The authorities administering the political prison camps are
aware that deaths on a massive scale occur in the ordinary
course of events. Information provided to the Commission by
former guards and inmates suggests that the camps have the
objective of gradually eliminating the camp population by
working many prisoners to death. As noted by former political
prison camp guard Ahn Myong-chol, political prison camp
inmates "are supposed to die in the camp from hard
labour".1560 This corresponds with the instruction, attributed
to Kim Il-sung and taught to camp officials, that three
generations of class enemies and factionalists must be
eliminated.
(d) Murder
1. The crime of murder under international criminal law requires
unlawfully causing the death of a person.1561 The perpetrator
must either act with the subjective purpose of causing such
death or serious injury or awareness that the causation of
death will be the consequence of the impugned acts in the
ordinary course of events.1562
2. The intentional killings of individual inmates in the DPRK's
political prison camps, through summary executions, beatings,
infanticide, deliberate starvation and other illegal means,
all amount to the crime of murder.
(e) Enslavement
1. The exercise of any or all of the powers ordinarily attaching
to the right of ownership over a person amounts to
enslavement.1563 The extraction of forced labour can amount to
enslavement if it is accompanied by aggravating circumstances
that effectively destroy the juridical personhood of the
victim.1564 Relevant circumstances include detention or
captivity; the degree of control exercised over the victim's
autonomy; freedom of choice or freedom of movement, including
measures taken to prevent or deter escape; fear of violence;
abuse of power; duration, conditions and intensity of forced
labour; victims' vulnerability; subjection to cruel treatment
and abuse; and intense control of sexuality.1565
2. The Commission finds that the experience of inmates in
political prison camps in the DPRK involves all of the
characteristics of enslavement. Inmates are subjected to a
lifetime of arduous and perilous forced labour. They are
treated as if there were "ploughing animals", as former inmate
Shin Dong Hyuk described their fate.1566 The prisoners are
often so weakened from malnourishment and disease that they
are literally worked to death. Inmates have no chance of
extricating themselves from this situation. Failure to perform
forced labour is subject to severe punishment including
summary execution, torture and ration cuts that further
aggravate starvation. Escape from the high-security total
control zones is almost impossible. Anyone who attempts to
escape is summarily executed. Inmates are subject to the total
control of the camp authorities, who regularly subject them to
torture and deny their sexual and reproductive rights.
(f) Torture and subjection to extremely inhumane detention
conditions
1. The Rome Statute defines torture as the intentional infliction
of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon
a person in the custody or under the control of the
perpetrator.1567
2. The definition of torture under customary international law,
as espoused by the ICTY, demands the presence of severe
physical or mental pain and suffering, but without requiring
custody or control. Instead, the acts in question must "aim at
obtaining information or a confession, or at punishing,
intimidating or coercing the victim or a third person, or at
discriminating, on any ground, against the victim or a third
person."1568
3. The Commission finds that physical torture is an established
feature of the political prison camps in the DPRK, where it is
widely used to punish and intimidate inmates held on
discriminatory political, religious or social grounds. It is
typically carried out in specially constructed punishment
blocks. Guards are also authorized and instructed to impose
on-the-spot punishments that inflict severe suffering in
response to perceived inmate infractions.
4. Intentionally subjecting persons to extremely inhumane
conditions of detention can constitute a crime against
humanity.1569 In the case of the DPRK's political prison
camps, the inhumanity of the overall situation is particularly
shaped by the policy of deliberate starvation that subjects
inmates to a lifetime of physical suffering and mental
anguish. Since this severe suffering is inflicted on the
prisoners to intimidate and punish them on political grounds,
the Commission considers that the threshold of torture may be
reached on the ground of their deliberate starvation alone.
(g) Rape and other forms of sexual violence
1. It is now undisputed that crimes against humanity encompass
rape.1570 Although formally prohibited and occasionally
leading to disciplinary action, rape is regularly committed in
the political prison camps of the DPRK. They are a product of
the environment of the prison camps and the impunity generally
enjoyed by camp officials. Rape therefore forms part of the
overall attack against the camp population. In some cases,
female inmates are raped using physical force. In other cases,
women are pressed into "consensual" sexual relations to avoid
harsh labour assignments, or to receive food. Such cases may
also amount to rape as defined under international law,
because the perpetrators take advantage of the coercive
circumstances of the camp environment and the resulting
vulnerability of the female inmates. 1571
2. The imposition of forced abortions on female inmates who
become pregnant without authorization not only results in
immediate physically harm,it also interferes with the victim's
reproductive rights and causes severe emotional suffering.
Systematic or widespread forced abortions must therefore be
considered a form of sexual violence of a gravity amounting to
crimes against humanity.1572
3. The severe pain and suffering of the incarcerated victims of
rape and forced abortion, who are targeted on discriminatory
political and gender grounds, regularly reach the threshold of
torture as defined under the Rome Statute and customary
international criminal law.1573
(h) Persecution
1. International criminal law defines persecution as the
intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights
contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the
group or collectivity.1574 The deprivations must be committed
with the specific intent of discriminating against the victim.
The Rome Statute and customary international criminal law both
recognize political and religious grounds among the bases of
persecution as a crime against humanity.1575
2. The Commission finds that inmates in the DPRK's political
prison camps are generally victims of the crime of
persecution. They are singled out for punishment involving
arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture,
starvation, forced labour and other gross human rights
violations on the grounds of their religious or political
convictions or the socio-political background of their
families. Even in the rare cases where political prisoners are
released, their persecution continues upon their reintegration
into general society as they and their families are restricted
to the bottom rungs of the Songbun system.
3. In the case of women, the persecution on political or social
grounds intersects with gender-based persecution.1576 Women
are singled out for acts of sexual violence, including rape
and forced abortion, because of their gender. In the case of
forced abortions, women's capacity to reproduce is
deliberately and systematically targeted in order to prevent
the reproduction of so-called ‘class enemies'. In the case of
rape, the persecutory intent is not only rooted in the
motivations of individual perpetrators. It also manifests
itself in a general practice of not making serious efforts to
punish the male perpetrators among the guards and other
prisoners, even though their action is criminal under the DPRK
Criminal Code and also breaches camp rules banning
unauthorized sexual contact.
2. Systematic and widespread attack pursuant to State policy
1. The Commission finds that the inhumane acts perpetrated in the
political prison camps in the DPRK are committed on such a
scale, and with such a level of organization, that they
amount, in and of themselves, to a systematic and widespread
attack, pursuant to State policy. Furthermore, the political
prison camp system constitutes a core element of the larger
systematic and widespread attack on anyone considered to be a
threat to the political system or leadership of the DPRK.
2. The political prison camps were established to achieve a
central political objective, namely the elimination of three
generations of factionalists and class enemies. Guards and
other camp authorities are instructed that this is the
objective of the camps, as determined by Kim Il-sung himself.
The camps continue to serve this purpose, while also being
used to purge from society, anyone else who poses a threat to
the political system and its leadership. In addition, the
forced labour derived from inmates in the camps' mines, farms
and factories, at minimal cost, assists in the realization of
politically important economic objectives, including energy
generation and the provision of supplies to the security
forces.
3. The Commission finds that inhumane acts perpetrated in the
DPRK's political prison camps occur on a large scale and
follow a regular pattern giving rise to the inference that
they form part of an overarching State policy. Across the
various political prison camps in the DPRK and over a timespan
of six decades, hundreds of thousands of inmates have suffered
a very similar pattern of starvation, forced labour and other
inhumane acts. Today, between 80,000 and 120,000 prisoners are
detained in political prison camps. This represents
approximately 1 in every 200 citizens of the DPRK.
4. Guards and security agents serving in the political prison
camps are taught to consider inmates to be sub-human enemies,
who no longer enjoy citizen's rights. Accordingly, they are
instructed to treat inmates without pity. This message is
reinforced by the activities of the Propaganda Department of
the Workers' Party of Korea and other state institutions,
which create hostility towards soc-called ‘enemies of the
people'. The combination of indoctrination by specific
training and general propaganda creates a psychological
environment that eradicates human inhibitions that might
otherwise prevent guards from subjecting prisoners to such
inhumane acts.
5. The DPRK has devoted considerable resources to establishing
and expanding its sprawling system of camps. The State
Security Department (SSD), the country's elite security
agency, is responsible for guarding inmates and administering
the camps. An entire SSD bureau is assigned to this task. It
is staffed by thousands of agents and guards. Roads and
railroad connections have been built so that production taking
place in the camps can be fully integrated into the economy.
Satellite images viewed by the Commission show continued
investment in expanding the camps, their security
installations and infrastructure. It is impossible to believe
that such a large-scale and complex institutional system could
be operated without being based on a State policy approved at
the highest level given the strongly centralized nature of the
state in the DPRK.
6. The Commission has received information directly indicating
that the camp system is controlled from the highest level of
the state. In some cases, the Commission was able to trace
orders to cause the disappearance of individuals to the camps
to the level of the Supreme Leader. Moreover, the State
Security Department, which decides whether to send individuals
to the camp, is subject to the directions and close oversight
of the Supreme Leader.1577
7. Despite the increasing futility of such efforts, authorities
continue to devote considerable energy to concealing the
existence of political prison camps and to preventing
information about the crimes committed in them from reaching
the international community. Precautions taken by the DPRK
authorities even extend to orders from the Supreme Leader to
kill all inmates in the case of war or revolution, in order to
eradicate the primary evidence of the existence of the camps
and the conditions prevailing therein.1578
8. The Commission finds that the closest analogies, although with
shorter duration and different destructive features, are the
camps of totalitarian states of the twentieth century. That
such political prison camps continue to exist at present in
the DPRK is an affront to universally shared human rights
rights values and a crime against humanity. It is the duty of
the DPRK and the international community to ensure that these
camps are dismantled and the surviving prisoners released
without further delay.
C. Crimes against humanity in the ordinary prison system
1. Based on the body of testimony and other information
received,1579 the Commission finds that crimes against
humanity extend to the ordinary prison system, in particular
the ordinary prison camps (kyohwaso) and, to a lesser degree,
the various types of short-term forced labour detention
facilities.
1. Inhumane acts committed against ordinary prisoners
1. The Commission finds that the following inhumane acts have
been, and are still being, committed:
(a) Imprisonment
1. Ordinary prisoners in the DPRK are almost always victims of
the crime of imprisonment in violation of fundamental rules of
international law.
2. Imprisonment in an ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso) is usually
based on a judicial process. However, this is a process that
falls far short of a fair and public hearing by a competent,
independent and impartial tribunal established by law, as
required by international law. Those incarcerated in short-
term forced labour detention camps often do not receive a
trial at all.
3. Many inmates in ordinary prisons are imprisoned without
substantive reason that would be compatible with international
law. Often they are imprisoned is for conduct that constitutes
a protected exercise of human rights and should have never
been criminalized. Among them are persons who exercised their
right to leave the DPRK, who practised a religion or exercised
their right to freedom of information by watching foreign
films or making international telephone calls.
(b) Extermination and murder
1. In many respects, the conditions imposed on ordinary prison
camp (kyohwaso) inmates in the DPRK are similar to those found
in the political prison camps. Differences in the treatment of
prisoners are often matters of degree, not principle. Policies
that combine forced labour with deliberate starvation,
inadequate medical care and poor hygiene conditions cause the
death of thousands of inmates annually. The DPRK does not lack
the capacity or resources necessary to operate a more humane
penitentiary system. Most ordinary prison camps are net
producers of food, but food is not given to the prisoners who
remain hungry. Moreover, the output of mining and
manufacturing carried out in the camps generate revenue that
is apparently not used for the benefit of establishing decent
conditions of detention. The Commission therefore finds that
the inhumane conditions in the camps are a result of a
deliberate State policy.
2. Ordinary prison camps in the DPRK may not have the general
objective of eliminating the inmates. Their legally stated
purpose at least is to re-educate inmates through labour.
Policies emanating from the central government to manage
ordinary prisons, however, including the deliberate denial of
adequate food and medical care, are being pursued despite
awareness that they will cause the death of a large portion of
the prison population in the ordinary course of events. This
level of criminal intent is sufficient, in the view of the
Commission, to establish that crimes against humanity of
extermination and murder have been committed.1580
3. According to the findings of the Commission, individual
official acts of murder have taken place in ordinary prison
camps, including summary executions of persons who attempt to
escape as well as instances of secret executions.1581
(c) Torture, rape and other grave sexual violence
1. Torture, as defined under international criminal law, is an
established feature of the ordinary prisons in the DPRK.
Torture manifests itself in the form of solitary confinement
in tiny cells, the deliberate imposition of extreme levels of
starvation as a disciplinary measure, and the infliction of
severe beatings and other atrocities to punish inmates. The
suffering resulting from the prolonged starvation, coupled
with other inhumane conditions of detention, imposed on
inmates to aggravate their punishment generally often also
meets the threshold of torture.1582
2. Although not endorsed as general policy and contrary to prison
regulations, the frequent incidences of rape form part of the
overall pattern of crimes against humanity. Like in the
political prison camps, cases of rape are a direct consequence
of the impunity and unchecked power that prison guards and
other officials enjoy. The forced abortions to which pregnant
inmates have been subjected constitute a form of sexual
violence of a gravity that meets the threshold required for
crimes against humanity.1583
(d) Enslavement
1. Conditions of forced labour vary between different types of
detention facilities. The high threshold of enslavement
established by international criminal law would not be reached
everywhere in the ordinary prison system of the DPRK. However,
the type, duration and intensity of forced labour exacted from
inmates in the ordinary prison camps (kyohwaso), especially in
prison mines, does meet the enslavement threshold. In coming
to this finding, the Commission takes into account the overall
context of deliberate starvation, inhumane living conditions
and harsh punishments imposed on those who fail to fulfil
their work quotas or who attempt to flee. The Commission
therefore firmly rejects the suggestion by the DPRK in its
submission to the Human Rights Committee that conditions in
the ordinary prison camps of the DPRK meet international
standards.1584
(e) Forcible transfer of a population
1. The crime against humanity of forcible transfer of a
population is defined in international criminal law as the
forced displacement of a population by expulsion or other
coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully
present, without grounds permitted under international
law.1585
2. Inmates in ordinary prisons in the DPRK are imprisoned based
on the assumption of personal guilt. However, guilt by
association punishment is still systematically applied to the
families of ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso) inmates, in
particular where the family resides in Pyongyang. Because of
the crime of their relative, such families are considered a
bad songbun population group. Therefore, they are
systematically expelled from Pyongyang and forcibly
transferred to one of the more remote provinces, where they
experience much harsher socio-economic conditions.1586 The
Commission notes the large size of Ordinary Prison Camp
(kyohwaso) No. 4 that houses thousands of inmates from
Pyongyang. It therefore finds that thousands of DPRK citizens
at least have been banished from Pyongyang on the basis of
their family ties with convicted individuals.
3. The DPRK's practice of collectively banishing family members
who were not involved in the crime of their relative has no
basis under the DPRK's formal laws and is contrary to
international law. The Commission therefore considers that
such banishment amounts to the crime against humanity of
forcible transfer of a population.
2. Systematic and widespread attack pursuant to State policy
1. In the DPRK, the criminal justice system and its prisons
serves not merely to punish common crimes. They also form an
integral part of the state's systematic and widespread attack
against anyone considered a threat to the political system and
its leadership. Many inmates of ordinary prisons in the DPRK
are, in fact, political prisoners. The political function of
the ordinary justice system, which was emphasized by Kim Il-
sung and Kim Jong-il, is formally acknowledged in the DPRK
present Constitution and Code of Criminal Procedure. These
laws require the state and its courts to staunchly oppose and
subdue class enemies.1587 The forced labour output of the
prisons, including precious ores and other goods destined for
export, provide the state with important foreign currency
earnings needed to sustain the political system and the elites
on whose loyalty the system relies. The ordinary prison system
and the way it is operated, therefore serves two central
political objectives.
2. The inhumane acts that detainees suffer within the ordinary
prisons are not isolated incidents that can be traced back to
individual guards or particular facilities. The Commission
finds that, across the vast prison system, inhumane acts
follow regular patterns that victimize tens of thousands of
inmates at any point in time.
3. Deliberate starvation and forced labour follow the same
patterns in different prisons across the country, making it
likely that acts are based on orders originating at the
central level. Very similar types of punishment practices and
torture facilities (e.g. tiny solitary confinement cells) are
used across different detention installations. According to
the Commission's findings, thousands of ordinary prison
inmates die every year in the DPRK from starvation,
exhaustion, beatings, preventable work accidents and curable
diseases.1588 The DPRK authorities, including at a central
level, are aware of this, not least because starvation levels
are regularly measured in prisons. However, the authorities
have not taken steps to change the underlying policies. In
accordance with article 30 of the DPRK Criminal Code, the
civil rights of ordinary prison camp (kyohwaso) inmates are
considered to have been partially suspended. This further
encourages abuse of the inmates.
4. Patterns of impunity also indicate that inhumane acts
committed against prisoners represent official policy.
Although two of the primary pillars of the criminal justice
system, the Ministry of People's Security (MPS) and the Office
of the Prosecutor, administer and oversee the ordinary prison
system, the DPRK authorities are not making any proper efforts
to end impunity for perpetrators of torture, rape, executions
and other inhumane acts against prisoners.
5. Instead, the DPRK has taken concerted steps to conceal
violations in the prison system from its population and the
international community. Furnaces and mass graves have been
set up in or close to prison facilities to dispose of the
bodies of those who die in prison to prevent family members
from discovering the fate of their incarcerated relative.
Where they have cooperated with United Nations human rights
mechanisms, DPRK delegations have provided grossly inaccurate
information about the size of the prison system and the
conditions of treatment, in response to specific questions.
The DPRK has also consistently denied access to prisons
(except for occasional visits to certain model prisons). The
repeated requests by this Commission to have access to the
DPRK, including to its prison facilities, have all been
ignored or rejected.
D. Crimes against humanity targeting religious believers and others
considered to introduce subversive influences
1. Based on the body of testimony and other information
received,1589 the Commission finds that persons who are
considered to introduce politically or ideologically
subversive influences are subject to crimes against humanity.
2. Among the foremost victims are religious believers who
practise outside the small number of state-controlled
religious institutions. In the contemporary DPRK, such
religious believers comprise independent communities of
Christians who usually come into contact with the religion
through Korean-language churches operating in the border areas
of China.
3. Others falling into the group of persons introducing
subversive influences include those who have unauthorized
personal or telephonic contact with people from the Republic
of Korea; watch and circulate foreign films, news and
entertainment programmes; or follow television programmes and
radio broadcasts from abroad.
1. Inhumane acts
1. The Commission finds that the following inhumane acts have
been and are still being committed:
(a) Imprisonment and torture
1. The authorities consider religion, movies and broadcasts
emanating from countries they consider to be hostile states,
and especially unauthorized contact with the ROK and its
citizens, to be politically subversive. The state considers
those who engage in such activities to be guilty of what the
Criminal Code terms "anti-state and anti-people crimes". This
is notwithstanding the fact that their conduct is within the
protected sphere of international human rights law. If caught,
they are imprisoned for interrogation purposes for weeks or
months without being brought before a judge in violation of
article 9 of the ICCPR. Thereafter, they may be sentenced to a
prison facility in a trial that falls short of the
requirements established by article 14 of the ICCPR. Or they
may be sent to a political prison camp without trial.1590
2. Severe beatings, prolonged and deliberate starvation and other
acts of torture, are systematically imposed on people accused
of introducing subversive elements into the DPRK. The purpose
is to extract confessions and to incriminate others.
(b) Murder
1. In cases considered particularly grave by the authorities,
Christians and distributors of foreign films and materials are
executed. The Commission finds that such executions amount to
murder, even where they are based on a judicial sentence,
because the underlying conduct is protected by international
human rights law and does not qualify as one of the ‘most
serious crimes' to which article 6 of the ICCPR limits the
application of the death penalty.1591
(c) Persecution
1. Christians are also victims of persecution. The violence and
heavy punishment inflicted on those who practise their
religion outside the state-controlled churches are at the core
of the state-sponsored discrimination that Christians
experience. Their persecution is also shaped by an overall
discriminatory environment where the DPRK vilifies
Christianity in its propaganda and education, effectively
prohibits the import and possession of religious materials,
seeks to infiltrate underground churches, and subjects the few
allowed to practise in state-approved churches to intense
surveillance and severe restrictions on how they can practise
their religion. Christians are also restricted to the bottom
hostile class rungs of the Songbun system which adds
additional layers of disadvantages to their experience of
discrimination.
2. Systematic and widespread attack pursuant to State policy
1. The Commission finds that the systematic and widespread attack
of the state against populations that are considered a threat
to the political system and leadership of the DPRK extends to
those following religion or introducing other subversive
influences. These groups are considered to pose a particular
threat because their conduct challenges the monopoly on
information and ideological formation asserted by the Workers'
Party of Korea and its leadership. In the case of Christians,
the state is also pursuing the additional political objective
of preventing the reintroduction of independent Christian
communities. Such communities were eradicated in past purges.
2. State authorities commit considerable resources to enforcing
their policy to ensure the arrest, capture and punishment of
Christians and others considered to introduce subversive
influences. As a matter of standard protocol, anyone
repatriated from China is systematically screened to find
Christians and other persons who had direct contact with
churches and/or ROK citizens. According to the findings of the
Commission, the SSD, MPS and KPA Military Security are
carrying out a coordinated crackdown on the inflow of foreign
movies and have set up joint inspection groups for this
purpose, in accordance with orders that apparently emanate
from the Supreme Leader himself. On behalf of the National
Defence Commission, the highest decision-making body in the
state, a proclamation has been issued demanding that the
population report to the security forces anyone watching or
distributing foreign films and television programmes. Customs
authorities systematically search incoming goods to find
foreign movies or devices capable of receiving foreign
broadcasts. SSD inspection teams use sophisticated technology
to detect the use of unauthorized Chinese mobile phones.
3. DPRK authorities systematically seek to hide the persecution
of Christians who practise their religion outside state-
controlled churches from the international community. They do
this by pointing to a small number of state-controlled
Churches as the exemplification of religious freedom and
pluralism within the country.
E. Crimes against humanity targeting persons who try to flee the
country
1. Based on the body of testimony and information received,1592
the Commission finds that crimes against humanity have been
and, are still being committed, against persons who try to
flee the DPRK, including against persons forcibly repatriated
from China.
1. Inhumane acts
1. The Commission finds that the following inhumane acts have
been and are still being committed:
(a) Imprisonment
1. As a matter of standard protocol, the SSD and MPS
systematically detianed persons who are caught trying to flee
the DPRK, or who are forcibly repatriated, for interrogation
purposes, often for several months. During this phase,
detainees are generally not brought before a judge in
accordance with article 9 (3) of the ICCPR. They also have no
opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of their detention in
a court, as is required by article 9 (4) of the ICCPR.
2. The detainees who can convince the SSD and MPS interrogators
that they left the DPRK to find work or gain support from
relatives living in China are punished (usually without trial)
with shorter terms of imprisonment. Since they are punished
for pursuing the only available way to exercise their right to
leave their own country, the punishment occurs without a
reason that would be compatible with international law.
3. Those found to have practised the Christian religion or to
have had contact with persons from the Republic of Korea are
imprisoned, on the basis of an unfair trial or no trial at
all, in ordinary or political prison camps.
(b) Torture and murder
1. According to the findings of the Commission, officials of the
State Security Department employ severe beatings, deliberate
starvation and other means of torture against repatriated
persons in order to identify those who have had contact with
Christian churches and ROK nationals while abroad. Repatriated
persons regularly die in detention as a result of beatings and
starvation. In many cases, their deaths amount to murder since
the perpetrators are aware that the harm they inflict is so
grave that death will ensue in the ordinary course of events.
2. Border guards remain authorized to shoot to kill persons who
cross the DPRK border without permission. Such killings amount
to murder. They cannot be justified as legitimate border
control measures, because they serve to uphold a de facto
total travel ban on ordinary citizens that violates
international law. Furthermore, the intentional taking of life
for purposes of preventing the unauthorized crossing of a
border is grossly disproportionate. International law only
allows the intentional use of lethal force, where strictly
necessary to protect life from immediate threats.1593
(c) Rape and other forms of sexual violence
1. According to the Commission's findings, repatriated women who
become pregnant while in China are subject to forced abortion.
This amounts to sexual violence of a gravity that meets the
threshold of crimes against humanity. The forced abortions
imposed on repatriated and detained women generally also
constitute torture.1594 In cases of infanticide, the crime of
murder is being committed. The widespread occurrence of these
crimes is facilitated by the climate of impunity that prevails
in the interrogation detention facilities that process
repatriated persons. The same climate of impunity allows rape
and other acts of sexual violence to be committed by
individual guards and to go unpunished. In relation to women
repatriated from China, the perpetrators of forced abortion
and infanticide appear to be driven by official ideology that
emphasizes the importance of maintaining the purity of the
Korean race at all costs. In these circumstances, they display
particular hostility towards Korean women who have had sexual
intercourse with Chinese men and become pregnant with what is
considered an "impure" baby. For this reason, these inhumane
acts also constitute persecution on racial and gender grounds.
2. In the DPRK's interrogation detention centres, sexual
humiliation is utilized as a deliberate strategy against
repatriated women. Individual guards can subject them with
impunity to physical and verbal sexual molestation (and, in
some cases, also rape). As a matter of standard practice,
repatriated women entering the interrogation detention centre
have to strip fully naked in front of other prisoners and
guards. While fully nude, they are forced to perform a series
of squats so as to dislodge money hidden in their private
parts (a practice known as "pumping"). The Commission finds
that these practices, especially considering that they often
committed cumulatively against the same victims, can be so
degrading that they amount to sexual violence of a gravity
that may constitute crimes against humanity.1595
3. In line with established policies, women are also searched for
money by female, and sometimes also male guards who insert
their hands into the victim's vagina. These invasive body
searches are conducted by ordinary guards using unsanitary
techniques. The searches are carried out in the presence of
other prisoners, and, in some cases, guards of the opposite
sex. The overall circumstances, including the nude "pumping"
that precedes the vaginal searches, makes the entire procedure
sexually humiliating. They commonly serve the purpose of
allowing the guards to steal, for personal gain, from
repatriated persons any money they may have earned in China.
The Commission was not told of any instances where money was
taken and used as evidence in judicial proceedings. Such
searches would therefore appear to be illegal under the DPRK
Code of Criminal Procedure, which only allows searches for the
purpose of gathering criminal evidence.1596 They also fall
short of international standards, allowing body searches only
to be carried out only when and where necessary, in a humane
manner, and by persons with appropriate training.1597 Those
who resist are beaten into submission. International criminal
law considers any unjustified coercive invasion of the genital
opening with a part of the perpetrator's body to be rape.1598
The Commission considers that the invasive vaginal cavity
searches performed in the DPRK's interrogation detention
centres for repatriated persons may amount to rape,
considering that they are illegal under the DPRK's own laws;
carried out in sexually humiliating overall circumstances; and
are not justified by legitimate concern.
(d) Enforced disappearance
1. According to the findings of the Commission, operatives acting
on behalf of the State Security Department of the DPRK have
abducted citizens who fled to China as well as Chinese and ROK
nationals who helped them.1599 Despite inquiries from
international bodies and countries of origin, the fate of the
victims has never been revealed. Such cases amount to enforced
disappearance, as defined under international criminal
law.1600
2. Systematic and widespread attack pursuant to State policy
1. The Commission finds that persons who flee the DPRK are
targeted as part of the DPRK's systematic and widespread
attack against populations considered to pose a threat to the
political system and leadership of the DPRK, because the
system of isolation, information control and indoctrination
imposed by the DPRK stands and falls with its ability to
isolate the population from contact with the outside world.
Those who flee the country pose a threat because they gain
contact with the outside world. They can often relay
information back to people in the DPRK that challenges the
orthodoxy imposed by the Workers' Party of Korea and the
Supreme Leader.
2. This political objective is also evidenced by the fact that
those who try to flee the DPRK are generally considered
perpetrators of anti-state and anti-people crimes. In
addition, the policy of punishing escapees from the DPRK is
explicitly supported by the DPRK Criminal Code, which
criminalizes the unauthorized crossing of the border and makes
it subject to severe prison sentences. This is despite
ordinary citizens being effectively denied lawful options to
exercise their right to leave the DPRK according to article 12
(2) of the ICCPR.
3. All levels of the state bureaucracy, extending to the Supreme
Leader himself, have devoted considerable attention and
resources to the issue of people fleeing the DPRK since the
issue became more prevalent in the 1990s. Kim Jong-il
personally intervened to provide guidelines to adjust
punishment levels. The emergence of Kim Jong-un in late 2009
as the apparent successor to his ailing father, has coincided
with a reinforced ongoing effort to seal the border and exact
harsher punishments against those who help escapees. Recently,
the central level also intervened to modify (but not abolish)
shoot-to-kill policies. It appears that this was done after
China complained about the impact of border shootings on its
territory. The fact that the SSD has pursued politically
highly sensitive abductions of individuals from Chinese
territory also suggests that the directions driving violations
against those who fled the DPRK come from the highest levels
of the state.
4. High-level officials and state media in the DPRK also
regularly brand people who successfully flee the DPRK with
terms such as "traitor" or "human scum", thus creating a
psychological environment facilitating and even encouraging
the commission of crimes against humanity targeting persons
trying to flee the DPRK.
5. The DPRK has dedicated considerable resources to process and
punish the large numbers of persons repatriated back to the
DPRK. This affords further evidence to the existence of a
centralized State policy. The main security agencies (SSD, MPS
and KPA) are closely coordinating their efforts in order to
seal the border and punish those found crossing it. The SSD
has assumed the lead in the overall border control process
since 2012, which indicates the political importance that the
DPRK's leadership attaches to the issue. Interrogation and
interim holding facilities have been expanded or, in some
cases, newly established to accommodate the large number of
repatriated persons.
6. The fact that violations are large-scale and follow regular
patterns also supports the Commission's finding that they must
be based on State policy. Bearing in mind the large numbers of
DPRK nationals who fled to China and the rigorous forced
repatriation policy that China pursues, it can be estimated
that tens of thousands of DPRK nationals have been
repatriated. Almost all of the repatriated people are
subjected to inhumane acts. The torture, sexual violence and
inhumane conditions of detention that victims endure during
the search and initial interrogation phase appear to be based
on standard procedures. Standard protocols also seem to govern
the transfer of repatriated persons between different security
agencies and types of detention facilities.
F. Starvation
1. Based on the body of testimony and other information
received,1601 the Commission finds that DPRK officials have
committed crimes against humanity by implementing actions,
decisions and policies known to have led to mass starvation,
death by starvation and serious mental and physical injury.
The underlying policy derived from the highest level of the
state. While a number of the features of this policy have
changed since the second half of the 1990s, when mass
starvation and related deaths peaked, the Commission remains
concerned that some of the elements that have led to crimes
against humanity are still present.
1. Inhumane acts
1. The Commission finds that the following inhumane acts have
been committed:
(a) Extermination
1. The deprivation of access to food, calculated to bring about
the destruction of part of a population, amounts to
extermination.1602Although there is no particular numerical
threshold, the notion of ‘destruction of part of population'
requires deaths on a massive scale.1603
2. Regarding the requisite intent for the crime of extermination,
the death of large numbers of people does not have to be the
subjective purpose of the perpetrators. For the crime of
extermination to take place, it is sufficient that the
perpetrators deprive the population of necessary food in
calculated awareness that these conditions will cause mass
deaths in the ordinary course of events.1604 Mere
recklessness, such as decisions taken despite full knowledge
of the risk that they would cause or aggravate mass starvation
and deaths, would not meet the threshold of extermination as a
crime against humanity.
3. The root causes of the food shortage and mass starvation that
has killed, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people in
the DPRK, particularly in the late 1990s, lie in a series of
policies dating back to the establishment of the DPRK. These
policies imposed a planned economy that overly focused on
heavy industry, an input-intensive collectivized agriculture
system and tight control over individual livelihood choices
without respecting relevant principles of participation and
good governance. It is also grounded in misguided spending
priorities, which maintained an oversized and unsustainable
security apparatus and discriminatory patterns of food
distribution that served political imperatives. These policies
appear to have been adopted and maintained by the DPRK
authorities in reliance on the Soviet Union, China and other
socialist nations continually making up for the resulting
shortfall in the DPRK's own production of food and related
agricultural inputs. The violations of the right to food and
other human rights intrinsic to these policies created the
environment in which crimes against humanity would then
unfold.
4. Food shortages have been a recurrent theme in the history of
the DPRK.1605 From the early 1990s, coinciding with the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc of socialist
states, severe food shortages and mass starvation existed in
the DPRK already. This was implicitly acknowledged by the DPRK
itself through the promulgation of the national campaign
"Let's eat two meals a day" in 1991. By the end of 1993, the
DPRK authorities knew that neither China, nor the South Asian
countries that were approached for help, would provide the
external aid necessary to prevent mass starvation and
consequent mass deaths.
5. With a famine already underway, relevant DPRK officials
adopted a series of decisions and policies that violated
international law and aggravated mass starvation. This greatly
increased the number of people who subsequently starved to
death. The archives of the DPRK may one day provide greater
insights into the underlying motivations. Based on the
testimony and other information available to it, the
Commission could not conclude that DPRK officials acted with
the subjective purpose of starving its general population or
even a part thereof to death.1606 However, according to the
findings of the Commission, the authorities were fully aware
that a number of decisions they took in the 1990s would
greatly aggravate mass starvation and the related death toll
in the ordinary course of events. They nevertheless took these
decisions because they prioritized the preservation of the
political system of the DPRK, the Supreme Leader and the
elites surrounding him. As noted above, this level of criminal
intent is sufficient for the crime of extermination.
6. The Commission considers that deliberately providing
misleading information to international humanitarian actors or
preventing international food aid from reaching starving
populations can constitute extermination, if mass deaths
occur.1607 The DPRK was obliged under article 11 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (IESCR)
to seek and facilitate the provision international food aid
when it was clear that its own resources could not ensure
freedom from hunger. DPRK officials responsible for
implementing this duty failed to make a concerted effort to
request food aid from the international community until 1995,
at which point large numbers of people were already dying.
Prior to that, officials even presented misleading
information, suggesting that no starvation existed in the
country. The authorities did not reveal the extent of mass
starvation for political reasons. Kim Jong-il himself
acknowledged in a 1996 speech that starvation even extended to
the army and indicated that revealing this fact would cause
the DPRK to appear militarily vulnerable.1608
7. After the DPRK finally requested international aid, officials
impeded its delivery and distribution by imposing restrictions
on access to populations in dire need that were not justified
by legitimate humanitarian or security considerations. A
number of humanitarian organizations closed down life-saving
operations in response to these state restrictions. As a
result of these failures, international food aid arrived later
and in smaller quantities than required. This aggravated the
death toll.
8. According to the findings of the Commission, responsible DPRK
officials failed to execute the obligation of the DPRK under
article 11 of the ICESCR and other provisions of international
law to use all the resources at its own disposal in an effort
to satisfy, as a matter of priority, freedom from hunger.1609
Instead, data suggests that the DPRK decreased its
international purchases of food in 1999, as the famine was
still raging. The prioritization of the military including
during the famine period diverted substantial amounts of
foreign currency and state budget to new military hardware
including fighter jets, attack helicopters, missiles and
nuclear weapons. The DPRK also did not seem to have dedicated
its foreign currency earnings, which were generated from a
number of legal and illegal activities that were increased
since the 1990s, to necessary purchases of food. Instead, it
appears that significant amounts of foreign currency, that
could have had to been used to ensure freedom from hunger, was
spent on the continued development of missiles and nuclear
arms technology in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
and the maintenance of the personality cult and lifestyle of
the Supreme Leader and the elites surrounding him. The immense
expenditure to construct a mausoleum for Kim Il-sung was
unreasonable given the prevailing conditions of mass
starvation. Hunger alleviation for the general population was
not prioritized over spending on the military and leadership
in order to guarantee the survival of the political system of
the DPRK. The Commission finds that the responsible officials
adopted the relevant decisions and policies, in full awareness
that they would aggravate the famine's death toll.
9. The Commission's findings also established that responsible
officials failed to execute the state's obligations under
articles 2 (2) and 11 of the ICESCR to fulfil the citizens'
right to freedom from hunger without discrimination on grounds
of political and social origin.1610 Responsible officials
stopped the provision of food rations through the Public
Distribution Systemthe in provinces of the Northeast, where
populations of low songbun were concentrated as a result of
past purges and forced population transfers. Aid organizations
were denied access to the same regions in the Northeast
although hundreds of thousands of people were starving there.
The Commission received information that the distribution of
available food was channeled, as a matter of priority, to the
politically more important population of Pyongyang, cadres of
the Workers' Party of Korea and the higher echelons of the
security apparatus. A substantial part of the international
food aid was diverted away from those most in need for the
benefit of the elites. Military personnel and assets appear to
have been used for this purpose, but apparently without the
food benefitting the starving rank-and-file among the
soldiers. The authorities were aware that this resource
allocation would harm ordinary citizens. Some populations were
considered expendable when weighed against the survival and
support of the elites who sustained the political system and
its leadership.
10. DPRK officials upheld movement restrictions that denied the
population, especially those residing in highly affected
Northeastern provinces near the Chinese and Russian borders,
the option of going to China or Russia to seek food in
exchange for work or through assistance from relatives.1611
Internal movement restrictions, which were not lifted. This
affected populations traveling within the DPRK in search of
food. The denial of available and obvious coping mechanisms
constituted a violation of the right to leave one's own
country (article 12(2) of the ICCPR) and the right to freedom
from hunger ( article 11 of the ICESCR). Stringent measures
were enforced to maintain a general travel ban, including by
severely punishing DPRK citizens forcibly repatriated from
China. The policy of restricting movement internally and
across international borders led to the starvation of
countless citizens as they were deterred from going to China
to work or seek help from relatives. The additional option of
allowing DPRK citizens to travel to the ROK, where they eould
have received help based on family relations and general
inter-Korean solidarity was never seriously contemplated by
the DPRK. Officials were certainly aware of the disastrous
impact that maintaining the travel ban had on the already
starving population. They still enforced it to prevent the
collapse of the political system. In a 1996 speech, Kim Jong-
il himself revealed the larger political calculation, arguing
that if the Workers' Party of Korea "lets the people solve the
food problem themselves … the party will then lose its popular
base and experience a meltdown as in Poland and
Czechosolvakia."1612
11. KPA officers encouraged starving soldiers to steal food from
the ordinary population in order to supplement their
insufficient rations.1613 Inadequate efforts were made from
the central level to address these crimes or resolve their
root cause, which was the state's failure to provide its
soldiers with adequate food. Officials would have been aware
that effectively tolerating the theft of food by soldiers from
starving civilians would inevitably aggravate starvation and
related deaths among the civilian population.
(b) Murder
1. The various decisions and policies of the DPRK leadership
described above also entail crimes of murder as defined in
international criminal law,1614 because the responsible
officials aggravated starvation in full awareness that this
would cause more deaths in the ordinary course of events.
2. Furthermore, large numbers of people were publicly executed
for stealing food or committing other economic crimes to avoid
starvation.1615 Even when considering the situation of mass
starvation, survival crimes are not among the ‘most serious',
to which article 6 of the ICCPR restricts the application of
the death penalty. Moreover, many of these executions were
carried out summarily without any trial or without trials that
satisfied the fair trial guarantees that apply to the
imposition of the death penalty in accordance with articles 6
and 14 of the ICCPR. For this reason, most of the public
executions carried out in response to economic crimes for
survival during the famine amounted to murder, as defined by
international criminal law.1616
3. These executions also formed part of the overall attack
against starving populations. On the micro-level, they ensured
that citizens would not attempt to circumvent or challenge
discriminatory policies that channeled food away from them by
stealing food. On the macro-level, the climate of fear created
through frequent public executions was the necessary element
that allowed the DPRK authorities to pursue policies that
favoured the survival of the political system and its
leadership at the expense of mass deaths among the general
population, without triggering a total breakdown of the
established order and deterring starving populations from
revolting against the political system.
(c) Other inhumane acts
1. The Commission finds that the decisions, policies and actions
described above also aggravated the starvation of the millions
of affected people who did not starve to death, but still
suffered great physical and mental harm. Many victims continue
to be physically affected, notably those who suffered stunted
growth because of chronic malnutrition during gestation and
childhood. Prolonged starvation among children also leads to
intergenerational harm.1617 The Commission finds that causing
or aggravating prolonged and severe starvation to large
numbers of people, with the knowledge that this will result in
starvation and related severe suffering in the ordinary course
of events, can constitute an inhumane act of a nature
amounting to a crime against humanity.
2. Systematic and widespread attacks based on State policy
1. The Commission finds that the decisions, policies and actions
that aggravated mass starvation, deaths and other suffering
and physical harm resulting from it formed part of a
systematic and widespread attack against the civilian
population that was based on the State policy to sustain the
political system and its leadership at all costs, even at the
expense of aggravating starvation and sacrificing a
substantial part of the general population.
2. In coming to this conclusion, the Commission recalls that an
attack against a civilian population, which gives rise to
crimes against humanity, does not need to be perpetrated using
armed force. It is sufficient that it encompasses the
mistreatment of the population.1618 In the case of the DPRK,
this mistreatment took the form of state decisions, policies
and actions, which were implemented over an extended and
critical period even though it was known that they would
aggravate starvation and related deaths. These decisions and
policies were enforced through executions and other violent
measures. This mistreatment was directed at a civilian
population, as civilians were the primary victims of
starvation and associated enforcement measures.
3. The Commission finds that the attack on the ordinary
population of the DPRK was not only widespread, as it affected
large parts of the population. It was also systematic
considering that many of the state policies known to aggravate
the situation of starvation could have only been adopted at
the central level of the state. Decisions such as prioritizing
expenditure on new military hardware and the DPRK's leadership
over food purchases; suspending food distribution first in the
northeastern provinces; or allowing humanitarian access only
to certain parts of the country could only be taken at the
central level.
4. The underlying objective of the State policy may not have been
to starve the population. However, crimes against humanity do
not require that the State policy underlying them has to be
driven by a purpose of harming a civilian population. In the
view of the Commission, it is sufficient that the senior
officials setting the State policy are fully aware of the
direct causal relationship between the State policy and the
harm done. 1619 This would be the case even if the state was
ultimately driven by other objectives. It is in the nature of
crimes against humanity as ‘state crimes' that they are often
unscrupulously committed as a means by which to pursue
ulterior political objectives of the state.1620 Knowledge at
the top is also a sufficient requirement to ensure that the
inhumane acts committed by individual perpetrators are
attributable to the state, rather than being isolated acts of
individual, lower-ranking officials.
5. In the case of the DPRK, the Commission received information
that decision-makers at the central level were fully aware of
the extent of mass starvation and the death toll, based on
reports relayed through the highly centralized state
bureaucracy. Kim Jong-il himself also carried out visits to
various parts of the country, during which he would have
become aware of the situation. In addition, there are
reasonable grounds for concluding that decision-makers setting
State policy at the central level were aware of the causal
relationship between the policies they set and the aggravation
of mass starvation and related deaths. Firstly, these causal
relationships were obvious in light of the overall magnitude
of the famine. Moreover, the relationship between state
policies and starvation deaths would also have come to the
attention of senior decision-makers through public statements
and private communications to senior DPRK authorities by
humanitarian organizations.
6. Many of the state policies that aggravated mass starvation and
related deaths giving rise to crimes against humanity continue
to be in place. This is particularly true considering the
continuation of discrimination against particular groups
within the DPRK's population; deliberate failure to provide
reliable data on the humanitarian situation and unimpeded
humanitarian access to populations in need; and discriminatory
spending and food distribution patterns. While significant
levels of starvation and malnourishment persist in the DPRK,
the overall situation (at least as reflected in the data that
has been made public) has improved. This is largely due to the
informal markets that were established by the population as a
coping mechanism to replace the largely defunct Public
Distribution System. Other factors include considerable
external aid and consecutive good harvests. However, the risk
of further mass starvation and related crimes against humanity
continues to exist. The Commission considers it essential that
bilateral and multilateral agencies, donors and others
enjoying access to relevant DPRK officials make the decision-
makers in the DPRK incontestably aware of the impact of their
decisions on people and their abity to their ability to enjoy
universal human rights. The relevant DPRK officials should be
cautioned about the individual accountability for crimes
against humanity that may accrue where decision-makers
knowingly adopt decisions or policies that cause or aggravate
mass starvation in the population.
G. Crimes against humanity targeting persons from other countries,
in particular through international abduction
1. Based on the body of testimony and information
received,1621the Commission finds that DPRK authorities have
committed and are committing crimes against humanity against
persons from other countries, namely victims of international
abduction and other persons denied repatriation.
1. Inhumane acts
1. According to the findings of the Commission, the bulk of
international abductions and denials of repatriation that then
gave rise to enforced disappearances occurred between 1950 and
the mid-1980s.1622 In accordance with the principle that
criminal provisions must not be applied retroactively (see
article 15 of the ICCPR), these acts have to be assessed based
on the definition of crimes against humanity as it stood when
they first occurred.
2. Enforced disappearance was first specifically listed as an
inhumane act underlying crimes against humanity in the
International Law Commission's Draft Code of Crimes against
the Peace and Security of Mankind of 1996.1623 A detailed
definition of the crime against humanity under international
criminal law was only elaborated by article 7 (2) (i) of the
Rome Statute, which was adopted in 1998. However, it has been
recognized since the Nuremberg trials in the late 1940s that
acts amounting to enforced disappearance under its
contemporary definition constitute inhumane acts and can
therefore give rise to crimes against humanity.1624
3. To the extent that they entail enforced disappearances, the
cases of abductions and denial of repatriation that were
carried out by the DPRK and its leadership from 1950 can
therefore give rise to crimes against humanity. This would not
constitute a retrospective application of an international
criminal offense.
4. The definition of enforced disappearance under international
criminal law, which is in some respects more stringent than
that under international human rights law, entails three
elements:
* the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the
authorization, support or acquiescence of, a state or a political
organization,
* followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom
or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those
persons, and
* the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for
a prolonged period of time.1625
1. The Commission finds that a large number of inhumane acts
fitting the foregoing definition have been committed by the
DPRK's authorities. Approximately 80,000 civilians were
abducted by DPRK forces during the Korean War. Tens of
thousands of prisoners of war were retained in detention when
they should have been released and repatriated.1626 Many of
them were later forced to work in coal mines in situations
resembling detention. Starting in 1959, more than 93,000
persons were lured by false promises to migrate from Japan to
the DPRK. A few years after their arrival, they were denied to
have any contact with the family members they left behind.
Many of them, ended up in political prison camps and other
places of detention in the DPRK.1627 Among them were also
several thousand Japanese nationals who had been expressly
promised the right to leave the DPRK.
2. Since the end of the Korean War, DPRK naval forces have
arrested hundreds of fishers of ROK nationality at sea, who
were subsequently not allowed to return home.1628 Well over
one hundred citizens of Japan, ROK and other states were
abducted in planned covert actions by special operations and
intelligence agents of the DPRK, who used force and fraudulent
persuasion to bring the victim under their control. Many of
the victims were subsequently detained in "guest houses"
controlled by the DPRK intelligence services. Among the
abductees were also a number of women from Europe, the Middle
East and other parts of Asia who were abducted in order to be
given as wives to foreigners already present in the DPRK.
According to the findings of the Commission, the total number
of potential victims who were brought to the DPRK between 1950
and the late 1980s could be over 200,000 persons.
3. Eighty prisoners of war and nine fishers of ROK nationality
managed to escape from the DPRK and return home. Film director
Shin Sang-ok and actress Choi Un-hee from the ROK and two
Lebanese abduction victims also managed to escape. Since the
end of the Korean War, the mortal remains of only six
prisoners of war have been handed over to the ROK. Five
Japanese victims of abduction and one Lebanese woman were
repatriated. The DPRK acknowledged the abduction of an
additional eight Japanese citizens, but failed to provide
adequate and accurate information on their fate and
whereabouts. In all other cases, the DPRK refused altogether
to acknowledge the deprivation of freedom and hence also
failed to give information on the fate and whereabouts of the
disappeared persons. This stance was adopted, despite numerous
requests for information conveyed by states, international
organizations and family members.
4. The Commission further finds that the responsible authorities
acted with the intent to deprive their victims of the
protection of the law for a prolonged period of time. The
refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of freedom effectively
serves to deny the victims any opportunity to benefit from the
protection that their home countries are entitled to extend
under international law.1629 It also denies them the
protection that can be extended by United Nations human rights
mechanisms in line with their mandates under international
law. Moreover, the fact that the DPRK officially denied their
deprivation of freedom also makes it futile for the victims to
seek the protection of the DPRK justice system, considering
the lack of independence and impartiality of the judiciary in
the DPRK.
5. In coming to the finding that the cases of abductions, denial
of repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearances amount
to intentional inhumane acts, which can constitute to crimes
against humanity, the Commission also takes into account the
severe emotional agony families in the ROK, Japan and other
countries have experienced for decades. The DPRK officials
responsible were and are fully aware of this agony, having
been repeatedly approached by desperate relatives. The current
and previous Supreme Leaders of the DPRK could not have
remained oblivious to the desperate public appeals that
victims' relatives conveyed through international media and
also in the public hearings of this Commission.1630
6. The Commission finds that many of the victims also suffered
crimes against humanity, because they were, and in many cases
probably remain, subject to imprisonment or other severe
deprivations of their liberty without reason or due process.
Such deprivations of liberty have occurred in detention houses
of the intelligence services, political prison camps, ordinary
prisons and mining settlements.
2. Systematic and widespread attacks pursuant to State policy
1. The Commission finds that the enforced disappearances of
persons who came from other countries constitute a systematic
and widespread attack that was pursuant to a State policy and
based on political grounds.1631 Although the enforced
disappearances were carried out over the span of several
decades, common elements unite them, making it appropriate to
consider them as a single large-scale attack.
2. The enforced disappearances share the same political motive,
namely to gain labour and skills considered necessary to
enhance the DPRK and give it the upperhand in what it has
perceived as a struggle with the Republic of Korea for
supremacy on the Korean peninsula.
3. There is also indication that all international abduction
activities were authorized at the highest level. That these
actions must have been authorized at the highest level of the
state, is also evidenced by the fact that the state varyingly
used its land, naval, special operations and intelligence
forces to conduct abductions and arrests. Kim Il-sung
personally knew and supported the decision not to repatriate
large numbers of prisoners and keep their disappearance a
secret from the outside world. Regarding the post-Korean War
abductions, testimonies of several officials also indicates
that Kim Il-sung or his designated successor Kim Jong-il
personally signed off on abduction orders. Kim Jong-il also
had personal contact with abduction victims, including film
director Shin Sang-ok and actress Choi Un-hee and who were
used to make several DPRK propaganda movies for which Kim
Jong-il was the executive producer. Victims from the ROK and
Japan were used for highly sensitive espionage and terrorist
activities of the DPRK, which further indicates endorsement of
their abduction and disappearance by the central government.
4. Finally, the DPRK authorities have pursued one common policy,
carried out over several decades, of denying to the families
and concerned countries that the DPRK was ever involved in any
enforced disappearances of persons from other countries.1632
This policy was invariably applied with regard to all
generations of disappearance victims. The sole exception
remains the acknowledgment of thirteen abductions targeting
Japanese citizens, which was made during the 2002 visit of
Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to the DPRK. Strong and
coordinated surveillance and control measures have been taken
by the security apparatus of the DPRK to ensure that none of
the other victims can escape the country and disclose
information. In at least two cases reported to the Commission,
victims who managed to flee to China, were then re-
abducted.1633 The stringency of these control measures is also
evidenced by the fact that only 93 victims have actually
managed to escape from the DPRK over six decades.
5. DPRK authorities have also pursued a policy of providing
either no information or only incomplete and inaccurate
information in response to inquiries from international
organizations, countries of origins and families relating to
the enforced disappearances. The Commission also considers it
relevant to note that the authorities have never disavowed the
practice of abductions from other countries as an instrument
of State policy, as evidenced by the recent abductions of DPRK
citizens and foreign nationals who helped them flee from the
territory of the People's Republic of China.
3. Continuous nature of the crime against humanity of enforced
disappearance
1. The cases of enforced disappearances committed against persons
from other countries are not crimes from the distant past.
They are continuous crimes, which will only come to an end
when the fate and whereabouts of the victims has been fully
disclosed.1634 DPRK officials who partake in the continuing
effort of refusing to acknowledge the deprivation of freedom
and deny information on the fate and whereabouts of the
victims can therefore incur responsibility for crimes against
humanity even if they were not themselves involved in the
original arrest, abduction or detention.1635 The Commission is
conscious of the fact that many of the victims of those cases
that commenced more than half a century ago, in particular the
Korean War era cases, may have died of natural or other
causes. From a legal point of view, however, this is
immaterial and does not change the on-going nature of the
crime. It is unfortunately not unusual in cases of enforced
disappearance that one finds, by the time the criminal acts
are eventually fully revealed, that the victim has long since
died. If the disappeared person has indeed died, the
authorities can end the ongoing crime by doing their best to
elucidate the circumstances of the disappearance, and to
repatriate the physical remains to the family so that the
victims' families can achieve emotional closure.1636
H. A case of political genocide?
1. According to the Commission's findings, hundreds of thousands
of inmates have been exterminated in political prison camps
and other places over a span of more than five decades.1637 In
conformity with the intent to eliminate class enemies and
factionalists over the course of three generations, entire
groups of people, including families with their children, have
perished in the prison camps because of who they were and not
for what they had personally done. This raises the question of
whether genocide or an international crime akin to it has been
committed.
2. International law defines genocide as any of the following
acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another
group.1638
1. In the case of the DPRK's political prison camps,
extermination has been based principally on imputed political
opinion and state-assigned social class. Such grounds are not
included in the contemporary definition of genocide under
international law.1639 However, the notion of eliminating an
entire class of people by deliberately inflicting on them
conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical
destruction evokes notions akin to ‘genocide'. The authorities
have also prevented and terminated births within the group by
generally prohibiting inmates from reproducing and
systematically enforcing this prohibition through forced
abortions and infanticide.1640
2. Such crimes might be described as a "politicide". However, in
a non-technical sense, some observers would question why the
conduct detailed above was not also, by analogy, genocide. The
Commission is sympathetic to the possible expansion of the
current understanding of genocide. However, in light of
finding many instances of crimes against humanity, the
Commission does not find it necessary to explore these
theoretical possibilities here. The Commission emphasizes that
crimes against humanity, in their own right, are crimes of
such gravity that they not only trigger the responsibility of
the state concerned, but demand a firm response by the
international community as a whole to ensure that no further
crimes are committed and the perpetrators are held
accountable.
3. In its testimony before the Commission, Christian Solidarity
Worldwide submitted that there were indicators of genocide
against religious groups, specifically Christians, in
particular in the 1950s and 1960s.1641 The Commission
established, based on the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea's own figures, that the proportion of religious
adherents among the DPRK's population, who were mainly
Christians, Chondoists and Buddhists, dropped from close to 24
per cent in 1950 to 0.016 per cent in 2002.1642 The Commission
also received information about purges targeting religious
believers in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the Commission was
not in a position to gather enough information to make a
determination as to whether the authorities at the time sought
to repress organized religion by extremely violent means or
whether they were driven by the intent to physically
annihilate the followers of particular religions as a group.
This is a subject that would require thorough historical
research that is difficult or impossible to undertake without
access to the relevant archives of the DPRK.
I. Principal findings of the commission
1. The Commission finds that crimes against humanity have been
committed in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the
state. These crimes against humanity are on-going, because the
policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at
their root remain in place.
2. Persons detained in political prison camps (kwanliso) and
other prison camps, those who try to flee the country,
adherents to the Christian religion and others considered to
introduce subversive influences are subjected to crimes
against humanity. This occurs as part of a systematic and
widespread attack of the state against anyone who is
considered to pose a threat to the political system and
leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The
foregoing attack is embedded in the larger patterns of
politically motivated human rights violations experienced by
the general population, including the discriminatory system of
classification based on songbun.
3. In addition, crimes against humanity have been committed
against starving populations. These crimes are sourced in
decisions and policies violating the universal human right to
food. They were taken for purposes of sustaining the present
political system, in full awareness that they would exacerbate
starvation and contribute to related deaths. Many of the
policies that gave rise to crimes against humanity continue to
be in place, including the deliberate failure to provide
reliable data on the humanitarian situation in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, denial of free and unimpeded
international humanitarian access to populations in need, and
discriminatory spending and food distribution.
4. Finally, crimes against humanity have been, and are still
being, committed against persons from the Republic of Korea,
Japan and other countries who were systematically abducted or
denied repatriation to gain labour and other skills for the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea. These persons are
victims of ongoing crimes of enforced disappearance. Officials
who fail to acknowledge their deprivation of liberty or fail
to provide available information about their fate and
whereabouts may also incur criminal responsibility, even if
they did not themselves participate in the original abduction
or denial of repatriation.
5. In the DPRK, international crimes appear to be intrinsic to
the fabric of the state. The system is pitiless, pervasive and
with few equivalents in modern international affairs. The fact
that such enormous crimes could be going on for such a long
time is an affront to universal human rights. These crimes
must cease immediately. It is the duty of the DPRK and,
failing that, the responsibility of the international
community to ensure that this is done without delay.
6. In the following section the Commission considers the question
of who is responsible for crimes against humanity and how they
can be held to account.
VI.Ensuring accountability, in particular for crimes against
humanity
1. The Human Rights Council requested the Commission to carry out
its inquiry with a view to ensuring full accountability, in
particular for crimes against humanity. In addition to
considering issues of direct institutional and personal
accountability, the Commission also reflected on the
accountability of the international community in light of its
accepted responsibility to protect the population of the DPRK
from crimes against humanity.
A. Institutional accountability
1. The Commission finds that the security and justice apparatus
of the state as well as local and central Workers' Party of
Korea institutions, which are under the effective control and
guidance of the leadership organs of the Party, the National
Defence Commission and the Supreme Leader, have been, and
continue to be, implicated in human rights violations,
including those amounting to crimes against humanity.
2. The main security agencies, the State Security Department, the
Ministry of People's Security and the Korean People's Army
(KPA), are the most conspicuous institutions perpetrating
gross human rights violations and related crimes against
humanity, including summary executions and other extrajudicial
killings, enforced disappearances, torture, prolonged
arbitrary detention, rape and sexual violence of comparable
gravity. Local and central institutions of the Workers' Party
of Korea, the Office of the Prosecutor and the judiciary are
also highly involved in carrying out human rights violations.
1. State Security Department
1. The State Security Department (SSD) is implicated in virtually
all of the systematic and widespread gross human rights
violations that also constitute crimes against humanity.
Established in 1972, it has tens of thousands of full-time
agents, in addition to a huge network of informants placed in
all institutions and segments of society.1643 It is divided
into different bureaux with overlapping responsibilities. The
State Security Department is formally placed under the
National Defence Commission, although information received
from former officials and analysts suggests that it maintains
direct reporting lines to the Supreme Leader.1644
2. As also stipulated by the DPRK Code of Criminal Procedure, the
SSD is the designated lead agency with power to deal with the
most serious political crimes, which are officially termed
"anti-state and anti-people crimes".1645 As such, it takes the
lead in identifying and suppressing political dissent, the
inflow of "subversive" information from abroad, the
independent exercise of the Christian religion or any other
conduct which is considered a particularly serious threat to
the political system and its leadership. The SSD is deeply
implicated in the gross human rights violations and crimes
against humanity perpetrated against people who flee the DPRK,
both to escape direct persecution or to save themselves and
their families from starvation that is itself rooted in human
rights violations. Torture, deliberate starvation, sexual
violence and inhumane treatment is systematically applied in
its interrogation detention centres, in particular in the
interrogation centres that initially receive persons forcibly
repatriated by China. The SSD administers the political prison
camps and makes decisions, in accordance with superior orders,
on who will disappear to a political prison camp. Departments
of the SSD are responsible for the comprehensive surveillance
of communications and the enforcement of the prohibition to
receive television and radio broadcasts from abroad or to use
foreign mobile phones. Since the 1990s at least, SSD agents
have engaged in abductions in China and subjected to enforced
disappearance DPRK nationals, citizens of the ROK and China
and, in at least one case, a former Japanese citizen.
2. Ministry of People's Security
1. The Ministry of People's Security (MPS) is responsible for
internal security, social control, and basic police functions.
It also has responsibility to quell riots. The MPS operates
police stations in every hamlet/city quarter and larger
interrogation detention centres at the city, county,
provincial and national level. It is estimated that the
Ministry of People's Security has more than 200,000 full-time
personnel.1646 The MPS Prison Bureau administers the ordinary
prison camps and short-term labour detention centres, where
the Commission finds that gross human rights violations
entailing crimes against humanity are being committed. Until
2006, the MPS also administered some of the political prison
camps.
2. The MPS is in charge of further interrogating and then
punishing those who illegally flee the DPRK solely in order to
find food or work in China. Based on administrative decisions
made by MPS agents, such persons are punished in MPS-run
labour training camps, where they experience deliberate
starvation and other inhumane treatment. The MPS maintains the
resident registration file system, which secretly records
personal and family information and thereby provides the basis
for discrimination anchored to songbun (state-assigned social
class). MPS agents are also responsible for enforcing movement
and residence restrictions within the DPRK and implementing
banishment orders.
3. Office of the Prosecutor and the court system
1. The Office of the Prosecutor and the court system have
important functions in legitimizing human rights violations.
The Commission finds that they are used to prosecute and
punish persons for political wrongdoing in a legal process
involving fundamentally unfair trials. The Special Military
Court, which forms part of the State Security Department,
deals with the most high-profile cases of political crimes and
has handed down death sentences after unfair trials.
2. The Office of the Prosecutor also carries institutional
responsibility for violations in ordinary prisons and
interrogation detention centres, because it systematically
fails to discharge its obligations under DPRK law to
effectively oversee and enforce the limited protections and
rights that pre-trial detainees and convicted prisoners enjoy
even under DPRK statutes.
4. Korean People's Army
1. The Korean People's Army (KPA) is implicated in gross human
rights violations and related crimes against humanity. This
applies in particular to its Military Security Command, which
serves as the political police within the army. The Military
Security Command also gets involved in responding to political
wrongdoing not directly related to KPA personnel. The KPA
Border Security Command has been a key actor in violently
denying people their basic human right to leave the DPRK,
although the lead on border control was transferred from the
KPA to the SSD in 2012. KPA units have been involved in
violations of the right to food and related crimes against
humanity, including through the diversion of humanitarian aid
for the benefit of senior officials and the looting of food
from the general population, which was tolerated by the
officer corps.
2. The KPA abducted civilians during the Korean War and also
denied repatriation to prisoners of war, illegally using them
for purposes of forced labour in "construction brigades" after
the conclusion of the Korean War. KPA naval and special
operations units were involved in the post-Korean War enforced
disappearances of nationals from the ROK and Japan.
5. Workers' Party of Korea
1. Departments and units of the Workers' Party of Korea at the
local and central level are directly involved in human rights
violations, in particular violations of the rights to freedom
of expression and association, and the right to food. Through
its extensive indoctrination programme, carried out through
its Propaganda and Agitation Department, the Party seeks to
deny its citizen freedom of thought and freedom of
information. The Party is also in charge of the mass
organizations, indoctrination programmes aimed at children and
students, and the daily indoctrination and self-criticism
sessions, in which every citizen must participate. The
intrusive system of Neighborhood Watches (Inminban) is
administered by local People's Committees, which are under the
control of the Workers' Party of Korea.
2. Local and provincial People's Committees run by the Party have
implemented the discriminatory distribution of food under the
Public Distribution System, based on directives and policies
set by central organs of the Workers' Party of Korea and
relevant Ministries. Specialized central-level intelligence
departments of the Workers' Party of Korea were implicated in
the covert abduction operations through which nationals of
Japan, the Republic of Korea and other states were forcibly
disappeared.
6. Centralized organization of human rights violations and crimes
against humanity
1. The fact that the entire security and justice apparatus and
institutions of the Workers' Party of Korea at all levels are
implicated in human rights violations and crimes against
humanity, indicates that these institutions do not act
autonomously, but subject to decisions and superior orders
originating at the highest levels of the central government.
This is the only conclusion that can explain the high degree
of coordination between the various state institutions that
commit human rights violations, which the Commission has
observed on the basis of entire body of testimony and
information received.
2. The Commissions also finds that the inner workings of the
state and relevant chains of command are deliberately and
systematically obfuscated, especially in those areas where the
state engages in the most egregious human rights violations.
Orders to commit human rights violations are often only
transmitted orally. Where they are put in writing, relevant
documents are only available to selected officials and
protected by special safeguards to preclude their divulgence
to outsiders.1647 These institutionalized precautionary
measures further indicate knowledge and approval of human
rights violations at the central level.
3. Having been denied access to the DPRK and contact with its
officials, the Commission experienced considerable difficulty
in reconstructing how decisions are made at the central level
and through which chains of command they are passed down to
the implementing agents. The mandates of central decision-
making structures are typically diffuse and overlapping, with
the apparent aim to promote institutional rivalry among them
and prevent any of them from becoming a threat to the Supreme
Leader. Furthermore, the most influential individuals in the
DPRK hold multiple capacities in the central organs of the
Workers' Party of Korea, the military and security apparatus
and other formal state institutions, making it difficult to
indicate with certainty which institutions (as opposed to
individuals) dominate the process leading to particular
decisions. Purges of powerful individuals and the ascendance
of others frequently lead to profound factual changes in the
institutional landscape that are not formalized or made
public.
4. The Commission could nevertheless reach a comfortable
conclusion on the basic course of decision-making. In coming
to this conclusion it analysed the DPRK Constitution, the
Charter of the Workers' Party of Korea as well as information
provided by former officials and experts on the political
system of the DPRK.
5. The Commission finds that the decision-making process in the
DPRK, is highly centralized, in particular regarding those
areas where gross human rights violations and crimes against
humanity are being committed. It is dominated by the Supreme
Leader and a small group of people, who lead the central
organs of the Workers' Party of Korea and the National Defence
Commission. Many of these individuals hold high military rank
and occupy key positions in the military and security
apparatus. Some of them are relatives of the Supreme Leader.
The relative power of the leadership organs of the Workers'
Party of Korea and the National Defence Commission in
comparison to one another is difficult to determine and
appears to have shifted back and forth over time.1648 However,
the predominant role of the Supreme Leader, who heads both the
Party and the National Defence Commission, has always remained
a fixture in the political system of the DPRK.
6. The Supreme People's Assembly, although nominally the highest
institution in the state, serves primarily as a means of
legitimizing decisions already taken by the aforementioned
institutions.1649 The Prime Minister's Cabinet has limited
power in shaping economic and social policies, but is
effectively replaced by the National Defence Commission in all
matters considered to be related to security.
7. Leadership organs of the Workers' Party of Korea
1. Article 11 of the DPRK Constitution establishes the supremacy
of the Workers' Party of Korea: "The Democratic People's
Republic of Korea shall conduct all activities under the
leadership of the Workers' Party". In order to implement its
supremacy in practice, the Party has strategically permeated
all areas and levels of governance and society to ensure that
its policies are implemented. Decision-makers in the military,
security apparatus, justice system administration and state
companies are generally selected from among Party cadres. The
entire population is grouped in compulsory mass organizations
of the Party and subject to its indoctrination and propaganda
activities. Furthermore, representatives of the Party are
formally placed in strategic oversight positions within state
institutions: in particular in the security and justice
apparatus. The Party also dominates the People's Committees at
the local and provincial level and uses them to implement its
policies and directives.
2. Although the Party reaches down to the grassroots of society,
it is centrally controlled by the Supreme Leader. This finds
its expression in the Charter of the Workers' Party of Korea,
which emphasizes the importance of preserving the solitary
leadership of the Party. The Charter obligates all party
members to defend resolutely the Supreme Leader (Suryong) and
the solitary leadership system.1650 In his 2014 New Year's
Address, Kim Jong-un stressed the imperative of maintaining
the monolithic leadership of the Party.1651
3. Decision-making power within the Workers' Party of Korea rests
with the General Secretary, the Standing Committee of the
Central Committee's Political Bureau and certain departments
of the Central Committee that enjoy the confidence of the
Supreme Leader.1652 Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il both held the
title of General Secretary and also served on the Standing
Committee of the Political Bureau. Since the title of "eternal
General Secretary of the Party" was retained for the late Kim
Jong-il, Kim Jong-un's assumed the formal title of the First
Secretary of the Workers' Party, which is functionally
equivalent to that of General Secretary. He is a member of the
Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. Furthermore, Kim
Jong-un also chairs the Central Military Commission, through
which the Party oversees the KPA.1653
4. Nominally, the National Party Congress is the supreme organ of
the Party.1654 It is supposed to elect the members of the
Central Committee, who in turn elect its Political Bureau.
However, in practice, these organs have only served to
legitimize the authority of the Supreme Leader and his larger
policies. This is also evidenced by the fact that the National
Party Congress has only convened six times, the last time
dating back to 1980. The plenary of the Central Committee
appears not to have been convened between 1993 and 2010, when
Kim Jong-il was in power. The Party structures seem to have
been reinvigorated to some extent to legitimize the transfer
of power to Kim Jong-un. In particular, the Political Bureau
of the Central Committee organized the third and fourth Party
Conference, held in 2010 and 2012, which affirmed the
transmission of key positions in the state and Party to Kim
Jong-un. The decision to purge Jang Song-thaek and his
supporters, the most important publicly announced shift of
power since Kim Jong-un became Supreme Leader, was presented
as a formal decision of the enlarged meeting of the Political
Bureau of the Workers' Party.1655
8. National Defence Commission
1. The National Defence Commission was established in 1972. It
gained an increasingly prominent role once Kim Jong-il emerged
as the heir apparent to Kim Il-sung and ascended to power. Kim
Jong-il gradually strengthened the National Defence Commission
as part of his Military First (songun) policy that shifted
decision-making power to officials who had their power base
primarily in the military and security apparatus. This shift
is reflected in the present DPRK Constitution. The
Constitution recognizes the National Defence Commission as the
supreme defence leadership body of state power.1656 The
Commission also confirms that the Chairman of the National
Defence Commission, a position first held by Kim Jong-il and,
since 2012, by Kim Jong-un, is considered the Supreme Leader
of the DPRK.1657
2. The National Defence Commission's functions not only extend to
matters of defending the country from external threats, but
also internal state security. Therefore, the State Security
Department, the Korean People's Army and the Ministry of
People's Security are all housed under the National Defence
Commission. The National Defence Commission outranks the
actual Cabinet chaired by a Prime Minister. This Constitution
empowers the National Defence Commission to abrogate any
decisions and directives of state organs which run counter to
its own decisions and directives.1658
9. The Supreme Leader
1. Apart from exercising power through his dominant role in the
Party and the National Defence Commission, the Supreme Leader
also acts as an autonomous decision-making institution. Former
officials of the DPRK who provided testimony to the Commission
underlined that orders issued by the Supreme Leader are
considered the highest type of normative command, overruling
decisions of all other Party or state institutions.1659 The
Constitution provides the normative underpinning by
stipulating that the Supreme Leader, in his capacity as
Chairman of the National Defence Commission, "directs the
overall affairs of state" (i.e. including matters not related
to national defense). The Supreme Leader also has the
constitutional power to issue orders. Such orders are superior
in their power to, and abrogate the decisions of any other
organ of state.1660 During Kim Jong-il's reign a practice was
apparently introduced of Party departments and ministries
presenting reports directly to the Supreme Leader. If the
Supreme Leader personally signed them, their contents were
considered personal instructions of the Supreme Leader.1661
2. In his capacity as Chairman of the National Defence
Commission, the Supreme Leader also serves as the Supreme
Commander of the Armed Forces of the DPRK. Furthermore, he has
the power to appoint and remove key cadres in the field of
national defence. 1662 Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-
un have used this power and replaced leading officials of the
SSD, MPS and KPA on numerous occasions, so as to ensure that
only people enjoying their personal confidence and trust are
in positions of power. Throughout the course of its inquiry,
the Commission was not able to identify a single occasion, in
which such official was dismissed due to his agency being
implicated in gross human rights violations or crimes against
humanity. In reality, former officials of the DPRK testified
before the Commission about a number of instances and
operations, in which gross human rights violations that formed
part of patterns entailing crimes against humanity were
apparently directly ordered from the level of the Supreme
Leader.1663 On some occasions, the SSD, MPS, and KPA also
received orders to form ad hoc structures from the Supreme
Leader to target particular individuals or groups.1664 In many
of these instances, the agencies had to submit detailed
reports on the implementation of actions involving gross human
rights violations to the Supreme Leader.1665
10. Principal findings of the commission
1. The Commission finds that the DPRK is astate where the
commission of human rights violations and crimes against
humanity is ingrained into the institutional framework. The
State Security Department, the Ministry of People's Security,
the Korean People's Army, the Office of the Public Prosecutor,
the judiciary and the Workers' Party of Korea are implicated
in human rights violations and crimes against humanity. They
are acting under the effective control of the leadership of
the Workers' Party of Korea, the National Defence Commission
and the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea.
2. The Commission therefore finds that ensuring institutional
accountability in the DPRK requires profound institutional
reforms starting at the very top and centreof the nation's
institutions. Entire structures of surveillance,
indoctrination and repression that serve the sole purpose of
committing human rights violations must be dismantled. In this
regard, reform of the security and justice sectoralone would
not be enough, but the decision-making process underpinning
them must be made more transparent and subject to effective
checks and balances. The Commission also finds that the
economic system must be restructuredsothat provision of the
basic needs of the population on a non-discriminatory basis
becomes possible. Accountability, non-discrimination,
participation of citizens in decision-making processes,
prioritization of the plight of the most vulnerable, the use
of maximum available resources and other principles discussed
in this report must be foremostin considering the
state'spolicies and programmes. To bring thestate into
compliance with its obligations under international human
rights law, the state must take active measures to ensure the
enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights of all the
people. In this regard, special measures haveto be taken to
address the severe socio-economic disparities and the related
discriminatory socio-economic structures that have benefitted
a small elite, many of whomare directly implicated in the
organization of crimes against humanity.
B. Individual criminal accountability
1. The prohibition of crimes against humanity forms part of the
body of peremptory norms (jus cogens) that bind the entire
international community as a matter of customary international
law.1666 Individuals who commit crimes against humanity in the
DPRK may therefore be held responsible on the basis of
international customary law, even though the DPRK has not yet
included crimes against humanity in its domestic criminal law
and is not a State party to the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court (Rome Statute).1667 The
Commission also recalls the established principle of
international law that perpetrators of crimes against humanity
are not relieved of criminal responsibility on the basis that
they have acted on superior orders, because orders to commit
crimes of such gravity are manifestly unlawful.1668
2. Where testimony or other information received by the
Commission indicated the names of individuals who committed,
ordered, solicited or aided and abetted crimes against
humanity, these have been duly recorded. This was also done
where the Commission could ascertain the names of individuals
who headed particular departments, prison camps or
institutions implicated in crimes against humanity. Relevant
information has been safeguarded in the Commission's
confidential database. The Commission has authorized the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, acting as the residual
Secretariat of the Commission, to provide access to such
information to competent authorities that carry out credible
investigations for the purposes of ensuring accountability for
crimes and other violations committed, establishing the truth
about violations committed or implementing United Nations-
mandated targeted sanctions against particular individuals or
institutions. The Commission has requested the High
Commissioner to grant access only to the extent that witnesses
or other sources of information concerned have given their
informed consent and that any protection and operational
concerns are duly addressed.
3. On 16 December 2013, the Commission wrote a letter to the
People's Republic of China, in which it summarized its
concerns relating to China's policy and practice of forced
repatriation of DPRK citizens. The Commission expressed
particular concern about Chinese officials providing specific
information on such persons to DPRK authorities.1669 The
Commission urged the Government of China to caution relevant
officials that such conduct could amount to the aiding and
abetting of crimes against humanity where repatriations and
information exchanges are specifically directed towards or
have the purpose of facilitating the commission of crimes
against humanity in the DPRK.
4. On 20 January 2014, the Commission wrote a letter to Kim Jong-
un, Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, sharing with him the entirety of findings contained in
this report.1670 The Commission drew to the Supreme Leader's
attention the principles of command and superior
responsibility under international criminal law, according to
which military commanders and civilian superiors can incur
personal criminal responsibility for failing to prevent and
repress crimes against humanity committed by persons under
their effective control.1671 In light of his capacities as
Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and Chairman of
the Party's Central Military Commission, First Chairman of the
National Defence Commission and Supreme Commander of the
Korean People's Army, the Commission made Supreme Leader Kim
aware of its finding that officials of the state Security
Department, the Ministry of People's Security, the Korean
People's Army, the Office of the Public Prosecutor, the
Special Military Court and other courts and the Workers' Party
of Korea are committing crimes against humanity, acting under
the effective control of the central organs of the Workers'
Party of Korea, the National Defence Commission and,
ultimately, the Supreme Leader. The Commission urged Supreme
Leader Kim Jong-un to take all necessary and reasonable
measures within his power to prevent or repress the commission
of further crimes and to submit cases of crimes committed to
the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.
5. At this stage, crimes against humanity are committed with
impunity in the DPRK. This is to be expected considering that
crimes against humanity appear to have been based on decisions
and policies approved at the highest level of the state. In
the absence of profound institutional reforms in the DPRK, the
Commission finds that the DPRK's own institutions are neither
willing nor able to effectively investigate and prosecute
crimes against humanity, as they would be required under
international law. In this situation, it becomes incumbent on
the international community to step in and ensure that the
perpetrators are brought to justice.1672
6. The Commission finds that an international court or tribunal
must be given jurisdiction, without delay, to address the
long-standing and ongoing commission of crimes against
humanity perpetrated in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea. The international community, acting through the United
Nations and consistent with its responsibility to protect,
should make provisions to ensure that those most responsible
for crimes against humanity in the DPRK are prosecuted before
an international court and brought to justice.
7. Two suitable options, neither of which depends on the consent
of the DPRK, should be envisaged:
1) The Security Council could refer the situation in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court
based on article 13 (b) of the Rome Statute and Chapter VII of the
Charter of the United Nations. Handing the case to the
International Criminal Court has the practical advantage that an
established institutional framework, rules of procedure, and
professional staff are already in place, and impunity enjoyed by
those most responsible for crimes against humanity could be
addressed without further delay. In the event of a referral to the
ICC, its jurisdiction would not extend to crimes committed before
July 2002. However, many of those most responsible for crimes
committed before 2002 may no longer be alive or able to stand
trial. 1673
2) Alternatively, the United Nations could set up an ad hoc
International Tribunal for the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea. Such an ad hoc Tribunal could be provided with jurisdiction
dating back before July 2002 and thereby comprehensively address
crimes against humanity in the DPRK. However, this would require
substantial resource commitments and institutional planning,
leading to a further delay in bringing perpetrators to justice. In
line with the existing precedents that led to the establishment of
the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda
(ICTY and ICTR),1674the Security Council could set up such a
tribunal using its powers under Chapter VII of the Charter of the
United Nations. In the event that the Security Council fails to
refer the situation to the ICC or set up an ad hoc tribunal, the
General Assembly could establish a tribunal. In this regard, the
General Assembly could rely on its residual powers recognized inter
alia in the "Uniting for Peace" resolution1675and the combined
sovereign powers of all individualMemberStates to try perpetrators
of crimes against humanity on the basis of the principle of
universal jurisdiction.1676
1. The Commission considered three other options, but found none
of them suitable under the prevailing circumstances in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea:
1) In other situations where crimes against humanity were
committed, hybrid courts involving international and national
prosecutors and judges have been established.1677 However, these
models rely on the consent of the state concerned. Even if the DPRK
were to provide such consent, the Commission takes the view that,
in the absence of profound reforms to the DPRK's political and
justice system, any DPRK judges designated to participate in such a
hybrid court would lack the impartiality and independence necessary
to carry out criminal trials that would likely involve very senior
officials as defendants.1678
2) A special international prosecutor's office for the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea could be established by the Security
Council or the General Assembly. If such a prosecutor was created,
it would be unclear in which court such a prosecutor would file
indictments of identified suspects. The Commission notes in this
regard that functions of a prosecutor's office as a stop-gap
measure to secure witness testimony and other information until a
court can exercise jurisdiction, could also be carried out by a
non-prosecutorial documentation structure established by the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and following similar methods of work
as the Commission of Inquiry.1679 Such a non-prosecutorial
structure would also suitably complement the work of the ICC or
that of an ad hoc international tribunal.
3) The Commission considered the option of a truth and
reconciliation mechanism that would allow those most responsible to
cease their involvement in any crimes and be spared prosecution in
exchange for telling the entire truth about their involvement in
crimes committed.1680 The Commission finds that such an approach
would be eminently unsuitable to a situation where crimes against
humanity are being committed unabated. Amnesty for the main
culprits of crimes of such enormity would also constitute an
affront to the victims and their families. Furthermore, the
deterrent effect that the prospect of criminal accountability can
have on future crimes would be lost. The Commission also notes that
amnesties for crimes against humanity are no longer permitted by
international law, in particular regarding those most responsible
for such crimes.1681
1. The international community can necessarily only ensure
accountability for a limited number of main perpetrators. Once
a process to carry out profound political and institutional
reforms within the DPRK is underway, a parallel Korean-led
transitional justice process becomes an urgent necessity. At
this stage, a domestic special prosecutor's office, relying on
international assistance to the extent necessary, should be
established to lead prosecutions of perpetrators of humanity.
The process needs to encompass extensive, nationally owned
truth seeking and vetting measures to expose and disempower
perpetrators at the mid- and lower-levels. This process needs
to be coupled with comprehensive human rights education
campaigns to change the mind-sets of an entire generation of
ordinary citizens who have been kept in the dark about what
human rights they are entitled to enjoy and in how many ways
their own state has violated them.
C. Responsibility of the international community
1. The Commission's findings, which indicate that a Member State
of the United Nations has committed crimes against humanity
over a span of several decades, raises questions regarding the
accountability of the international community.The Commission
recalls that the leaders gathered at the 2005 World Summit of
Heads of State and Governments reaffirmed that each individual
state has the responsibility to protect its populations from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity. In addition, world leaders committed themselves to
upholding the complementary responsibility to protect held by
the international community:
The international community, through the United Nations, also has
the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and
other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of
the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes,
ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we
are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive
manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the
Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in
cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate,
should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities
manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.1682
1. In light of the manifest failure of the DPRK to protect its
population from crimes against humanity, the international
community, through the United Nations, bears the
responsibility to protect the population of the DPRK from
crimes against humanity using first and foremost appropriate
diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means.The
responsibility of the international community is further
warranted by the fact that the DPRK's crimes against humanity
impact many persons from other states, who were systematically
abducted and who continue to suffer enforced disappearance,
along with the families they left behind. In a number of these
cases, the abductions involved blatant violations of the
territorial sovereignty of other states.
2. The Commission notes that the General Assembly, the Human
Rights Council, the Economic and Social Council's Commission
on Human Rights, the Secretary-General and the High
Commissioner for Human Rights have made significant peaceful
efforts to engage with the DPRK to end the gross human rights
violations that are at the root of crimes against humanity in
the DPRK. Meanwhile, the Security Council has limited its
engagement on the Korean peninsula to issues of nuclear non-
proliferation and military incidents, without fully
appreciating that a meaningful improvement of the internal
human rights situation would also reduce the DPRK's propensity
to assume a bellicose external stance.
3. For nine consecutive years the General Assembly passed a
resolution urging the DPRK to end gross human rights
violation. The Human Rights Council and the Commission on
Human Rights preceding it also passed resolutions condemning
the on-going grave, widespread and systematic human rights
violations. On the basis of these resolutions, the Secretary-
General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and successive
Special Rapporteurs on the Situation of Human Rights in the
Democratic Republic of Korea, have submitted detailed reports
further detailing human rights concerns. Over time,
international awareness and concern about the situation has
grown to such an extent that the most recent resolutions of
the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council have been
passed without vote. In particular, the establishment of this
commission without a vote, through Resolution 22/13, is
unprecedented.
4. The peaceful efforts taken so far have proved inadequate as
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has defied the
united stance of the international community as embodied in
the General Assembly and its Human Rights Council. The DPRK
has rejected the General Assembly and Human Rights Council
resolutions variably as "a ridiculous attempt to infringe upon
the sovereignty of the DPRK and do harm to its dignified
socialist system by abusing human rights for a sinister
political purpose" and as "a political chicanery which does
not deserve even a passing note".1683 Furthermore, the DPRK
refused to cooperate with the mechanisms established in
accordance with these resolutions and most other United
Nations human rights mechanisms for that matter1684. The
Commission considers that this open defiance of the United
Nations makes this a case where decisive, yet carefully
targeted action should be taken by the Security Council in
support of the ongoing efforts of the remainder of the United
Nations system.
5. Responsibility must also be assumed by the United Nations
System consisting of Secretariat entities and United Nations
agencies. In December 2013, the Secretary-General launched the
"Rights up Front" initiative to improve the way the United
Nations system addresses situations where populations are at
risk of serious human rights violations. Rights up Front
includes commitments to a more coherent approach to
coordination of the United Nations response, and strengthening
of dialogue and engagement with the inter-governmental organs
of the United Nations, including by providing candid
information about the human rights situation.1685The
Commission finds that the gravity of the human rights
situation in the DPRK warrants the adoption and full
implementation of a Rights Up Front strategy on the part of
the United Nations System.
6. The people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have
suffered too long. It is the responsibility of the
international community to protect them from the depredations
of their own government. The Commission finds that the
international community must discharge its responsibility to
protect by pursuing a multi-faceted strategy that combines
strong accountability measures targeting those most
responsible for crimes against humanity, reinforced human
rights engagement with the authorities of the Democratic
People's Republic and support for incremental change based on
people-to-people dialogue and an agenda for inter-Korean
reconciliation.1686. The Commission has developed a set of
recommendations to the international community that elaborate
on this approach. These recommendations are set out in the
Commission's principal report.
VII. Conclusions and recommendations
1. Systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have
been, and are being, committed by the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, its institutions and officials. In many
instances, the violations of human rights found by the
Commission constitute crimes against humanity. These are not
mere excesses of the state. They are essential components of a
political system that has moved far from the ideals on which
it claims to be founded. The gravity, scale and nature of
these violations reveal a state that does not have any
parallel in the contemporary world. Political scientists of
the 20th century characterized this type of political
organization as a totalitarian state: A state that does not
content itself with ensuring the authoritarian rule of a small
group of people, but seeks to dominate every aspect of its
citizens' lives and terrorizes them from within.
2. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea displays many
attributes of a totalitarian state: the rule of a single
party, led by a single person, is based on an elaborate
guiding ideology that its current Supreme Leader refers to as
"Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism". The state seeks to ensure that
its citizens internalize this guiding ideology by
indoctrinating citizens from childhood, suppressing all
political and religious expression that questions the official
ideology, and tightly controlling citizens' physical movement
and their means of communication with each other and with
those in other countries. Discrimination on the basis of
gender and songbun is used to maintain a rigid social
structure that is less likely to produce challenges to the
political system.
3. The state's monopolization of access to food has been used as
an important means to enforce political loyalty. The
distribution of food has prioritized those who are useful to
the survival of the current political system at the expense of
those deemed to be expendable. Citizens' complete dependency
on the state led to one of the worst cases of famine in recent
history. The authorities have only recently come to tolerate
the fact that markets can no longer be fully suppressed.
However, instead of fully embracing reforms to realize the
right to food, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
maintains a system of inefficient economic production and
discriminatory resource allocation that inevitably produces
more unnecessary starvation among its citizens.
4. The keystone to the political system is the vast political and
security apparatus that strategically uses surveillance,
coercion, fear and punishment to preclude the expression of
any dissent. Public executions and enforced disappearance to
political prison camps serve as the ultimate means to
terrorize the population into submission. The state's violence
has been externalized through state-sponsored abductions and
enforced disappearances of people from other nations. These
international enforced disappearances are unique in their
intensity, scale and nature.
5. Today, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea finds itself
surrounded by a world that is changing rapidly in political,
economic and technological terms. These changes offer
opportunities for incremental social change within the state.
In response, the authorities engage in gross human rights
violations so as to crack down on ‘subversive' influences from
abroad. These influences are symbolized by films and soap
operas from the Republic of Korea and other countries, short-
wave radio broadcasts and foreign mobile telephones. For the
same reason, the state systematically uses violence and
punishment to deter its citizens from exercising their human
right to leave the country. Persons who are forcibly
repatriated from China are commonly subjected to torture,
arbitrary detention, summary execution, forced abortions and
other sexual violence.
6. A number of long-standing and ongoing patterns of systematic
and widespread violations, which were documented by the
Commission, meet the high threshold required for proof of
crimes against humanity in international law. The perpetrators
enjoy impunity. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is
unwilling to implement its international obligation to
prosecute and bring the perpetrators to justice, because those
perpetrators act in accordance with State policy.
7. The fact that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as a
State Member of the United Nations, has for decades pursued
policies involving crimes that shock the conscience of
humanity raises questions about the inadequacy of the response
of the international community. The international community
must accept its responsibility to protect the people of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea from crimes against
humanity, because the government of the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea has manifestly failed to do so. In
particular, this responsibility must be accepted in the light
of the role played by the international community (and by the
great powers in particular) in the division of the Korean
peninsula and because of the unresolved legacy of the Korean
War. These unfortunate legacies help not only to explain the
intractability of the human rights situation but also why an
effective response is now imperative.
8. The United Nations must ensure that those most responsible for
the crimes against humanity committed in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea are held accountable. Options to
achieve this end include a Security Council referral of the
situation to the International Criminal Court or the
establishment of an ad hoc tribunal by the United Nations.
Urgent accountability measures should be combined with a
reinforced human rights dialogue, the promotion of incremental
change through more people-to-people contact and an inter-
Korean agenda for reconciliation.
9. On the basis of its findings and conclusions, the Commission
makes the following recommendations.
10. The commission of inquiry recommends that the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea:
(a) Undertake profound political and institutional reforms without
delay to introduce genuine checks and balances upon the powers of
the Supreme Leader and the Workers' Party of Korea. Such changes
must include an independent and impartial judiciary, a multi-party
political system and elected people's assemblies at the local and
central level that emerge from genuinely free and fair elections.
Reform the security sector by vetting the entire officers' corps
for involvement in human rights violations and by limiting the
functions of the Korean People's Army to defending the nation
against external threats. Dismantle the State Security Department
and place the Ministry of Public Security under transparent
democratic oversight. An independent constitutional and
institutional reform commission, consisting of respected members of
society in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, should be
constituted to guide this process and should be assisted by
appropriate international experts.
(b) Acknowledge the existence of the human rights violations,
including political prison camps described in the present report.
Provide international humanitarian organizations and human rights
monitors immediate access to the camps and their surviving victims.
Dismantle all political prison camps and release all political
prisoners. Clarify with full detail the fate of any disappeared
persons who cannot be readily traced.
(c) Reform the Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure to
abolish vaguely worded "anti-state" and "anti-people" crimes and to
fully enshrine the right to a fair trial and due process guarantees
articulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights. Enforce existing provisions in the Criminal Code and Code
of Criminal Procedure that prohibit and criminalize the use of
torture and other inhuman means of interrogation that are illegal
under international law. Reform the ordinary prison system so as to
ensure humane conditions of detention for all inmates deprived of
liberty. End the reprisals against persons on the basis of guilt by
association. Abolish immediately the practice of forcibly
resettling the families of convicted criminals.
(d) Declare and implement an immediate moratorium on the imposition
and execution of the death penalty, followed without undue delay by
the abolition of the death penalty both in law and practice.
(e) Allow the establishment of independent newspapers and other
media. Allow citizens to freely access the internet, social media,
international communications, foreign broadcasts and publications,
including the popular culture of other countries. Abolish
compulsory participation in mass organizations and indoctrination
sessions.
(f) Introduce education to ensure respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms. Abolish any propaganda or educational
activities that espouse national, racial or political hatred or war
propaganda.
(g) Allow Christians and other religious believers to exercise
their religion independently and publicly without fear of
punishment, reprisal or surveillance.
(h) End discrimination against citizens on the basis of their
perceived political loyalty or the socio-political background of
their families, including in matters of access to education and
employment. Dismantle the neighbourhood watch system (Inminban),
the secret resident registration file system, and all surveillance
of persons and their communications that serve purposes of
political oppression and/or are not subject to effective judicial
and democratic control. Publicly acknowledge the extent of
surveillance practices carried out in the past and provide citizens
with access to their resident registration file.
(i) Take immediate measures to ensure gender equality in practice,
such as by providing equal access for women in public life and
employment. Eradicate discriminatory laws, regulations and
practices affecting women. Take measures to address all forms of
violence against women, including domestic violence, sexual and
gender-based violence by state agents and/or within state
institutions. Respond immediately and effectively to trafficking in
women. Address the structural causes that make women vulnerable to
such violations.
(j) Ensure that citizens can enjoy the right to food and other
economic and social rights without discrimination. Pay particular
attention to the needs of women and vulnerable groups such as
street children, the elderly and persons with disabilities. Promote
agricultural, economic and financial policies based on democratic
participation, good governance, and non-discrimination. Legalize
and support free market activities, internal and external trade and
other independent economic conduct that provide citizens with
livelihoods.
(k) In light of the past expenditures by the leadership, the
military and security apparatus, realign priorities and dedicate
available resources, as necessary, to ensure freedom from hunger
and other essential minimum standards for citizens, including those
citizens serving in the armed forces.
(l) Where necessary to ensure the right to food, seek international
humanitarian assistance without delay. Provide international
humanitarian organizations with free and unimpeded access to all
populations in need, including for the purposes of effective
monitoring. Hold accountable state officials who illegally divert
humanitarian aid for improper purposes.
(m) Abolish the de facto prohibition on foreign travel imposed on
ordinary citizens. Decriminalize illegal border crossings and
introduce border controls that conform to international standards.
Renounce orders to shoot and kill at the border. Cease to regard
citizens repatriated from China as political criminals or to
subject them to imprisonment, execution, torture, arbitrary
detention, deliberate starvation, illegal cavity searches, forced
abortions and other sexual violence. Abolish the state's compulsory
designation of places of residence and employment as well as the
requirement to obtain a permit for domestic travel outside a
person's designated province.
(n) Provide the families and nations of origin of all persons who
have been abducted, or otherwise forcibly disappeared, with full
information on their fate and whereabouts if they have survived.
Allow those who remain alive, and their descendants, to return
immediately to their countries of origin. In close cooperation with
their families and nations of origin, identify and repatriate the
physical remains of those who have died.
(o) Allow separated families to unite, including by allowing
citizens to travel or emigrate where they choose. Immediately
provide such persons with facilities for unmonitored communications
by way of mail, telephone, email and any other means of
communication.
(p) Prosecute and bring to justice those persons most responsible
for alleged crimes against humanity. Appoint a special prosecutor
to supervise this process. Ensure that victims and their families
are provided with adequate, prompt and effective reparation and
remedies, including by knowing the truth about the violations that
have been suffered. Launch a people-driven process to establish the
truth about the violations. Provide adults and children with
comprehensive education on national and international law and
practice on human rights and democratic governance. Seek
international advice and support for transitional justice measures.
(q) Take immediate steps to end all other human rights violations
and to address the human rights concerns raised in this report, as
well as in successive resolutions of the General Assembly and the
Human Rights Council, in the procedures of Universal Periodic
Review and in the reports of Special Procedures and Treaty Bodies.
(r) Ratify without delay the International Convention for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court and the fundamental
conventions of the International Labour Organization.
(s) Accept immediately a field-based presence and technical
assistance from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights and other relevant United Nations entities to help implement
these recommendations.
1. The commission of inquiry recommends that China and other
States:
(a) Respect the principle of non-refoulement. Accordingly, abstain
from forcibly repatriating any persons to the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, unless the treatment there, as verified by
international human rights monitors, markedly improves. Extend
asylum and other means of durable protection to persons fleeing the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea who need international
protection. Ensure that such persons are fully integrated and duly
protected from discrimination. Stop providing information on
activities and contacts of persons from the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea living in China to the State Security Department
and other security agencies in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea. Allow persons from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
free access to diplomatic and consular representations of any state
that may be willing to extend nationality or other forms of
protection to them.
(b) Provide the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and
relevant humanitarian organizations, full and unimpeded access to
all persons from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea seeking
such contact.
(c) Request technical assistance from the United Nations to help
meet the obligations imposed under international refugee law and
ensure the effective protection of persons from trafficking.
(d) Adopt a victim-centric and human rights-based approach to
trafficking in persons, including by providing victims with the
right to stay in the country and access to legal protection and
basic services, such as medical treatment, education and employment
opportunities equivalent to those afforded to their own citizens.
(e) Regularize the status of women and men from the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea who marry or have a child with a Chinese
citizen. Ensure that all such children can realize their rights to
birth registration and Chinese nationality where applicable and
access to education and healthcare without discrimination.
(f) Take immediate measures to prevent agents of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea from carrying out further abductions
from Chinese territory. Prosecute and adequately punish apprehended
perpetrators of abduction and demand the extradition of those
giving such orders so that they may be tried in accordance with
law. China should raise with the Supreme Leader of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea and other high-level authorities the
issues of abductions, the infanticide of children entitled to
Chinese nationality, forced abortions imposed on repatriated women
and other human rights violations that target persons repatriated
from China.
1. The Commission recommends that the Korean People foster Inter-
Korean dialoguein a phased approach leading up to an Agenda
for Reconciliation. Inter-Korean dialogue could be furthered
through such initiatives as friendly sporting events; academic
and business interactions; scholarships and apprenticeships
for young people from the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea; student exchanges; exchanges between civil society
organizations including national Red Cross Societies; contacts
between professional organizations and women's groups; the
development of "sister city" relationships and, eventually,
the reestablishment of transport and communication links.
2. States and civil society organizations should foster
opportunities for people-to-people dialogue and contact in
such areas as culture, science, sports, good governance and
economic development that provide citizens of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea with opportunities to exchange
information and be exposed to experiences outside their home
country. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea and other
states should remove applicable obstacles to people-to-people
contact, including measures that criminalize travel and
contact to the extent that these are not in accordance with
relevant obligations under international human rights law.
3. States, foundations and engaged business enterprises should
provide more support for the work of civil society
organizations to improve the human rights situation in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, including efforts to
document human rights violations and to broadcast accessible
information into each country. Eventually, and once conditions
are deemed to be appropriate, such foundations and enterprises
should join forces with concerned Governments to coordinate
efforts to adopt a coherent plan for the development of the
country, creation of livelihoods for the population and the
advancement of the human rights situation.
4. With regard to the international community and the United
Nations, the Commission makes the following recommendations:
(a) The Security Council should refer the situation in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the International Criminal
Court for action in accordance with that court's jurisdiction. The
Security Council should also adopt targeted sanctions against those
who appear to be most responsible for crimes against humanity. In
the light of the dire social and economic situation of the general
population, the Commission does not support sanctions imposed by
the Security Council or introduced bilaterally that are targeted
against the population or the economy as a whole.
(b) The General Assembly and the Human Rights Council should extend
the country-specific human rights monitoring and reporting
mechanisms on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea that pre-
date the establishment of the Commission. These include the
periodic reports of the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner
for Human Rights, as well as the mandate of the Special Rapporteur
on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea. Such mechanisms should be mandated to focus on
ensuring accountability, in particular for crimes against humanity,
and should report on the implementation of the Commission's
recommendations.
(c) The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, with
full support from the Human Rights Council and the General
Assembly, should establish a structure to help to ensure
accountability for human rights violations in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, in particular where such violations
amount to crimes against humanity. The structure should build on
the collection of evidence and documentation work of the
Commission, and further expand its database. It should be field-
based, supported by adequate personnel deployed to the region so as
to enjoy sustained access to victims and witnesses. In addition to
informing the work of human rights reporting mechanisms and serving
as a secure archive for information provided by relevant
stakeholders, the work of such a structure should facilitate United
Nations efforts to prosecute, or otherwise render accountable,
those most responsible for crimes against humanity.
(d) The High Commissioner for Human Rights should continue the
OHCHR's engagement with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
offering technical assistance and enhancing advocacy initiatives.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights should facilitate the
implementation of a strategy led by the Special Rapporteur and
involving all concerned human rights mechanisms of the United
Nations system, to address, coherently and without delay, the
special issue of international abductions and enforced
disappearances and related matters described in this report. Member
States should afford full cooperation to ensure the implementation
of such a strategy.
(e) The High Commissioner should periodically report to the Human
Rights Council and other appropriate United Nations organs on the
implementation of the recommendations contained in the Commission's
report.
(f) The Human Rights Council should ensure that the conclusions and
recommendations of the Commission do not pass from the active
attention of the international community. Where so much suffering
has occurred, and is still occurring, action is the shared
responsibility of the entire international community.
(g) The United Nations Secretariat and agencies should urgently
adopt and implement a common "Rights up Front" strategy to ensure
that all engagement with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
effectively takes into account, and addresses, human rights
concerns including those collected in this report. The United
Nations should immediately apply this strategy to help prevent the
recurrence or continuation of crimes against humanity in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The strategy should
contemplate the possibility of the Secretary-General referring the
situation to the Security Council.
(h) States that have historically friendly ties with the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, major donors and potential donors, as
well as those states already engaged with the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea in the framework of the Six-Party Talks, should
form a human rights contact group to raise concerns about the
situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea and to provide support for initiatives to improve the
situation.
(i) States should not use the provision of food and other essential
humanitarian assistance to impose economic or political pressure on
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Humanitarian assistance
should be provided in accordance with humanitarian and human rights
principles, including the principle of non-discrimination. Aid
should only be curbed to the extent that unimpeded international
humanitarian access and related monitoring is not adequately
guaranteed. Bilateral and multilateral providers of assistance
should coordinate their efforts to ensure that adequate conditions
of humanitarian access and related monitoring are provided by the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
(j) Without prejudice to all the obligations under international
law that the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea must immediately
implement,the United Nations and the states that were parties to
the Korean War should take steps to convene a high-level political
conference. Participants in that conference should consider and, if
agreed, ratify a final peaceful settlement of the war that commits
all parties to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
including respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. States
of the region should intensify their cooperation and consider
following such examples as the Helsinki Process.
**
The information contained in this document should be read in
conjunction with the report of the commission of inquiry on human
rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (A/HRC/25/63).
1
A/HRC/RES/22/13.
2
Human Rights Council resolution 19/13 and General Assembly
resolution 67/151.
3
A/HRC/13/13
4
E/CN.4/1996/53/Add.1
5
A/HRC/22/57.
6
Resolution on accelerating efforts to eliminate all forms of
violence against women: preventing and responding to rape and other
forms of sexual violence (A/HRC/RES/23/25).
7
For instance, Human Rights Council Resolution S-17/1 mandated the
Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic to investigate
all alleged violations of international human rights law since
March 2011.
8
The Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Libya investigated whether NATO
committed violations during its bombing campaign (see A/HRC/19/68,
paras. 83 ff). The Darfur COI reported that Chad and Libya were
providing weapons to the rebellion. The COI on Syria documented the
complicity of Hezbollah fighters in violations (see A/HRC/23/58,
paras. 40 and 6). The COI on Israeli Settlements (A/HRC/22/63,
paras. 96 ff) referred to the responsibility of foreign businesses,
while the COI on Cote d'Ivoire detailed violations by Liberian
mercenaries (A/HRC/A/HRC/17/48, paras. 64, 82 & 102).
9
According to the DPRK's state-operated Korean Central News Agency,
this position was conveyed through a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
See "UN Human Rights Council's "Resolution on Human Rights" against
DPRK Rejected by DPRK FM Spokesman", KCNA, 22 March 2013. Available
from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201303/news22/20130322-
39ee.html; "S. Korean Regime Denounced for Trying to Fabricate
"Human Rights Resolution" against DPRK", KCNA, 26 March 2013.
Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201303/news26/
20130326-12ee.html.
10
See Annex I of the Commission report (A/HRC/25/63).
11
In particular, the Commission followed the best practices that are
also outlined in Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
International Commissions of Inquiry and Fact-Finding Missions on
International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law
(2013).
12
See "KCNA Commentary Slams S. Korean Authorities for Chilling
Atmosphere of Dialogue", KCNA, 27 August 2013. Available from http:
//www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201308/news27/20130827-14ee.html.
13
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Commission of
Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea – Public Hearings". Available from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/
HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/PublicHearings.aspx.
14
See A/HRC/25/63, annex II .
15
Secretary-General's Bulletin, Record-keeping and the management of
United Nations archives, 12 February 2007 (ST/SGB/2007/5).
16
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in
its concluding observations on the Republic of Korea in July 2011
remained concerned about "the persistence of patriarchal attitudes
and stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of women
and men in the family and in the society" (CEDAW/C/KOR/CO/7).
Similarly, in July 2005, the Committee had urged the DPRK "to
address stereotypical attitudes about the roles and
responsibilities of women and men, including the hidden patterns
that perpetuate direct and indirect discrimination against women
and girls in the areas of education and employment and in all other
areas of their lives" (CEDAW/C/PRK/CO/1).
17
Andrea Matles Savada, ed., North Korea: A Country Study, Library of
Congress, 1993, Available from http://countrystudies.us/north-
korea/12.htm.
18
For example, see Daqing Yang, "Japanese Colonial Infrastructure in
Northeast Asia", inKorea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in
Northeast Asia, Charles K. Armstrong and others, eds. (New York,
M.E. Sharpe, 2006).
19
See the Encyclopaedia Britannica, available from http://
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/364173/March-First-Movement;
Global Nonviolent Action Database, available from http://
nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/koreans-protest-japanese-control-
march-1st-movement-1919; and Nishi Masayuki, "March 1 and May 4,
1919 in Korea, China and Japan: Toward an International History of
East Asian Independence Movements,"Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan
Focus, October 31, 2007, available fromhttp://japanfocus.org/-
nishi-masayuki/2560#sthash.F2t9tgKt.dpuf.
20
In May 2012, the Republic of Korea's Supreme Court in a decision
that reversed previous lower court decisions and ruled that the
right of former forced workers and their families to seek withheld
wages and compensation was not invalidated by the 1965 treaty that
normalized bi-lateral ties. In July 2013, the Seoul High Court
ruled in favour of four Korean men who were taken into forced
labour, ordering Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal to pay them a
total of 400 million won. The Busan High Court, on 30 July 2013,
ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay the same amount in
compensation to five Koreans. In October 2013, the Gwangju District
Court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to pay four Korean
women, who were forcibly conscripted as labourers, 150 million won
(about US$141,510) each in compensation. Japan maintains that all
individual compensation claims were settled with the 1965 treaty.
"South Korean court orders MHI to pay Korean women for forced
labour", Kyodo News, 1 November 2013. Appeals against these
judgements were pending when this report was finalized.
21
According to Bruce Cummings, 32 per cent of the entire labour force
of Japan was Koreans. Bruce Cummings, The Origins of the Korean
War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-1947
(Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 28.
22
Bruce Cummings, The Origins of the Korean War, p. 25.
23
Charles Armstrong, The Koreas (New York, Routledge, 2007), pp. 95-
101.
24
After the war, half of the Koreans in China chose to stay, and
about 600,000 Koreans remained in Japan. Charles Armstrong, The
Koreas, pp. 108-111.
25
The DPRK's official biography of Kim Il-sung notes that, "Through
the agrarian reform, a total of 1,000,325 hectares of land that had
belonged to Japanese imperialists, pro-Japanese elements, traitors
to the nation and landlords were confiscated and distributed to
724,522 peasant households which had had little or no land." Kim Il
Sung: Condensed Biography (Pyongyang, Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 2001), p. 131.
26
Hwang Jang-yop was the highest level defector to the ROK. See Hwang
Jang-yop Hoegorok (Hwang Jang-yop's memoirs) (Published in Korean
by Zeitgeist, 2006, translated by Daily NK). SUB0064.
27
Joseph Stalin backed Kim Il-sung's war by withdrawing his earlier
opposition to it, minimizing his own contribution and putting the
onus of support on Mao Zedong's new government in China. The Soviet
Union provided heavy weaponry to the DPRK but did not provide
troops. Nevertheless, Kim Il-sung's top military advisors in the
early phase of the war were Russian generals who re-drew North
Korean invasion plans to their own specifications. Mao pledged to
send Chinese troops if the Americans entered the war. David
Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New
York, Hyperion, 2007), pp. 47-59. Soviet archives also support this
account, in Andrei Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The
Formation of North Korea, 1945-60 (London, Hurst and Company,
2002), p. 61.
28
The DPRK has always claimed that the Korean War was initiated by an
attack by ROK forces. However, archival material from the Soviet
Union confirms the stated sequence of events. For example, see "Top
Secret Report on the Military Situation in South Korea from Shtykov
to Comrade Zakharov",26June 1950, History and Public Policy Program
Digital Archive, Collection of Soviet military documents obtained
in 1994 by the British Broadcasting Corporation for a BBC TimeWatch
documentary titled "Korea, Russia's Secret War" (January 1996).
Available from http://digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/
110686.
29
In favour of Security Council Resolution 82 (1950) were the United
Kingdom, the Republic_of_China
(Taiwan), Cuba, Ecuador, France, Norway and the United_States.
The Kingdom_of_Egypt, India and the Socialist_Federal_Republic_of
Yugoslavia abstained.
30
The Soviet Union had assumed that the Security Council would not be
able to discharge its functions under article 27, paragraph 3 of
the United Nations Charter: "Decisions of the Security Council on
all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine
members including the concurring votes of the permanent members".
The other members of the Security Council decided that a member's
absence could not prevent the body from carrying out its functions.
31
Security Council Resolution 84. Those States contributing forces
included: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, France,
Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines,
South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Five States
contributed medical support: Denmark, India, Italy, Norway and
Sweden.
32
On 3 November 1950, the General Assembly adopted the "Uniting for
Peace" Resolution (377 A) stating: "that if the Security Council,
because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to
exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of
international peace and security in any case where there appears to
be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of
aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter
immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to
Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach
of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when
necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and
security." The resolution affirmed that the General Assembly may
recommend collective action including the use of force, despite the
UN Charter which gives power to the Security Council on all matters
relating to international peace and security. On 1 February 1950,
the General Assembly adopted Resolution 498, finding that the
People's Republic of China was "engaging in hostilities against
United Nations forces" in the DPRK and called on "all States and
authorities to continue to lend every assistance to the United
Nations action in Korea".
33
The People's Republic of China also characterized participation by
Chinese soldiers in the Korean War as action by "volunteers" in
keeping with its depiction of the conflict on the peninsula as an
internal armed conflict.
34
Andrei Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung, pp. 61-62.
35
Hwang Jang-yop notes in his memoirs, "In the November of 1953, I
came back to Pyongyang from life in Moscow. Pyongyang was not what
it had been before I left. There was literally not a single decent
house on the ground; only huts filled the city." FromHwang Jang-yop
Hoegorok (Hwang Jang-yop's memoirs) (Published in Korean by
Zeitgeist, 2006, translated by Daily NK), 21.
36
A report issued by the Ministry of External and Inter-German Trade
of the German Democratic Republic indicated that the steel, non-
ferrous metal, cement and fertilizer industries of the DPRK were
entirely destroyed and that the overall capacity of state
businesses had been reduced to 15-20 per cent. The report is cited
in Liana Kang-Schmitz, "Nordkoreas Umgang mit Abhängigkeit und
Sicherheitsrisiko", PhD dissertation, The University of Trier,
2010, pp. 59-60. Also available from
http://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/volltexte/2011/636/pdf/
Nordkorea_DDR.pdf.
37
Casualty figures still vary significantly by source. These figures
come from the United States Department of Defense in 2000 and the
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
38
Bruce Cummings, The Korean War: A History (New York, Modern
Library, 2010), pp. 172, 187 and 190.
39
Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall was a chief United_States_Army combat
historian during World_War_II and the Korean_War. David Halberstam,
The Coldest Winter, pp. 1-2.
40
Seven million bags with American logos were used to distribute food
aid provided by the United States in response to the food crisis of
the 1990s; these bags were seen by DPRK citizens as they were re-
used and appeared in markets. Andrew Natsios, Washington Public
Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning (01:48:00).
41
The ROK's own domestic legal framework is influenced by its ongoing
conflict with the DPRK. Among the ROK's own human rights challenges
are the government's interpretation of the six-decade-oldNational
Security Law and other laws to limit freedom of expression as well
as the jailing of conscientious objectors to military service. See
the report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and
protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression (A/
HRC/17/27/Add.2).
42
The Suryong (supreme leader) system embeds all powers of the state,
party and military under one singular leader.
43
Ken E. Gause, "Coercion, Control, Surveillance and Punishment: An
Examination of the North Korean Police State", The Committee for
Human Rights in North Korea, 2012, pp. 88-91. (Exhibit W07). Also
available from http://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/HRNK_Ken-
Gause_Web.pdf.
44
The official biography of Kim Il-sung, published by the DPRK, notes
the following: "In December 1945, Kim Il Sung convened the Third
Enlarged Executive Committee Meeting of the Central Organizing
Committee of the CPNK in order to crush the machinations of the
factionalists and local separatists who had been hindering the
implementation of the Party's organizational line, and radically
improve Party work … The meeting took a historic measure to
strengthen the Party's central leadership organ by acclaiming Kim
Il Sung as its head, and meted out stern punishment to the
factionalists who had contravened the instructions of the Party
Centre and violated Party discipline." Kim Il Sung: Condensed
Biography, pp. 122-123.
45
According to the 1955 population and housing census conducted by
the ROK Central Statistical Office, 735,501 persons of the total
population had come from the North (before and during the Korean
War). Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), White Paper
on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 509. During the Armistice
negotiations, the DPRK insisted that 500,000 Koreans who had been
"taken away" from the North during the hostilities had to be
returned. Transcript of Proceedings of the Armistice Negotiations
of 1, 3 and 12 January 1952, as reflected in Korean War Abduction
Research Institute, People of No Return: Korean War Abduction
Pictorial History (Seoul, 2012), pp. 56-58. The Commission received
no information indicating that those who left the North during the
war were forcibly abducted.
46
Andrei Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung, pp. 78-109.
47
Record of conversation between the First Secretary of the Soviet
Embassy G. Ye. Samsonov and the departmental head of the Korean
Workers' Party Central Committee Ko Hui-nam from Soviet archives.
Andrei Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung, p. 169.
48
According to the DPRK's official biography of Kim Il-sung: "At a
plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee held in August 1956,
Kim Il Sung took resolute measures to expose and eliminate the
anti-Party, counterrevolutionary factionalists who flew in the face
of the Party. … The anti-Japanese revolutionary veterans and other
attendants at the meeting delivered a telling blow to this
desperate challenge. The sectarian group subjected to exposure and
destruction during the meeting was not a mere faction but an
atrocious anti-Party and counterrevolutionary clique that attempted
to overthrow the Party and the government in collusion with the US
imperialists." Kim Il Sung: Condensed Biography, pp. 200-201.
49
Andrei Lankov, "The Repressive System and Political Control in
North Korea", English version of a chapter from Severnaia Koreia:
vchera i segodnia (North Korea: Yesterday and Today), published in
Russian in 1995 (Moscow, Vostochnaia literatura). Available from
http://north-korea.narod.ru/control_lankov.htm.
50
Andrei Lankov notes public executions became a customary practice
in the DPRK in the 1950s. He cites Soviet archives for Pang Hak-
se's conversation with Counsellor V. I. Pelishenko. "Kim Takes
Control: The "Great Purge" in North Korea, 1956-1960", Korean
Studies, vol. 26, No. 1 (2002), pp. 98-105.
51
Cited from a diplomatic cable sent in 1959 by the Ambassador of
German Democratic Republic (GDR). In 1957, the GDR Embassy already
noted information according to which students who had returned from
Poland had been sent to prison camps in Pyongyang that were guarded
by soldiers. For a citation of the original German texts, which
were found in GDR archives after reunification, see Liana Kang-
Schmitz, "Nordkoreas Umgang mit Abhängigkeit und
Sicherheitsrisiko", pp. 225-226.
52
See section IV.D.3.
53
This classification appears to have been revised at various points,
and later the three broad categories became the core, basic and
"complex", which includes both the wavering and hostile classes.
54
See section IV.B.
55
Ken E. Gause, "Coercion, Control, Surveillance and Punishment", p.
101.
56
In December 2003, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights in its concluding observations of the DPRK's initial report,
expressed concern "that the right to work may not be fully assured
in the present system of compulsory state-allocated employment,
which is contrary to the right of the individual to freely choose
his/her career or his/her workplace" (E/C.12/1/Add.95).
57
See section IV.D.
58
Andrei Lankov, "The Repressive System and Political Control in
North Korea". See also section IV.E.
59
The First Secretary of the Polish Embassy in Pyongyang noted in
1958, "In the party and in private life it would be unthought-of to
express the smallest critique or to express doubts regarding the
correctness of this or that party directive from the party or the
government. If one does critique, then along the lines of the
formulations used in official speeches. I.e., first one needs to
point to a large number of achievements and then criticize what is
officially being criticized. If one does not want to be deprived of
the means of support and of all perspectives for the future,
including removal from Pyongyang, one must act this way only."
"Notes from a Conversation between the 1st Secretary of the PRL
Embassy in the DPRK with the Director of a Department in One of the
Ministries", 05 January 1958, History and Public Policy Program
Digital Archive, Polish Foreign Ministry Archive. Obtained by Jakub
Poprocki and translated by Maya Latynski. Available from http://
digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/111732.
60
These were called "620 groups" specially created for this
purpose. Andrei Lankov, "The Repressive System and Political
Control in North Korea".
61
Kim Il Sung: Condensed Biography, pp. 207-208.
62
Kim Jong Il: Brief History (Pyongyang, Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1998), p. 51.
63
Article 2, Code of Criminal Procedure. Anti-state and anti-people
crimes are set out in articles 59 ff. of the Criminal Code and
comprise of vaguely worded and extremely broad offenses targeting
political activities.
64
Article 3, Criminal Code.
65
See section IV.E.5.
66
It is even more expressly entrenched in the reported Ten Principles
for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System. Principle 5.3
reportedly stipulates that Kim Il-sung's instructions must be
viewed as a legal and supreme order.
67
According to article 109 of theDPRKConstitution, the
NationalDefenceCommission has the duty and the authority to
abrogatethe decisions and directives of state organs that run
counter to the orders of theChairman of theNational Defence
Commissionand to the decisions and directives of theNational
Defence Commission. Article 100 stipulates that the Chairman of the
National Defence Commission is the Supreme Leader of the DPRK.
68
TLC037. Witnesses who were confidentially interviewed by the
Commission are identified by only a six digit code. The identity of
each witness is known to the Commission.
69
Article 11 of the Prosecutory Supervision Law, as stated in KINU,
White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 174.
70
In the late 1950s to early 1960s, in the wake of the massive
famine brought on by China's Great Leap Forward, it is estimated
that between 50,000 and 70,000 ethnic Korean Chinese emigrated to
the DPRK.
71
From World War II until 1984, it is estimated that the DPRK
received $4.75 billion in aid from the Soviet Union (roughly 50 per
cent), China (20 per cent) and the Soviet-aligned countries of
Eastern Europe (30 per cent). Victor Cha, The Impossible State:
North Korea, Past and Future (New York, Ecco, 2012), p. 28. For a
detailed overview of assistance received between 1953 and 1960 from
not only the Soviet Union and China but also East Germany, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Mongolia and
North Vietnam, as well as the breakdown of Soviet aid by product
such as rolling metal, tires and sugar, see Stephen Kotkin and
Charles Armstrong, "A Socialist Regional World Order in North East
Asia After World War II", in Korea at the Center, Charles K.
Armstrong and others, eds, p. 121.
72
According to the Embassy of the German Democratic Republic in 1961:
"The cult of personality surrounding Comrade Kim Il Sung has been
growing steadily for some time. Everything the Party and the Korean
people earn is attributed to Comrade Kim Il Sung. There is no room,
no classroom, no public building in which a photo of Kim Il Sung
cannot be found. The Museum of the War of National Liberation is
designed entirely around the role of Kim Il Sung. There are no less
than 12 figures of Kim Il Sung in the rooms of the museum, each
larger than the next. The history of the revolutionary war and the
formation of the Communist Party of Korea are not correctly
portrayed. The decisive role of the Soviet Union in the liberation
of Korea is completely downplayed. Its role is addressed on only a
single panel. This is also expressed in the materials as well as in
films and depictions. Thus, a legend of Kim Il Sung has been
created that does not correspond to the actual facts if one
considers what Comrade Kim Il Sung has actually done. Party
propaganda is not oriented toward studying the works of Marxism/
Leninism, but rather is solely and completely oriented toward the
"wise teachings of our glorious leader, Comrade Kim Il Sung. Many
rules of Party life, such as the link to the masses, are portrayed
as if they were discovered by Kim Il Sung rather than by Marx,
Engels, and Lenin. There are almost no articles or events in which
Comrade Kim Il Sung is not mentioned. It is also a fact that all of
those who are not in agreement with such an approach are
characterized as sectarians, and recently as revisionists."
"Report, Embassy of the GDR in the DPRK to the Foreign Policy and
International Department of the Socialist Unity Party, GDR" 14
March 1961, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive,
SAPMO-BA, Dy 30, IV 2/20/137. Translated by Grace Leonard.
Available from http://digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/
112303.
73
Kim Jong-il explained: "Under the guidance of the great leader
Comrade Kim Il Sung, our Party and our people have firmly
maintained the Juche character and properly sustained the national
character in the revolution and construction and thus advanced the
Juche revolutionary cause victoriously. The respected leader
Comrade Kim Il Sung was a great thinker, theoretician and a great
statesman who advanced the idea of preserving the Juche character
and national character for the first time in history, translated it
brilliantly into reality and gave successful leadership to the
revolution and construction. Keeping and embodying the Juche
character and national character is the principled requirement of
the revolution and construction elucidated by the Juche idea
created by the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung. The Juche idea,
the man-centred outlook on the world, is a noble idea of loving the
people as well as an idea of true love for the country and nation;
it is a great revolutionary idea of our times which illuminates the
road of advancing the cause of world independence forcefully. The
Juche idea clarified that the country and nation are the basic unit
for shaping the destiny of the masses and that the popular masses
must firmly maintain the Juche character and national character of
the revolution and construction in order to shape their destiny
independently. "On Preserving the Juche Character and National
Character of the Revolution and Construction", 19 June 1997.
Available from http://www.korea-dpr.com/lib/111.pdf.
74
According to Andrei Lankov, 1957 saw "the first and, perhaps, most
famous of the endless mobilization campaigns that later became so
typical of North Korean society. In 1957 Kim Il Sung launched the
much trumpeted ‘Ch'o˘llima (Flying horse) movement' which was
initially an imitation of some contemporary Soviet schemes but soon
came to be influenced by and modelled after the Chinese Great Leap
Forward. The people were encouraged to work more and more, to do
their utmost to achieve high (and often unrealistic) production
targets." Andrei Lankov, "Kim Takes Control: The "Great Purge" in
North Korea, 1956–1960", Korean Studies, vol. 26, No. 1 (2002).
Other subsequent examples include October 1974 when the "entire
Party, the whole country and all the people" started a 70-day
campaign to fix the mining industry, exports and transport which
resulted, according to Kim Jong-il's official biography, in a 70
per cent increase in industrial production and gross industrial
output value for the year increased by 17.2 per cent over the
previous year. Kim Jong-il: Brief History, pp. 57-58.
75
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea (New York,
Columbia University Press, 2007), Chapter 2.
76
Haggard and Noland,Famine in North Korea, Chapter 1.
77
"We call the leader's revolutionary thought Kimilsungism because
the idea and theory advanced by him are original. The definition
that Kimilsungism is a system based on the idea, theory and method
of Juche means that Kimilsungism is consistent with the Juche idea
in content and that it forms a system based on the idea, theory and
method in composition. Both in content and in composition,
Kimilsungism is an original idea that cannot be explained within
the framework of Marxism-Leninism. The Juche idea which constitutes
the quintessence of Kimilsungism, is an idea newly discovered in
the history of human thought": Kim Jong-il, "On Correctly
Understanding the Originality of Kimilsungism: Talk to Theoretical
Propagandists of the Party", 2 October 1976 (Pyongyang, Foreign
Languages Publishing House, 1984).
78
Ambassador Franz Everhardt of the GDR Embassy in Pyongyang
commented, "The economic situation in the DPRK is indeed extremely
difficult and complicated. The main reasons for this are the cult
of personality [surrounding Kim Il-sung] and the subjectivism
deriving from it." Report from the GDR Embassy in the DPRK, "Note
concerning a Conversation in Moscow on 12 May, 1976, with the Head
of the Far East Department, Comrade Kapitsa, and the Head of the
Southeast Asia Department, Comrade Sudarikov." 27 May 1976, History
and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Political Archive of the
Federal Foreign Office, Berlin (PolA AA), MfAA, C 6857. Translated
for NKIDP by Bernd Schaefer.Available fromhttp://
digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/114290.
79
The Ten Principles, comprised of a total of 10 articles and 65
clauses, describes how to establish the one-ideology system:1) We
must give our all in the struggle to unify the entire society with
the revolutionary ideology of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung. 2) We
must honour the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung with all our
loyalty. 3) We must make absolute the authority of the Great Leader
comrade Kim Il Sung. 4) We must make the Great Leader comrade Kim
Il Sung's revolutionary ideology our faith and make his
instructions our creed. 5) We must adhere strictly to the principle
of unconditional obedience in carrying out the Great Leader comrade
Kim Il Sung's instructions. 6) We must strengthen the entire
party's ideology and willpower and revolutionary unity, centreing
on the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung. 7) We must learn from the
Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung and adopt the communist look,
revolutionary work methods and people-oriented work style. 8) We
must value the political life we were given by the Great Leader
comrade Kim Il Sung, and loyally repay his great political trust
and thoughtfulness with heightened political awareness and skill.
9) We must establish strong organizational regulations so that the
entire party, nation and military move as one under the one and
only leadership of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung. 10) We
must pass down the great achievement of the revolution by the Great
Leader comrade Kim Il Sung from generation to generation,
inheriting and completing it to the end. Translation from Joanna
Hosniak, "Prisoners of Their Own Country", Citizens' Alliance for
North Korean Human Rights, 2004 (Original Korean source from Korea
Research Institute for Military Affairs). The Ten Principles were
amended in 2013 to include references to Kim Jong-il.
80
Kim Jong-il: Brief History, p. 80.
81
In the 1992 Constitution, the National Defence Commission was
elevated to a separate body from the Central People's Committee.
Before this revision, the President held the position of National
Defence Commission Chairman as the head of the military. This
separation of power from the President effectively made the
Chairman of the National Defence Commission the Chief Commander of
the State exercising the highest military authority. Yoon Dae-kyu,
"The Constitution of North Korea: Its Changes and Implications",
Fordham International Law Journal, vol. 27, No. 4 (2003), p. 1299.
82
For a detailed analysis of the activities of the security apparatus
and their compliance with international human rights obligations
see section V, in particular sub-sections V.A, V.B, V.B.1 and V.D.
83
TheKukgabowibu is sometimes also translated as the National
Security Agency or the Ministry of State Security.
84
See section IV.
85
Article 100 of the DPRK Constitution states: The Chairman of the
National Defense Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea is the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea.
86
Kim Jong-un, "Let Us Forever Glorify Comrade Kim Jong Il's Great
Idea and Achievements of the Military-First Revolution", Rodong
Sinmun and Chosun People's Army, 25 April 2013. Accessed through
Sino-NK, "Kim Jong-un and the Songun Retrenchment: A Quintessential
Equation", 30 November 2013.
87
In 1959, the DPRK signed its first agreement on cooperation in
nuclear research with the Soviet Union. A similar agreement with
China quickly followed. By 1965, the DPRK had a Soviet-designed
research reactor, the IRT-2000, which it modernized through the
1970s. By the late 1970s, the DPRK's interest in the development of
its nuclear capacity had shifted from energy production to nuclear
weapons. In 1977, the DPRK yielded to pressure and agreed to
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of its
research reactor developed with the Soviet Union but did not allow
access to a second reactor. In 1985, at the behest of the Soviet
Union, the DPRK ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT), although it refused the safeguard agreement
which it did not sign until 1992. Nevertheless, the United States
detected nuclear testing in 1985. In 1992, the DPRK and the ROK
agreed to the Joint Declaration for a Non-Nuclear Korean Peninsula.
However, in 1993 the DPRK failed to implement an agreement with the
IAEA for inspection of the DPRK's nuclear facilities and threatened
to withdraw from the NPT. Tensions escalated with the United
Nations urging the DPRK to cooperate with the IAEA. In 1994, the
DPRK triggered the first nuclear crisis by unloading fuel rods from
the Yongbyon reactor, withdrawing from the IAEA, and ejecting
inspectors. This ultimately resulted in the United States-DPRK
Agreed Framework negotiated by former United States President Jimmy
Carter. The United States administration under President Bill
Clinton provided non-aggression assurances, promised normalization
and two light water reactors for a nuclear freeze, reciprocal moves
with a timetable including the halt to construction of a 50
megawatt and a 200 megawatt reactor. This first episode appears to
have set the pattern whereby the DPRK precipitates a crisis and
then negotiates favourable terms for the resolution of the crisis.
88
Asymmetrical forces are those that are more difficult to counter
and address perceived weaknesses in the other side. See Joseph S.
Bermudez, Jr, Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, afternoon
(00:10:00).
89
For details on the DPRK's obligations to ensure the right to food
in the context of defence funding and the development of nuclear
weapons, see section IV.D.4.
90
In September 1991, the United States supported the DPRK's bid to
join the United Nations. The United States also withdrew all land
and sea tactical nuclear weapons from around the world, including
the Korean peninsula. In January 1992, the United States ended its
Team Spirit military training exercises that had incensed the DPRK.
Later that month, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Arnold Kanter met with the Korean Workers' Party Secretary for
International Affairs Kim Yong-sun to discuss improving relations.
91
Andrei Lankov notes the difficulty in realizing the actual level of
support from the Soviet Union and China as much of their aid was
provided indirectly through subsidized trade: Andrei Lankov, The
Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Utopian State
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 73-76.
92
Victor Cha, The Impossible State, p. 327.
93
See section IV.D.
94
Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea, pp. 82-90.
95
See section IV.D.
96
The temporary_closure_of_the_Kaesong_Industrial_Complex in early
2013 demonstrated the difficulties for the DPRK in engaging in the
international economy. After the DPRK shuttered the operation for
several months in a political stand-off, the complex reopened in
September 2013. ROK-based companiessuffered seriousfinancial damage
and face an uncertain future.
97
See section IV.D.
98
The Six Party Talks are aimed at ending the DPRK's nuclear
programme through negotiations involving China, the United States,
the DPRK, the ROK, Japan, and Russia. After several rounds of
negotiations, the September_2005_agreement was reached whereby the
DPRK agreed to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. In 2009, the
DPRK abruptly ended its participation in the Six-Party Talks.
Discussions to re-start the talks continue.
99
See section IV.D.
100
S/RES/1695 (2006).
101
Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, but barring
automatic military enforcement of its demands under the Charter's
article 41, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 1718 (2006),
which prevents a range of goods from entering or leaving the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea and imposes an asset freeze
and travel ban on persons related to the nuclear-weapon programme.
Through its decision, the Council prohibited the provision of
large-scale arms, nuclear technology and related training to the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as well as luxury goods,
calling upon all States to take cooperative action, including
through inspection of cargo, in accordance with their respective
national laws.
102
For example, in 2012, the Korean Central News Agency captioned a
cartoon of President Lee Myung-bak: "The dirty hairy body of rat-
like Myung-bak is being stabbed with bayonets. One is right in his
neck and the heart has already burst open. Blood is flowing out of
its filthy bottom hole." Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
world-asia-22038370.
103
For more detail on the 2009 currency reform, see section IV.D .
104
Between 2006 and 2013, the United Nations Security Council passed
five resolutions on the DPRK imposing sanctions and counter-
proliferation measures against missiles: resolutions 1695 (2006),
1718 (2006), 1874 (2009), 2087 (2013) and 2094 (2013).
105
A joint investigation by the ROK, United States, United Kingdom,
Sweden and Australia took six months and found that the Cheonan was
attacked by an underwater torpedo manufactured by the DPRK. China
did not accept the results and blocked the UN Security Council
resolution condemning the DPRK for the attack.
106
In a tradition set by his father, Kim Jong-il retains his former
titles of Secretary-General of the Workers' Party of Korea and
Chairman of the National Defence Commission after his death.
107
On 12 February 2013, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the DPRK addressed the President of the Security
Council: "The DPRK's nuclear test is a just step for self-defence
and is not contradictory to any international law. The U.S. has
long put the DPRK on the list for pre-emptive nuclear strikes. It
is a quite natural, just measure for self-defence to react to the
ever increasing nuclear threat of the U.S. with nuclear deterrence.
The DPRK withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons after going through legitimate procedures and chose
the way of having access to nuclear deterrence for self-defence to
protect the supreme interests of the country. There have been on
the Earth more than 2,000 nuclear tests and at least 9,000
satellite launches in the history of the United Nations, spanning
over 60 years, but there has never been a Security Council
resolution on banning any nuclear test or satellite launch" (S/
2013/91).
108
According to 38 North, US-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins
University, the 3G service, Koryolink, launched in December 2008 by
CHEO Technology JV Company, a joint venture between the Egyptian
telecommunications firm Orascom and the government-owned Korea Post
and Telecommunications Corporation, reached one million subscribers
by February 2012. That rate was then doubled in 15 months, reaching
an ostensible two million subscribers in May 2013. As 2011,
Koryolink's network had 453 base stations covering Pyongyang, 14
main cities and 86 smaller cities. See Kim Yon-ho, "A_Closer_Look
at_the_‘Explosion_of_Cell_Phone_Subscribers'_in_North_Korea", 26
November 2013.
109
See section IV.C.
110
Alastair Gale, "North Korea Clamps Down on Defections",Wall Street
Journal, 27 August 2013.
111
According to an expert interviewed by the Commission, one of the
perks enjoyed by the elite in the DPRK has been the education of
children abroad. This privilege has expanded beyond the small
number of selected cadres to those business people who are able to
pay for this access. As the number of North Korean children abroad
has increased, this situation has become more complex leading to
concerns about control. ECC002.
112
Ken E. Gause, "North Korean Leadership Dynamics and Decision-making
under Kim Jong-un: A First Year Assessment", CNA Strategic Studies,
September 2013.
113
On 24 May 2013, President Xi Jinping in his meeting with Choe
Ryong-hae, the director of the General Political Bureau of the
Korean People's Army and a member of the Presidium of the Political
Bureau of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee who was the
special envoy of Kim Jong-un, said, "China has a very clear
position concerning the issue that all the parties involved should
stick to the objective of denuclearization, safeguard the peace and
stability on the peninsula, and resolve disputes through dialogue
and consultation.",Xinhua News Agency. On 27 June 2013, President
Xi Jinpingre-affirmed this position during the summit with ROK
President Park Geun-hye in Beijing in a joint statement issued at
the end of their meeting.
114
Many of the witnesses who testified at the Commission's public
hearings as well as confidential interviews confirmed this route.
The Korean Bar Association's 2012 White Paper on Human Rightsin
North Korea noted that the usual escape route is via China and
Thailand, p. 533.
115
See section IV.C.
116
See Pyongyang Declaration at http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-
paci/n_korea/pmv0209/pyongyang.html.
117
The DPRK repeatedly raises historical grievances such as the issues
of conscription into the Japanese military operations and the
existence of "comfort stations" during World War II. Japan
maintains that it is necessary to comprehensively resolve
outstanding issues of concern, such as the abduction issue and
other security matters, in order to normalise the Japan-DPRK
relationship.
118
119
General Comment No. 22, para. 1 (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4).
120
TAP002, TAP005.
121
TAP005, TAP006.
122
Park Kwang-il, "Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea
– Human Rights concerning Education: North Korean Authoritarian
Regime's Infringement on Human Rights Starts from Education", 2005.
Official subjects apparently include "Dear Leader Kim Il-sung's
childhood days," "Dear Leader Kim Jong-il's Childhood days", "Dear
Leader Kim Il-sung's Revolution Activities", and "Dear Leader Kim
Jong-il's Revolution Activities", p. 120.
123
TAP006, TLC035.
124
TLC035.
125
Article 20 indicates that such propaganda and advocacy should be
prohibited by law, which entails not only the adoption of necessary
legislative measures against such acts, but also that the State
effectively prohibits them and also itself refrains from any such
propaganda or advocacy, Human Rights Committee General Comments No.
11, paras. 1-2 (HRI/GEN/1/Rev.9 (Vol. I)).
126
TAP005. From among the pictures taken in the DPRK by an Associated
Press photographer, one of the pictures featured was described as
"Kindergarten kids' drawings that depict children killing U.S.
soldiers hang on the wall at Kaeson Kindergarten in central
Pyongyang on 9 March 2013. For North Koreans, the systematic
indoctrination of anti-Americanism starts as early as
kindergarten". Available from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
125/photos/north-korea-guttenfelder/
?utm_source=NatGeocom&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=pom_20131103&utm_campaign=Content#.UpdduNKkpaB.
127
TAP005.
128
TSH019.
129
TAP005, TLC022.
130
TLC031.
131
Kim Jong-il, "On Further Improving Party Ideological Work:
Concluding Speech at the National Meeting of Party Propagandists",
8 March 1981. (Pyongyang, Foreign Languages Publishing House,
1989). Available from http://www.korea-dpr.com/lib/215.pdf.
132
Kim Jong-il, "On Further Developing Mass Gymnastics: Talk to Mass
Gymnastics Producers", 11 April 1987. (Pyongyang, Foreign Languages
Publishing House, 2006), also available from http://
www.anightinpyongyang.com/pdf/02.05.01.pdf.
133
TSH009.
134
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, afternoon (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
135
TAP006, TAP007, TAP008, TAP012, TAP015, TLC005, TLC035, TSH052.
136
As translated by Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights.
137
"NK Adds Kim Jong Il to ‘Ten Principles'", Daily NK, 9 August 2013.
Available from http://www.dailynk.com/english/
read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=10828; "Sessions Ordered to Check
on Ten Principles", Daily NK, 24 September 2013. Available from
http://www.dailynk.com/english/
read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=10998.
138
"Execution prompts surprise, fear inside North Korea", BBC News, 16
December 2013. Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-
25399143.
139
Article 67 provides that (1) Citizens are guaranteed freedom of
speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association; and (2)
The State guarantees the conditions for the free activities of
democratic political parties and social organizations.
140
UPR DPRK national report, A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1, para. 44.
141
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 296.
142
TAP007, TSH052.
143
TAP006.
144
TAP015.
145
TAP005, TAP006, TAP007.
146
TAP007.
147
TAP007; KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013),
pp. 296-297; International Coalition to Stop Crimes against
Humanity in North Korea (ICNK), "Introduction to North Korea", pp.
18-19.
148
TAP007.
149
TAP006, TAP007, TSH019.
150
TAP006.
151
TAP015.
152
TLC035.
153
TAP007.
154
TAP006, TAP009.
155
TAP008, TAP009.
156
This is explained further in section IV.B.
157
TAP009.
158
Kim Jong Il, "On Further Improving Party Ideological Work:
Concluding Speech at the National Meeting of Party Propagandists".
159
TAP002.
160
"Mansudae Art Studio, North Korea's Colossal Monument Factory",
Business Week, 6 June 2013. Available from http://
www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-06/mansudae-art-studio-north-
koreas-colossal-monument-factory.
161
TAP005.
162
Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) is the state-run agency of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea as stated on its website.
"Review of Fulfillment of State Budget for Last Year and State
Budget for This Year", KCNA, 1 April 2013. Available from http://
www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201304/news01/20130401-20ee.html.
163
"N. Korea spent 530 million dollars in idolization propaganda",
Dong-A Ilbo, 28 November 2013. Available from http://
english.donga.com/srv/
service.php3?bicode=050000&biid=2013112843348.
164
See for example: "The day Kim Il-sung died his first death", Asia
Times, 25 September 2013. Available from http://www.atimes.com/
atimes/Korea/KOR-01-250913.html; Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy:
Ordinary Lives in North Korea (New York, Spiegel & Grau, 2009),
p. 46.
165
TAP009; In May 2007, there were apparently instructions issued by
the Organization Bureau of the Central Party on "Overall
Inspections on How to Carry out Respect for the Portraits of Great
Leader and Beloved General", KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in
North Korea (2013), p. 282.
166
TBG005.
167
TSH051.
168
See http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201207/news19/20120719-
08ee.html.
169
TLC004 noting, however, that real reason for the arrest and
execution of the man had been his involvement in the politically
sensitive smuggling of cameras and radios into the country. See
also section IV.E.
170
Submission to the Commission: Confidential source.
171
TAP009.
172
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
173
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (00:10:48).
174
TAP003.
175
TAP009.
176
Ms Jeong Jin-hwa, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
177
A quotation by Kim Il-sung in Kim Jong-il, "The Cinema and
Directing" (Pyongyang, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987).
Available from http://www.korea-dpr.com/lib/209.pdf.
178
TAP009.
179
TAP009, TJH008.
180
TAP009.
181
Reporters Without Borders, "North Korea: Frontiers of Censorship –
Investigation Report", October 2011, pp. 4, 8.
182
Intermedia, "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media
Environment", May 2012. p. 21. Available from http://
www.intermedia.org/a-quiet-opening-in-north-korea/.
183
TAP009, TJH008.
184
TJH008.
185
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1, para. 42.
186
TAP009; Mr Jang Hae-sung, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013,
afternoon.
187
TAP009.
188
Note sub-principle 4.7 of the Ten Principles which states, "Use
considerately the guidelines of the Leader when preparing reports,
discussions, lectures or printed materials and eliminate any words
or writing that is contrary to his instructions."
189
TAP009; Mr Jang Hae-sung, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013,
afternoon.
190
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
191
TAP009.
192
"Associated Press opens news bureau in North Korea", The Guardian,
16 January 2012. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/world/
2012/jan/16/associated-press-bureau-north-korea.
193
"Now You See It", National Geographic, October 2013. Available from
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/north-korea/sullivan-
text.
194
TSH051.
195
TSH052.
196
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2011), pp. 275-
277.
197
Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH) subsidiary Koryolink is operated
through Cheo Technology, a joint venture between OTH and the North
Korean Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. OTH owns 75 per
cent of the operation, with the DPRK government owning the rest.
Koryolink launched its 3G coverage in Pyongyang in December 2008
with an initial 5,300 subscribers. "Orascom Telecom North Korean
mobile subsidiary nears 2 million subscribers", Daily News Egypt, 1
May 2013. Available from http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/05/01/
orascom-telecom-north-korean-mobile-subsidiary-nears-2-million-
subscribers/.
198
"North Korean Traders Scramble for Smartphones From South", Radio
Free Asia, 15 November 2013. Available from http://www.rfa.org/
english/news/korea/smartphones-11142013185158.html.
199
TAP009; National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Seoul Public
Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon; KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human
Rights in North Korea, p. 313 footnote 13.
200
Intermedia, "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media
Environment", pp. 57, 72.
201
"In 1984 moment, N. Korea deletes near entirety of news archives",
NK News, 16 December 2013. Available from http://www.nknews.org/
2013/12/in-1984-moment-n-korea-deletes-near-entirity-of-news-
archives/.
202
TBG031. TLC041 referred to Bureau 14 being responsible for
monitoring telephone waves.
203
See also "North Korea's ‘World Class' Cyber Attacks Coming from
China", VOA News, 21 November 2013. Officials in the ROK were
reported to have said that recent cyber attacks traced to Pyongyang
have demonstrated hacking capabilities that are world class, and
that there are seven North Korean hacking organizations and a
network of spies operating in China and Japan. Available from http:
//www.voanews.com/content/north-koreas-world-class-cyber-attacks-
coming-from-china/1795349.html.
204
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 4.
205
Intermedia, "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media
Environment", p. 8.
206
TAP001, TAP002, TAP008, TAP015, TJH017, TJH028, TSH019, TSH052.
207
TAP002; Intermedia, "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing
Media Environment", p. 71.
208
2009 Criminal Code of the DPRK as translated by Citizens' Alliance
for North Korean Human Rights.
209
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, afternoon (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
210
TJH015.
211
TBG028.
212
TAP002, TAP008, TBG031.
213
TAP008.
214
TLC041.
215
TAP016.
216
TJH004.
217
See section IV.E.
218
Intermedia, "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media
Environment", pp. 8, 16-19, 57-58.
219
"Pyongyang cracks down on ‘recordings' from outside", The Korea
Times, 20 November 2013. Available from https://
www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/11/116_146567.html.
220
Intermedia, "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media
Environment", pp. 54-57.
221
TJH008.
222
See section IV.E.
223
TBG004.
224
TJH022, TJH023.
225
Submission to the Commission: SUB060.
226
"Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed", KCNA, 13 December 2013.
Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201312/news13/
20131213-05ee.html.
227
TAP009.
228
TAP009.
229
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (01:02:20).
230
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (01:03:28).
231
TLC035.
232
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (01:29:45).
233
CCPR/C/PRK/2000/2, paras. 117-118.
234
E/C.12/2003/SR.44, para. 46.
235
CCPR/C/GC/34, paras. 9-10.
236
See CRC, article 12
237
See CRC, article 13.
238
TAP002, TAP008.
239
Ken E. Gause, "Coercion, Control, Surveillance, and Punishment",
pp. 42-48.
240
TAP011.
241
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 4 (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
242
TSH051.
243
TBG016.
244
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning.
245
TJH026.
246
TSH011.
247
TAP013. See Ken E. Gause, "Coercion, Control, Surveillance, and
Punishment", p. 60 where ‘Bureau 10 targets' are discussed and
appear to refer to those who are privy to the private lives of the
Kim family and continue to be monitored as members of the
exploiting class; Yun Tae-il, The Inside Story of the State
Security Department (Seoul, Wolgan Chosun, 2002).
248
Group 927 has been identified as the central inspection group
dealing with the homeless and "vagrants". See section IV.D for more
on this i.e. the "927 retention camps".
249
TAP002; Ishimaru Jiro, ed., Rimjin-gang: News from Inside North
Korea (Osaka, Asiapress Publishing, 2010), pp. 438-443; ICNK,
"Introduction to North Korea", p. 19.
250
TJH004.
251
TJH015.
252
"Can the ‘Jasmine Revolution' Spread to N. Korea?", The Chosun
Ilbo, 23 February 2011. Available from http://english.chosun.com/
site/data/html_dir/2011/02/23/2011022301300.html; "N.Korean
Protestors Demand Food and Electricity", The Chosun Ilbo, 23
February 2011. Available from http://english.chosun.com/site/data/
html_dir/2011/02/23/2011022300383.html; Reporters Without Borders,
"North Korea: Frontiers of Censorship – Investigation Report", p.
4.
253
See ICCPR, article 21 and CRC, article 15.
254
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 5 (with reference
to written submission).
255
Examples of such sub-principles (as translated by Citizens'
Alliance for North Korean Human Rights) include:
2.1The Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung is a genius of the
revolution, the sun of the people and a legendary hero whom we must
respect unendingly, revere eternally and come to with the greatest
happiness and glory.
2.3Believe firmly in the way pointed to by our Great Leader Comrade
KIM Il Sung, entrust our fate to the Great Leader and devote our
bodies and spirits for the revolutionary fight driven by the Great
Leader, carrying with us always, the strong belief that there is
nothing impossible if we are under the leadership of the Great
Leader.
3.1Have a firm position and perspective that no one else has the
knowledge required, only the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung.
3.6 Respectfully worship our beloved Great Leader Comrade KIM Il
Sung's sculptures, plaster casts, bronze statues, badges with
portraits, art developed by the Great Leader, board with Great
Leader's instructions, basic mottos of the Party.
4.3 Unconditionally accept, treat as a non-negotiable condition,
and decide everything based upon our Great Leader Comrade KIM Il
Sung's instructions and in every act think only about the greatness
of our Leader.
4.10 Fight with all one's will against anti-Party and anti-
revolutionary thinking trends that have its origin in capitalistic
ideas, feudal Confucian ideas, revisionism, dogmatism, toadyism and
are contrary to the revolutionary thought of the Great Leader KIM
Il Sung. Hold on to the purity of revolutionary thought and Juche
ideas of the Great Leader.
5.2 Regard as a holy duty and supreme glory reducing the concerns
of our Beloved Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung and fight for it with
complete dedication.
256
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (02:32:10).
257
Washington Public Hearing, 30 October 2013 (02:45:50).
258
Andrei Lankov, "North Korea's missionary position", Asia Times
Online, 16 March 2005. Available from http://www.atimes.com/atimes/
Korea/GC16Dg03.html; Michael Breen, Moon Sun-myung, "The Early
Years, 1920-53: Chapter 6 – Jerusalem of the East". Available from
http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/earlyyears/Chap06.htm.
259
HRI/CORE/1/Add.108/Rev.1, p. 10; CCPR/CO/72/PRK/Add.1, p. 3.
260
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, "North Korea: A Case To Answer – A
Call To Act", 2007, p. 65. Available from http://
dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=report&id=35.
261
Won Jae-chun, "Religious Persecution in North Korea: Process and
phases of oppression 1945-2011", International Journal for
Religious Freedom, vol. 4, No. 1 (2011), pp. 87-100.
262
Database Center for North Korea Human Rights (NKDB) divided it into
six periods covering from 1945-present: see "Religious Freedom in
North Korea", January 2013, pp. 28-41.
263
Won Jae-chun, "Religious Persecution in North Korea: Process and
phases of oppression 1945-2011", pp. 87-100.
264
NKDB, "Religious Freedom in North Korea", pp. 41, 98-102.
265
Submission to the Commission: SUB048.
266
NKDB, "Religious Freedom in North Korea", p. 28.
267
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1, para. 45.
268
CCPR/C/PRK/2000/2, para. 116.
269
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), "2013
Annual Report", April 2013, p. 111. Available from http://
www.uscirf.gov/reports-and-briefs/annual-report/3988-2013-annual-
report.html.
270
KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, p. 262.
271
Mr Timothy, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon;
TLC018.
272
USCIRF, "2013 Annual Report", pp. 110-111.
273
Mr Timothy, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon;
TLC024.
274
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 270-
271.
275
USCIRF, "2013 Annual Report", p. 111.
276
Mr Timothy, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon;
TLC018; a witness included in one submission to the Commission
described having heard a story as a child of Christians living
secretly in basements of hospitals and luring innocent people who
were killed and whose blood were sucked and sold to bad people,
SUB048.
277
See KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, p. 255
and footnote 33.
278
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (01:05:06).
279
USCIRF, "A Prison Without Bars", March 2008, chapter 5; USCIRF,
"2013 Annual Report", pp. 108-116.
280
Submission to the Commission: SUB048.
281
Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), Seoul Public
Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon; TAP013.
282
TBG006.
283
Mr Timothy, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
284
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
285
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
286
TJH010.
287
TJH017, TJH018, TSH039.
288
The classes reflect the assumed political loyalty of an
individual's family to the DPRK's political system and its
leadership. One former official noted that there are actually 103
songbunclasses today and that he had provided this documentation to
the government of the ROK, TBG031.
289
Section IV.C.
290
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (02:31:00).
291
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (02:57:55).
292
The 51 categories are Core_class: People from the families of
laborers, hired people from the families of laborers, hired
peasants (farm servants), poor farmers, and administrative clerical
workers during the Yi Dynasty and Japanese occupation, Korean
Workers' Party bereaved families of revolutionaries (killed cadre
members, in anti-Japan struggles), bereaved families of patriots
(killed as noncombatants during the Korean War), revolutionary
intellectuals (trained by North Korea after liberation from Japan),
families of those killed during the Korean Wars, families of the
fallen during the Korean War, servicemen's families (families of
active People's Army officers and men), and families of honored
wounded soldiers (family members of service members wounded during
theKorean War);Basic_class: Small merchants, artisans, small
factory owners, small service traders, medium service traders,
unaffiliated persons hailing from South Korea, families of those
who went to the South (3 distinct categories), people who formerly
were medium-scale farmers, nationalistic capitalists, people
repatriated from China, intellectuals trained before national
liberation, people from the core class who are deemed lazy and
corrupt, tavern hostesses, practitioners of superstition, family
members of Confucianists, people who were previously locally
influential figures, and economic offenders;Complex_(wavering_and
hostile)_class: Wealthy farmers, merchants, industrialists,
landowners or those whose private assets have been completely
confiscated, pro-Japan and pro-US people, reactionary bureaucrats,
defectors from the South, members of the Chondoist Chongu Party,
Buddhists, Catholics, expelled party members, expelled public
officials, those who helped South Korea during the Korean War,
family members of anyone arrested or imprisoned, spies, anti-party
and counter-revolutionary sectarians, families of people who were
executed, anyone released from prison, and political prisoners,
members of the Democratic Party, capitalists whose private assets
have been completed confiscated. KINU, White Paper on Human Rights
in North Korea (2012), p. 222, citing source as Ministry of
Unification report, "An Overview of North Korea", 2000, p. 420.
293
TSH019.
294
TJH022, TJH023.
295
DPRK Constitution, articles 8 and 162.
296
The 1993 Ministry of Social Safety publication of a document
entitled, "Resident Registration Project Reference Manual" issued a
set of instructions for resident registration investigators to use
during the conduct of their songbun investigations. See Robert
Collins, "Marked for Life: Songbun North Korea's Classification
System", Committee on Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), 2012.
297
TCC014.
298
TAP011.
299
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (02:05:00). Other
testimonies in section IV.A.
300
The three broad areas appear to have shifted over time to where the
wavering and hostile classes together have been condensed into a
"complex" category and the middle category is characterized as the
"basic" category. These figure from the Korea Institute for Nationa
Unification, An Overview of North Korea(2009), p. 330.
301
"Because overlapping membership is common in public office, top-
ranking office holders number less than 100": Federal Research
Division Library of Congress, Robert L. Worden ed., North Korea:
ACountry Study (2009), p. 211.
302
Twenty-eight per cent of 23.3 million total population amounts to
about 6.5 million.
303
See section IV.C.
304
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (03:06:30).
305
Ms Kim could not participate in the public hearings. The Commission
conducted a video-conference-based interview with her, during which
she agreed to have her name published in this report.
306
Also TBG024.
307
TJH004, TJH015.
308
See section IV.A.
309
TAP006.
310
TSH009.
311
TLC035.
312
TAP007.
313
TAP002, TAP008.
314
TAP006, TAP015, TLC035, TSH009.
315
TSH051.
316
There is some information indicating that the resident registration
file has also been computerized since the early 2000s, although it
is not clear how far access is granted in consideration of the risk
of leaks.
317
TJH007.
318
Songbun is not mentioned on the ID cards issued to people. Ordinary
people will not be informed about their songbun (TCC014).
319
TLC018.
320
TJH041.
321
Witness TJH037 only learned why he had low songbun after fleeing
the DPRK and being told by his mother in the ROK that his
grandmother had been a landlord. His first attempt to flee when he
was captured and repatriated had been because he did not want to
undergo 10 years of military service as is the usual case for those
people who do not have high songbun.
322
TBG021.
323
See section IV.F.
324
"Report, Embassy of Hungary in North Korea to the Hungarian Foreign
Ministry", 01 August 1960, History and Public Policy Program
Digital Archive, MOL, XIX-J-1-j Korea, 5. doboz, 5/ca, 004238/1/
1960. Translated for NKIDP by Balazs Szalontai. Available from
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/113409.
325
Confidential interview and Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013,
morning. TAP001 from Japan said that her family was discriminated
against because they were not originally from the village where
they now lived. As a child, others used to stay away from her and
not play with her, although over time this decreased.
326
TAP002.
327
TSH038.
328
Andrei Lankov, "Minorities in North Korea, part 1: Japanese-
Koreans", NK News, 6 August 2013.
329
TJH026.
330
Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, morning (01:59:57).
331
TSH036.
332
TAP012 explained that he and his family were sent to a political
prison camp due to his late father's lowsongbun, associated with
being politically unreliable. However, a family member who had
married into the witness's family had also ended up in the same
camp because he had been born in South Korea despite having joined
the North Korean military.
333
Washington Public Hearing, 30 October 2103 (00:20:00). Also,
witness Mr J was born in Yangbian, China. His father had been born
in North Korea, and moved to China during the 1930s. As his father
was an intellectual, the family became endangered during the
Cultural Revolution, and they moved back to the DPRK in 1960. Mr J
described being excluded from mainstream life in the DPRK because
was he born abroad. He experienced discrimination in various ways
including being sent to live far from any cities in North Hamgyong
province where Korean POWs and other immigrants were settled. At
school, he had been subjected to severe bullying for his accented
speech and for wearing clothes from China. Despite being very good
at gymnastics and getting selected by teachers for special
training, only the children of party officials would be selected
for competitions. Mr J was first assigned to work in a gold mine.
He worked hard, and was promoted to leader of in a small work unit.
His direct supervisor (a party member) also from the same village
encouraged him to join the party, writing a recommendation for him.
Mr J studied hard for the party tests, and applied twice, but was
refused both times. He was later told by the supervisor that had
recommended him that his application was excluded because under Kim
Il-sung's order, foreign-born nationals could not join the party
(TSH049). Also TBG017.
334
TBG008.
335
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (00:18:35).
336
TJH029.
337
Andrei Lankov, "North Korea's new class system", Asia Times, 3
December 2011. Also, ECC010.
338
According to Transparency International's 2013 Corruption
Perceptions Index, the DPRK along with Afghanistan and Somalia were
the worst performers, scoring just 8 points each and tying for last
place at 175th. A country or territory's score indicates the
perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 - 100,
where 0 means that a country is perceived as highly corrupt and 100
means it is perceived as very clean. A country's rank indicates its
position relative to the other countries and territories included
in the index.
339
CEDAW/C/PRK/1, para. 72.
340 See section III.
341
Park Kyung-ae, "Women and Social Change in South and North Korea:
Marxist and Liberal Perspectives", Women and International
Development, Working Paper No. 231, Michigan State University, June
1992, p. 2.
342
Yu Eui-young, Kim Il Sung Works (Pyongyang, Foreign Language
Publishing House, 1980), p. 185 as cited in Park Kyung-ae, "Women
and Social Change in South and North Korea: Marxist and Liberal
Perspectives", p. 2.
343
Park Kyung-ae, "Women and Revolution in North Korea", Pacific
Affairs, vol. 65, No. 4 (Winter 1992), p. 533.
344
Ibid, 8.
345
Ibid, 9.
346
Ibid, 9.
347
Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(1972), article 62.
348
Kim Il-sung, "On Further Developing the Nursing and Upbringing of
Children. Speech delivered at the sixth session of the fifth
Supreme People's Assembly", 29 April 1976.
349
See section IV.A.
350
See section IV.C.
351 KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp.
382-303; Park Kyung-ae, "Women and Social Change in South and North
Korea: Marxist and Liberal Perspectives", p. 11.
352
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, "Gender in Transition: The Case
of North Korea", World Development, vol. 41 (2012), p. 52.
353
See section IV.C.
354
Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), "Status of
Women's Rights in the Context of Socio-Economic Changes in the
DPRK", May 2013, p. 31.
355
Louisa Lim, "Out Of Desperation, North Korean Women Become
Breadwinners", National Public Radio, 28 December 2012.
356
Peterson Institute as quoted in Louisa Lim, "Out Of Desperation,
North Korean Women Become Breadwinners", National Public Radio, 28
December 2012.
357
TAP007.
358
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, "Gender in Transition", pp. 51-
66.
359
"Women on bicycles banned again", Daily NK, 14 January 2013.
Available from http://www.dailynk.com/english/
read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=10231.
360
Ibid; Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, "Flowers,
Guns and Women on Bikes: Briefing Report on the Situation of
Women's Rights in the DPRK", 2009, p. 17.
361
These restrictions are said to have been repealed in July 2013,
however expert evidence suggests the restrictions are still in
force outside of Pyongyang.
362
TLC042.
363
TLC013.
364
CEDAW/C/PRK/CO/1.
365
Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, "Status of
Women's Rights in the Context of Socio-Economic Changes in the
DPRK", p. 16.
366
KINU, "Study on the Power Elite of the Kim Jong Un Regime", (2013),
p. 24..
367
Won-woong Lee, "An Observer Report on the UN Human Rights
Committee's Review Session on North Korea's Second Periodic Report
on Human Rights" as cited in KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in
North Korea (2013), p. 381.
368
TAP007, TBG030 and TSH052.
369
TBG030.
370
TSH052.
371
Lim Soon-hee, "The Food Crisis and the Changing Roles and Attitudes
of North Korean Women", KINU, 2005, p. 14.
372
Louisa Lim, "Out Of Desperation, North Korean Women Become
Breadwinners", National Public Radio, 28 December 2012.
373
TAP007, TSH020, TSH055, TLC042, TBG028.
374
TBG030.
375
TBG028.
376
TSH020, TSH008, TLC042.
377
Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, "Status of
Women's Rights in the Context of Socio-Economic Changes in the
DPRK", p. 29.
378
TLC042.
379
TSH008.
380
TSH020.
381
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, "Gender in Transition", p. 51.
382
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 395.
383
TJH044.
384
Lim Soon-hee, "The Food Crisis and the Changing Roles and Attitudes
of North Korean Women" (2005), p. 22.
385
See section IV.D.
386
See section IV.C.
387
United_Nations_Enable, official website of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, "factsheet
2013".
388
World Health Organization, "Disability in the South­East Asia
Region", 2013. According to Kim Mun-chol, Deputy Chairman of the
Chosun Disabled League Central Committee, who led the North Korean
sports delegation to the 14th Paralymics in London in 2012, the
total number of persons with disabilities in the DPRK is 5.8 per
cent of the population. KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North
Korea (2013), p. 440.
389
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1, para. 74.
390
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (01:36:00). Mr Ji
lost his left hand and part of his lower leg after falling from
train and being run over by it. After the incident he had trouble
accessing coal for food and went to China to find food. Upon his
return, he was arrested and held for bringing shame to the DPRK for
going to China as a disabled person. He left the DPRK in 2006.
391
TAP007, TAP011.
392
TCC014.
393
EBG002, TBG026.
394
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (02:34:00).
395
Citizens Alliance on North Korean Human Rights, "Status of Women's
Rights in the Context of Socio-Economic Changes in the DPRK".
396
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea(2013), pp. 442-
444.
397
TJH004. A former State Security Department official reported rumors
of these islands (TJH041). Also, see Citizens Alliance on North
Korean Human Rights, "Status of Women's Rights in the Context of
Socio-Economic Changes in the DPRK".
398 On alleged medical experiments, see also section IV.E.6.
399
Submission to the Commission: SUB060. Also,"North Korea's first
Paralympian inspires the disabled", Associated Press, 28 August
2012.
400
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1.
401
SUB060.
402
TJH041.
403
TGC001.
404
Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, morning (02:04:41).
405
For more detail on the impact of discrimination on access to food,
see section IV.D.
406
TSH051 explained that people with low songbun cannot go to teachers
college because they would be influencing children, but they can go
to technical colleges which include medical school.
407
TBG015.
408
E/C.12/1/Add.95.
409
According to TAP001, most people who came from Japan were highly-
educated and able to get jobs but would still not get high level
positions.
410
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (00:46:31).
411
TAP011, TLC007.
412
Choe_Sang-hun, "North Korea's Leaders Promise Improvements to
Educational System", New York Times, 25 September 2012.
413
CRC/C/PRK/4, paras. 174-176; A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1, para. 59.
414
TBG030.
415
Charles Robert Jenkins with Jim Frederick, The Reluctant Communist,
My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-year Imprisonment in North
Korea (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2008), pp. 129,
134-135; TSH054.
416
TBG024.
417
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2012), p. 364;
Kang Chol-hwan in his book, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, (New York,
Basic Books, 2001), pp. 63-78, details the change in schooling when
he was sent to a political prison camp at the age of nine.
418
TJH026, TAP008.
419
TGC001.
420
TSH051 explained that because of her songbun, no one would approach
her to get married. A military doctor from Pyongyang came to see
her on an arranged blind date and after several dates they were
supposed to get engaged, but the engagement was called off when he
found out about her songbun. It was a very embarrassing time, with
the witness thinking that she was never going to be married. In the
DPRK, songbun comes first, the witness said.
421
DPRK Constitution, articles 56 and 72.
422
TSH051, TSH004.
423
TSH051.
424
Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, "Status of
Women's Rights in the Context of Socio-Economic Changes in the
DPRK", p. 37.
425
UNICEF, "2003 Country report", pp. 47-50.
426
WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank Estimates, "Trends in
Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2010", 2012.
427
The State report for the DPRK's first Universal Periodic Review in
2009 stated the following: "In the DPRK, equality is fully ensured
based on unity and cooperation between persons. No citizen is
discriminated on the basis of his/her race, sex, language,
religion, education, occupation and position and property, and all
citizens exercise equal rights in all fields of the state and
public activities" (A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1, para. 32).
428
Discrimination on the basis of religion is addressed in section
IV.A.
429
See section III.
430
See section IV.C.
431
For more on Juche, see section III.
432
For more on Kim Il-sung's cult of personality, see section IV.A.
433
CCPR/C/PRK/2000/2, para. 77.
434
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 355-
356.
435
2009 Criminal Code of the DPRK as translated by Citizens' Alliance
for North Korean Human Rights.
436
TSH052.
437
See section IV.B for more on Songbun system.
438
National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), Seoul Public
Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
439
Submission to the Commission: SUB055, Kim Hi-tae and Peter Jung,
The Persecuted Catacomb Christians of North Korea (Seoul, Justice
for North Korea, 2013), p. 41.
440
TSH020, TSH030. See section IV.E on political prison camps.
441
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (01:18:30).
442
TSH032.
443
TJH015.
444
See Good Friends, "North Korea Today No. 456", 23 March 2012.
Available from http://www.goodfriendsusa.blogspot.ch/2012/05/north-
korea-today-no-456-may-23-2012.html.
445
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 351.
446
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 353
states that the average rate of factory operation is only 20-30 per
cent due to the deteriorating economy and dilapidated
infrastructure.
447
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 235
footnote 187.
448
See section IV.D.
449
TGC004. See section IV.E on ordinary prison camps.
450
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning. For more on
banishment of families with children with disabilities, see section
IV.B.
451
TAP011.
452
TAP007.
453
ASIAPRESS started in Tokyo in 1987 as an independent network of
journalists in Asia. In 2007 ASIAPRESS began publishing a magazine
entitled "Rimjin-gang: News from Inside North Korea" in Korean and
Japanese. (After the 4th issue of the Korean edition was released
in April 2009, the Seoul staff began publishing on its own and is
no longer connected with ASIAPRESS.)
454
TAP024.
455
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (00:26:16).
456
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (00:31:42).
457
TJH004.
458
TSH020.
459
TSH051.
460
CCPR/C/PRK/2000/2, para. 76.
461
CCPR/C/SR.1944, para. 35.
462
TAP005.
463
KINU, White Paperon Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 22,
234-239.
464
TAP002, TAP005, TBG024; NKDB, "Prisoners in North Korea Today",
2012, pp. 29-30.
465
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 234.
466
See section IV.A on the Neighbourhood Watch.
467
NHRCK, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon; KINU, White
Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 22, 234-238.
468
TAP008.
469
TSH052.
470
CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9, paras. 11, 13-14, and 16-17.
471
See also CCPR/CO/72/PRK, para. 19 where the Human Rights Committee
concludes that the requirement of a traveller's permit for domestic
travel within the country raises serious questions vis-à-vis ICCPR,
article 12 (1).
472
DPRK Immigration Law 1996 as amended in 1999 and 2012, articles 9-
12.
473
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 246-
247.
474
NHRCK, Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
475
TAP002, TSH052.
476
TJH022.
477
See Criminal Code, article 233. Note also article 234 which
provides for punishment to those working in the border
administration who help illegal border crossers.
478
See section III.E for further on this.
479
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), Written
submission to the hearing before the Congressiona-Executive
Commission on China, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session,
"China's Repatriation of North Korean Refugees", 5 March 2012, p.
50. Available from http://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/Congressional
per cent20Hearings/China_Repatriation_March_5_2012.pdf.
480
The Korean Central News Agency used this term inter alia to
describe those persons who fled the DPRK who appeared before the
Commission to testify in public hearings. See "N. Korea slams U.N.
rights committee, calls defectors ‘human scum'", Global Post, 27
August 2013. Available from http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/
news/kyodo-news-international/130827/n-korea-slams-un-rights-
committee-calls-defectors-huma.
481
"Ministry of People's Security Vows to Punish Defectors Keen on
Escalating Confrontation", KCNA, 19 June 2013. Available from http:
//www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201306/news19/20130619-01ee.html.
482
TJH015, TJH041.
483
TCC014.
484
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
485
TAP005. See also section IV.D.
486
TJH004, TJH041.
487
TJH004.
488
EJH003 indicated that, apart from being driven by larger political
reasons, Kim Jong-un may have also attached particular attention to
border control since he was assigned to serve as a border guard as
a young man.
489
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
490
The following table showing the number of DPRK citizens who have
entered ROK between 2001 and September 2013:
~2001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013.9TotalMale5655114726244235125716086715897974052507829Female4796328101272959151019772197225818131909109779117820Total104411431282189613822022254828052929240227061502104125649Female
ratio46 per cent55 per cent63 per cent67 per cent69 per cent75 per
cent78 per cent78 per cent77 per cent75 per cent70 per cent72 per
cent76 per cent69 per centSource: ROK, Ministry of Unification, The
Number of North Korean Defectors. Available from http://
www.unikorea.go.kr/index.do?menuCd=DOM_000000101007001002.
491
KBA, 2012 White Paperon Human Rights in North Korea, pp. 54, 510-
513.
492
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
493
TJH017.
494
See section IV.D.
495
See section IV.B.
496
Note that people smugglers are not necessarily involved in the
trafficking of persons. The latter requires the element of
"exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of
sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or
practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs"
at minimum. See the Palermo Protocol on this.
497
EJH003.
498
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 44,
459-461. See also International Crisis Group, "Perilous Journey:
The Plight of North Koreans in China and Beyond", 26 October 2009.
Available from http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/north-
east-asia/north-korea/122-perilous-journeys-the-plight-of-north-
koreans-in-china-and-beyond.aspx. The approximate figure of 100,000
was also advanced by the humanitarian organization Life Funds for
North Korean Refugees for 2007. Available from http://
www.northkoreanrefugees.com/faq.html.
499
TJH010.
500
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 461-
462 footnote 12.
501
Available from http://goodfriendsusa.blogspot.ch/2011/09/north-
korea-daily-no-417-august-24-2011.html.
502
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 45,
461-463.
503
"People's Units Working to Limit Defection", Daily NK, 6 November
2013. Available from http://www.dailynk.com/english/
read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=11150.
504
TJH015, TJH041, TBG031.
505
TJH015.
506
TBG027.
507
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
508
TJH010.
509
TBG031, a former official.
510
International human rights law only allows the use of intentional
force if strictly necessary to protect life. See Report of the
Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions, "Study on Targeted Killings" (A/HRC/14/24/Add.6, para.
32).
511
For more information on these abductions, see section IV.F.
512
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (02:14:00).
513
TJH038.
514
TJH018.
515
David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag: The Lives and Voices of ‘Those Who
Are Sent to the Mountains', Washington D.C. The Committee for Human
Rights in North Korea, 2012) p. 118.
516
See section IV.E.
517
TJH015.
518
TJH004.
519
TJH041.
520
See also section IV.E for more details and illustrative examples on
torture, deliberate starvation and inhumane conditions of detention
imposed on persons held at interrogation detention centres.
521
See further section IV.E on international standards.
522
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (00:19:45).
523
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning.
524
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
525
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon.
526
TBG013.
527
TJH028.
528
TJH032.
529
TAP010, TSH018, TSH029, TSH049.
530
TSH031.
531
TSH029.
532
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
533
TJH028.
534
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
535
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (02:35:00).
536
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
537
TBG013.
538
TBG018.
539
TGC001.
540
See World Medical Association, "Statement on Body Searches of
Prisoners, adopted by the 45th World Medical Assembly held in
Budapest, Hungary", October 1993, also available from http://
www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b5. See also CAT/C/HKG/CO/
4, para. 10.
541
See Code of Criminal Procedure, article 143 and Criminal Code,
article 252.
542
See Elements of Crime, Assembly of States Parties to the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1st Session, September
3–10, 2002, article 7(1)(g)-1, para. 1. See also Prosecutor v,
Furundzija,. IT-95-17/1-T, Trial Judgment, para. 185; Prosecutor v.
Seasay et al, Case No. SCSL-04-15-T, para. 145; Prosecutor v. Sesay
et al Prosecutor v. Brima et al, Case No. CSL-2004-16-T, Trial
Judgment, para. 693. Prosecutor v Akeyesu, para. 688. See also id.,
where the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds that
thrusting a piece of wood into a dying woman's vagina constitutes
rape.
543
TJH032.
544
TSH015.
545
TJH032, TSH050.
546
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (02:38:00).
547
TSH029.
548
TJH032.
549
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 2 (01:03:00) and
the confidential interview with the witness.
550
TGC001.
551
TBG018.
552
TJH037.
553
TBG018, TSH049.
554
TSH029.
555
TAP003, TSH029, TSH051, TBG024.
556
David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag: The Lives and Voices of ‘Those Who
Are Sent to the Mountains', p. 66.
557
TAP003.
558
TBG031.
559
TGC001.
560
TJH028.
561
TLC009.
562
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (00:28:20).
563
TBG031.
564
TAP003.
565
TAP007.
566
TBG031.
567
TAP010, TBG018, TSH015, TSH050.
568
Submission to the Commission: Confidential source.
569
TAP003, TGC001, TSH039, TSH049, TJH032, Ms P, Seoul Public Hearing
, 21 August 2013, afternoon.
570
TAP007, TSH015, TSH050.
571
TLC009.
572
TAP010, TSH018, TSH030.
573
TAP010.
574
TLC008.
575
TAP010, TBG018.
576
TAP010.
577
TBG017.
578
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (03:09:45).
579
TAP010.
580
TBG018.
581
Ms Jee Heon A, Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon.
582
TBG018, TLC018.
583
TLC018.
584
TBG018, TSH051.
585
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (02:42:00).
586
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (00:30:50).
587
The People's Safety Enforcement Law (1992), article 50 clause 3.
588
See section IV.E for further on this.
589
See Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and
Consequences, E/CN.4/1999/68/Add.4, paras. 45, 49. See also Beijing
Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference for
Women (1995), para. 115; Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women, General Recommendation 19, A/47/38,
para. 22; CEDAW/C/CHN/CO/6, para. 32.
590
Article 1 of the Convention against Torture, which also informs the
definition of torture under ICCPR, article 7, defines torture as
any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or
mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as
obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession,
punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is
suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a
third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any
kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the
instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public
official or other person acting in an official capacity. On the
recognition of forced abortion as an act of torture see the reports
of successive Special Rapporteurs on Torture and other Cruel,
Inhuman and Degrading Treatment, A/HRC/22/53 (2013), para. 48; A/
HRC/7/3, para. 69. See also Human Rights Committee, General Comment
No. 28, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.10, para. 11.
591
Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, "China Promises Bounty on All
NK Refugees Turned In", 31 April 2013. Available from http://
www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2013-03-bounty.htm.
592
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 46.
593
In 2002, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs apparently issued
a letter to foreign embassies following events which "occurred in
succession [where] third country nationals intruded into foreign
embassies and consulates in China … directly endanger[ing] the
security of the embassies and consulates concerned and disturb[ing]
their routine work [as well as] provoked Chinese law and affected
the public security and stability of China." As such, in response
to requests made to it by "many foreign embassies and consulates in
China" and "in conformity with the interests of both sides", a
series of measures were taken by the Chinese authorities to protect
the security of foreign diplomatic and consular representing
institutions. The letter also states that, "According to the
principle of international law that embassies and consulates has no
right of asylum, the Chinese side also wishes embassies concerned
to render cooperation and inform the Consular Department of Chinese
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in case the illegal intruders were
found, and hand over the intruders to the Chinese public security
organs." Human Rights Watch (HRW), "The Invisible Exodus: North
Koreans in the PRC", November 2002, pp. 29-30. Available from http:
//www.hrw.org/reports/2002/northkorea/norkor1102.pdf. See more on
the successive attempts made by DPRK nationals to access foreign
embassies and consulates in China leading to the issuance of the
letter at pp. 28-29 of the same HRW report. Additional cases of
DPRK nationals who were seized by Chinese officials as they tried
to find protection in diplomatic and consular premises are reported
in North Korea Freedom Coalition, "‘The List' of North Korean
Refugees and Humanitarian Workers seized by Chinese authorities",
2013. Available from http://www.nkfreedom.org/UploadedDocuments/
THELIST2013_English.pdf.
594
Under a combination of the provisions in the ROK Constitution, the
ROK Nationality Act and the Protection of North Korean Residents
and Support of their Settlement Act, DPRK nationals are in fact
entitled to ROK citizenship with some exceptions (namely, those who
have committed serious non-political crimes). See Elim Chan and
Andreas Schloenhardt, "North Korean Refugees and International
Refugee Law", International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 19, No. 2
(2007), p. 19. The Settlement Act, article 3 further provides that
the Act shall only "apply to residents escaping from North Korea
who have expressed their intention to be protected by the Republic
of Korea" while article 7 of the same Act sets out the procedure
for invoking such protection which includes applying "for
protection to the head of an overseas diplomatic or consular
mission". (See HRW, "The Invisible Exodus: North Koreans in the
PRC", pp. 30-31 on ROK policy).
595
TBG013.
596
TJH028.
597
TJH037.
598
TSH029.
599
EJH003.
600
TBG017.
601
See A/HRC/4/34/Add.1, para. 129.
602
OHCHR, "Press briefing notes on North Korean defectors and Papua
New Guinea", 31 May 2013, available from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/
NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13390&; UNHCR "UNHCR
chief calls on states to respect non-refoulement after North
Koreans deported from Laos", 30 May 2013, available from
www.unhcr.org/51a7510b9.html.
603
UNHCR submission to China's UPR, March 2013. Available from http://
www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/UPRCNUNContributionsS17.aspx.
604
For further information on refugees sur place, see UNHCR, "Handbook
on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the
1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of
Refugees", January 1992, paras. 94-96.
605
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (00:55:01).
606
TJH015. See section IV.A.4.
607
This description is consistent with testimony reportedly put
forward by other former DPRK Citizens. See Suzanne Scholte,
Testimony to Hearing before the Congressional-Executive Commission
on China, "China's Repatriation of North Korean Refugees", 5 March
2012, p. 6.
608
TBG018.
609
EJH003. See also Roberta Cohen, Washington Public Hearing, 31
October 2013, afternoon.
610
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China,
Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo bian jie shi wu tiao yue ji. Zhong Chao
juan(Compilation of Treaties on Border Affairs of the People's
Republic of China: Sino-North Korea Volume), pp. 388-389 (Beijing,
World Affairs Press, 2004) (Unofficial English translation).
611
See Annex II of the Commission report (A/HRC/25/63).
612
See Annex II of the Commission report (A/HRC/25/63).
613
United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking
in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United
Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000. The
protocol defines trafficking in persons as the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by
means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of
abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a
position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments
or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over
another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall
include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of
others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or
services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the
removal of organs.
614
See A/HRC/4/34/Add.1, paras. 125-129.
615
Ibid., para. 144.
616
Ibid., paras. 215-218.
617
See section IV.B for more information about gender discrimination,
and section IV.D for details of the gendered impact of violations
of the right to food.
618
National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Fact-finding Study on
Human Rights Violations against North Korea Refugee Women in the
Process of Flight and Settlement (Seoul, 2009), pp. 134-135.
619
National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Fact-finding Study on
Human Rights Violations against North Korea Refugee Women in the
Process of Flight and Settlement, p. 134.
620
There are an estimated 30-40 million "missing" women in China due
to non-medical sex selective abortions: Jing-Boo Nie, "Non-medical
sex-selective abortion in China: ethical and public policy issues
in the context of 40 million missing females", British Medical
Bulletin,vol. 98, No. 1 (2011). The Plenum of the 18th Party
Congress in December 2013 issued a resolution to ease the one-child
policy.
621
TSH029.
622
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (03:31:16).
623
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (02:27:15).
624
Good Friends: Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees,
"Alternative NGO Report on the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women First Periodic Report of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea", June 2005, p. 11. Available
from http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/46f146320.pdf
625
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (00:33:45).
626
TAP010.
627
EJH003.
628
TSH015.
629
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (02:30:46).
630
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (00:35:25).
631
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (01:32:02).
632
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 2 (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
633
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (00:35:49).
634
TSH029.
635
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (03:32:10).
636
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 2 (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
637
TSH014.
638
TSH039.
639
TSH029.
640
TSH049.
641
TSH029.
642
KINU,White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013),pp. 44, 461.
643
According to a confidential submission to the Commission, the
Chinese Nationality Law provides for any person born in China to
have Chinese nationality as long as one or both of that person's
parents is a Chinese national. It also provides that any person
born in China whose parents are stateless or of uncertain
nationality and have settled in China shall have Chinese
nationality. It is not clear how, if at all, such provisions are
implemented in practice particularly in favour of children born to
one parent of Chinese national and the other parent being an
undocumented DPRK national.
644
Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, "Universal Periodic Review
Second Cycle – China – Reference document", March 2013. Available
from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/
UPRCNStakeholdersInfoS17.aspx.
645
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (00:37:32).
646
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013),p.468.
647
TSH039.
648
London PublicHearing, 23 October 2013, session 2 (00:46:43).
649
LondonPublicHearing, 23 October 2013, session 2 (00:46:43).
650
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 2 (with additional
details provided by the witness in a confidential interview).
651
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013,morning.
652
CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9, paras. 20-21.
653
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 509.
654
"Korea familyreunionlottery",BBC News, 5 July 2000. Available from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/820667.stm.
655
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 513.
656
"N Korea postpones family reunions over South's ‘hostility'", BBC
News, 21 September 2013. Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
world-asia-24184696.
657
The Mount Kumgang resort is one of the two main joint ROK-DPRK
projects which had also stalled following the shooting of an ROK
tourist by a DPRK soldier in 2008. The ROK had proposed for talks
to be held on 25 September regarding the reopening of the resort.
658
"N Korea postpones family reunions over South's ‘hostility'", BBC
News.
659
"South Korea Proposes Resuming Reunions of War-Divided
Families",New York Times, 6 January 2014. Available from http://
www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/world/asia/south-korea-proposes-
resuming-reunions-of-war-divided-families.html?ref=world&_r=0.
660
CESCR, General Comment No. 12, E/C.12/1999/5, para. 6.
661
E/CN.4/2001/53, para. 14.
662
CESCR, General Comment No. 12, E/C.12/1999/5, para. 12.
663
Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 6, HRI/GEN/1/Rev.1,
para. 5.
664
The United Nations declares a famine only when the following
measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met: 1) at least
20 per cent of households in an area face extreme food shortages
with a limited ability to cope; 2) acute malnutrition rates exceed
30 per cent; and 3) the death rate exceeds two persons per day per
10,000 persons. See FAO, "The Integrated Food Security Phase
Classification, technical manual V.2", 2012. Available from http://
www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC-Manual-2-
Interactive.pdf.)
665
Food that is quantitatively and qualitatively sufficient to meet
physiological caloric needs and containing the nutrients necessary
for physical and mental development.
666
See section IV.D.4.
667
Article 20 of the DPRK Constitution stipulates that "the means of
production are owned solely by the state and cooperative
organizations". The collectives were converted into state farms
where workers-farmers receive state wages rather than a portion of
fruits of their collective labour. This conversion is provided for
by article 23 of the Constitution: "The state shall consolidate and
develop the socialist cooperative economic system by improving the
guidance and management of the cooperative economy and gradually
transform the property of cooperative organizations into the
property of the people as a whole based on the voluntary will of
all their members."
668
Article 34 of the DPRK Constitution states that, "The state shall
formulate unified and detailed plans and guarantee a high rate of
production growth and a balanced development of the national
economy."
669
See section III.D. Beginning with the 1992 revision of the
Constitution, Juche received prominence as the first article
(article 19) in the Economics chapter: "In the DPRK, socialist
production relations are based upon the foundation of an
independent national economy." In the early 1970s, the Juche idea
was announced as the leading guideline of the country: the
principle of food self-sufficiency was officially incorporated into
Juche Gyungje. Juche Nongbub ("Juche agriculture") primarily
concerns farming techniques. It consists of three parts: youngnong
wonchik (farming principles), youngnong bangbub (farming methods)
and sebu gongjeong (detailed production processes). In the first
place, its farming principles provide four basic rules for
agricultural administrators and producers to follow in order to
increase agricultural production under such unfavourable natural
conditions as small land and cold weather. Lee Suk, "Food shortages
and economic institutions in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea", PhD dissertation, University of Warwick, 2003, p. 128.
670
Lee Suk, "Food shortages and economic institutions in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea", p. 128.
671
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea: Markets,
Aid, and Reform, p. 26.
672
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea; Hazel
Smith, Hungry for Peace: International Security, Humanitarian
Assistance, and Social Change in North Korea (United States
Institute of Peace Press, 2005), p. 66.
673
Victor Cha, The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future
(Ecco, 2012), p. 186.
674
Meredith Woo-Cumings, "The Political Ecology of famine: The North
Korean Catastrophe and Its lessons", Research Paper Series, No. 31
(Tokyo, Asian Development Bank Research Institute, 2002), p. 26.
675
See for instance: "North Korea Is Told of Loan Default", New York
Times, 23 August 1987.
676
Submission to the Commission: Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland,
Hunger and Human Rights: The Politics of Famine in North Korea
(U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2005), p. 14.
677
Haggard and Noland, Hunger and Human Rights, p. 4.
678
Submission to the Commission: U.S. Committee for Human Rights in
North Korea, "Failure to Protect, A Call for the UN Security
Council to Act in North Korea", 2006, p. 18.
679
Nicholas Eberstadt, "The North Korean economy. Between Crisis &
Catastrophe", p. 110. For more details on the change of China's
policy towards the DPRK see also Liu Ming, "Changes and
Continuities in Pyongyang's China Policy", in North Korea in
Transition. Politics, Economy, and Society, Park Kyung-ae and Scott
Snyder, eds. (Rowman &Littlefield Publishers, 2013), pp. 219
ff.
680
Lee Suk, "Food shortages and economic institutions in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea".
681
Ibid., pp 21-22.
682
ROK Ministry of Unification, "Food rations by class: Understanding
North Korea 2005", Education Centre for Unification, March 2006,
pp. 245-247.
683
Submission to the Commission: Andrew Natsios, The Great North
Korean Famine (Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace
Press, 2002).
684
Lee Suk, "The DPRK famine of 1994-2000: Existence and Impact",
KINU, 2005.
685
Oh Gyung-chan cited in Lee Suk, "The DPRK famine of 1994-2000:
Existence and Impact", KINU, 2005, p. 6.
686
TLC033.
687
TAP001.
688
TAP011.
689
Lee Suk, "The DPRK famine of 1994-2000: Existence and Impact",
KINU, 2005, p. 6.
690
Ibid.
691
TJH027.
692
"North Korean defector tells of food riots", The Guardian, 23
August 1993. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/world/1993/
aug/23/northkorea.
693
Lee Suk, "The DPRK famine of 1994-2000", p. 7.
694
Lee Suk, "The DPRK famine of 1994-2000", p. 8. See also Mr Natsios'
testimony. Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning.
695
Ahn Jong-Chui cited in Lee Suk, "The DPRK famine of 1994-2000", p.
8.
696
Lee Suk, "The DPRK famine of 1994-2000", p. 8.
697
Reportedly, economic problems were admitted on some occasions. See
"North Korea: It's bad-Official", The Economist, 18
December 1993 and "North Korea: A dangerous game", 28 May
1994.
698
United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs, "United Nations
Consolidated UN Inter-Agency Appeal for Flood-Related Emergency
Humanitarian Assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea (DPRK) 1 July 1996-31 March 1997", April 1996.
699
"Floods Strike 5 Million, North Korea Reports", New York Times, 31
August 1995. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/31/
world/world-news-briefs-floods-strike-5-million-north-korea-
reports.html.
700
FAO/WFP, "Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea", 27 July 2001.
701
Ibid.
702
"Press Conference by the Press Secretary 19 September 1995",
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan. Available from http://
www.mofa.go.jp/announce/press/1995/9/919.html#2. See also http://
www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/1996/I-c.html.
703
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (03:20:45).
704
Washington Public Hearing, 30 October 2013 (00:45:19).
705
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 3 (00:52:32).
706
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 3 (01:08:02).
707
TSH016.
708
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon.
709
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (00:10:58).
710
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
711
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (01:42:55).
712
FAO/WFP, "Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea: Special Report", December 1996.
Recourse to wild food (wild fruits, plants, grass, etc.) is
generally considered as an extreme coping mechanism because it can
be associated with diarrhoea and other diseases and a leading cause
for malnutrition of children under 5.
713
Andrew Natsios, "The Politics of Famine in North Korea", Special
Report 51, United States Institute of Peace, August 1999, pp. 5-11.
714
Amnesty International, "Starved of Rights: Human Rights and the
Food Crisis in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North
Korea)", January 2004, pp. 9-10.
715
WFP, "Nutrition Survey of the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea", November 1998.
716
TBG028, TSH018, TSH016.
717
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
718
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (01:52:06).
719
TBG032.
720
TAP001.
721
Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, morning (01:12:00).
722
Kim Byung-yeon and Song Dong-ho, "The Participation of North Korean
Households in the Informal Economy : Size, Determinants, and
Effect", Seoul Journal of Economics, vol. 21 (2008), p. 373.
723
TAP011.
724
TAP001.
725
TSH035.
726
TSH018.
727
TLC013.
728
TLC038.
729
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea, p. 172.
730
TSH052.
731
TBG028.
732
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, afternoon.
733
TBG032.
734
Malnutrition is defined as nutritional disorder in all its forms
and includes both undernutrition and overnutrition. It relates to
imbalances in energy, and specific macro and micronutrients as well
as in dietary patterns. Conventionally, the emphasis has been in
relation to inadequacy, but it also applies to both excess and
imbalanced intakes. Malnutrition occurs when the intake of
essential macro- and micronutrients does not meet or exceeds the
metabolic demands for those nutrients. These metabolic demands vary
with age, gender and other physiological conditions and are also
affected by environmental conditions including poor hygiene and
sanitation that lead to food as well as waterborne diarrhoea (WHO
Global Nutrition Policy Review). When micronutrient malnutrition
occurs in persons who are of a normal weight or who are overweight
or obese, it is sometimes referred to as hidden hunger. Hidden
hunger often has no visible warning signs, leaving sufferers
unaware of their dietary deficiency and its potentially adverse
impact on their health. Pregnant and lactating women have
additional specific needs. The additional food needed during
pregnancy and lactation is critical to ensuring adequate nutrient
intake sufficient in both quantity and quality for fetal growth and
production of breast milk. Maternal undernutrition at this stage
can lead to intrauterine growth retardation and low concentrations
of certain nutrients in breast milk. FAO, Committee on World Food
Security, "Coming to terms with terminology", CFS 2012/39/4.
Available from http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/026/MD776E.pdf.
735
FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World (2013).
736
FAO/WFP, "Crop And Food Supply Assessment Mission to the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea", 27 July 2001.
737
"15,000 North Korean soldiers desert amid famine in 2001-2002:
report", Agence France-Presse, 26 September 2003.
738
Exhibit T8: Ishimaru Jiro ed., Rimjin-gang: News From Inside North
Korea (Osaka, Asiapress Publishing, 2010), p. 49
739
Ibid.
740
"North Korea, Facing Food Shortages, Mobilizes Millions From the
Cities to Help Rice Farmers", New York Times, 1 June 2005.
Available from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/international/
asia/01korea.html?_r=0.
741
TAP001.
742
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2012), p. 98.
Accounts of execution for the motive of cannibalism and cannibalism
in detention were also mentioned by TSH009, TBG011, TLC025.
743
Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea; WFP, "WFP Emergency Reports",
30 September 2005. See also Human Rights Watch, "A Matter of
Survival: The North Korean Government's Control of Food and the
Risk of Hunger", 2006.
744
FAO/WFP, "Special Report: Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission
to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea", 8 December 2008.
745
Ibid., pp. 23-24.
746
FAO/WFP, "Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea", 28 November 2013, p. 30.
747
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA), "DPR Korea 2013: Humanitarian Needs and Priorities", p. 6.
748
FAO/WFP, "Special Report: Crop and food security assessment mission
to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea", 8 December 2008.
749
FAO/WFP, "Executive Summary: Rapid Food Security Assessment:
Democratic People's Republic of Korea", June/July 2008, p. 3.
750
FAO/WFP, "Executive Summary: Rapid Food Security Assessment:
Democratic People's Republic of Korea", June/July 2008.
751
Scott Snyder, "North Korea Currency Reform: What Happened and What
Will happen To Its Economy?", The Asia Foundation, 31 March 2010,
p. 4. See also "North Korea revalues currency, destroying personal
savings", Washington Post, 2 December 2009.
752
Exhibit T8, Ishimaru Jiro ed., Rimjin-gang: News From Inside North
Korea, p. 169.
753
Exhibit T8, p. 167.
754
"N. Korea's Currency Reform 'a Bid to Cement Power", Chosun Ilbo, 2
December 2009, http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/
12/02/2009120200656.html
755
KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, p. 349.
756
Mr. Kim Yong-il was considered at the time as number 3 of the DPRK
regime. See "North Korea's Premier Apologizes Over Chaotic Currency
Reform", Associated Press, 10 February 2010; "N. Korean technocrat
executed for bungled currency reform: sources", Yonhap News, 18
March 2010. Available from http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/
northkorea/2010/03/18/72/0401000000AEN20100318004400315F.HTML.
757
On the executions related to the currency reform, see also section
IV.E.5.1.
758
"North Korea bans foreign currencies", USA Today, 31 December 2009.
Available from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/world/2009-12-
31-north-korea_N.htm.
759
Exhibit T8, Rimjin-gang: News From Inside North Korea, pp. 156-157
(photograph of the official decree posted on the street in January
2010).
760
KINU, White paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2012), p. 341.
761
Scott Snyder, "North Korea Currency Reform: What Happened and What
Will happen To Its Economy?", p. 3. See also "Economic
'Reform' in North Korea: Nuking the Won", Time, 3 December
2009. Available from http://content.time.com/time/world/article/
0,8599,1945251,00.html.
762
"North Koreans fear another famine amid economic crisis", Los
Angeles Times, 25 March 2010. Available from http://
articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/23/world/la-fg-korea-famine24-
2010mar24; "North Korea Backtracks as Currency Reform Sparks
Riots", TheChosun Ilbo, 15 December 2009. Available from http://
english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/12/15/
2009121500361.html.
763
A/HRC/13/13, para. 82.
764
Good Friends, "North Korea Today, No. 335", March 2010.
765
Good Friends, "North Korea Today, No. 340", June 2010.
766
"North Korea lifts restrictions on private markets as last
resort in food crisis", The Washington Post, 18 June 2010.
Available from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2010/06/18/AR2010061802837.html.
767
"Children pay for North Korea food crisis", Reuters, 6 October
2011. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOa0_Df62fo.
WFP also released a video, "The Face of Hunger in DPR Korea", 12
September 2011. Available from https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=zAcwHZraZGs.
768
WFP/ FAO / UNICEF, "Rapid Food Security Assessment Mission To The
Democratic People's Republic Of Korea", 24 March 2011.
769
TBG032.
770
"Why the World Should Be Rallying For The 'Yuan-ization' Of North
Korea", Business Insider, 22 June 2013. Available from http://
www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-hyperinflation-dollarization-
shift-2013-6.
771
Asiapress International, "North Korea: Report on the Famine in the
Hwanghae Provinces and the Food Situation", 2012.
772
"Special Report: Crisis grips North Korean rice bowl", Reuters, 7
October 2011. Available from http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/
10/07/us-korea-north-food-idUSTRE7956DU20111007.
773
TBG032.
774
TLC042. Other sources confirm these statements: Amnesty
International, "Starved of Rights": North Koreans forced to survive
on diet of grass and tree bark, 15 July 2010; Will Morrow, "Famine
threatening millions in North Korea", World Socialist website, 15
October 2011. Available from http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/
10/kore-o15.html; "North Korea faces famine: 'Tell the world we are
starving'", The Telegraph, 16 July 2011. Available from http://
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8641946/North-
Korea-faces-famine-Tell-the-world-we-are-starving.html; "Hunger
Still Haunts North Korea, Citizens Say", NPR, 10 December 2012.
Available from http://www.npr.org/2012/12/10/166760055/hunger-
still-haunts-north-korea-citizens-say; "The Dangers of the Coming
North Korean Famine", US News Weekly, 12 November 2012. Available
from http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2012/11/12/
the-political-consequences-of-famine-in-north-korea; "The Cannibals
of North Korea", Washington Post, 5 February 2013. Available from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/05/the-
cannibals-of-north-korea/; "The North Korea we rarely see", CNN, 12
April 2013. Available from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/12/world/
asia/north-korea-we-rarely-see/.
775
"PDS Distribution Volumes Rise in 2013", Daily NK, 7 August 2013.
Available from http://www.dailynk.com/english/
read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=10815.
776
OCHA, "DPR Korea 2013: Humanitarian Needs and Priorities", p. 6.
777
FAO/WFP, "Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea", 28 November 2013, p. 30.
778
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1.
779
The World Bank Group, "Poverty reduction and Economic management/
Human Development/Development Economics", May 2001, p. 27.
780
Second Periodic Report submitted in May 2002 to the Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (E/1990/6/Add.35).
781
FAO, Committee on World Food Security, "Coming to terms with
terminology" (CFS 2012/39/4).
782
Stunting reflects shortness-for-age; an indicator of chronic
malnutrition. It is calculated by comparing the height-for-age of a
child with a reference population of well-nourished and healthy
children. According to the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition's 5th
Report on the World Nutrition Situation (2005) almost one third of
all children are stunted. (WFP, http://www.wfp.org/hunger/
glossary)._Stunting is used for measuring achievements of the
Millennium Development Goals.
783
EBG007.
784
World Health Organization, "Global Database on Child Growth and
Malnutrition". Available from http://www.who.int/nutgrowthdb/about/
introduction/en/index5.html.
785
Wasting reflects a recent and severe process that has led to
substantial weight loss, usually associated with starvation and/or
disease. Wasting is calculated by comparing weight-for-height of a
child with a reference population of well-nourished and healthy
children. It is often used to assess the severity of emergencies
because it is strongly related to mortality. (WFP, available from:
http://www.wfp.org/hunger/glossary).
786
Daniel J. Hoffman and Lee Soo-kyung, "The Prevalence of Wasting,
but Not Stunting, Has Improved in the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea", Journal of Nutrition, vol. 135, No. 3 (2005), pp. 452-
466.
787
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1.
788
UNICEF, "Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition: A
survival and development priority", November 2009, pp. 11 and 104.
Available from http://www.childinfo.org/files/
Tracking_Progress_on_Child_and_Maternal_Nutrition_EN.pdf.
789
UNICEF, "Democratic People's Republic of Korea Final Report of the
National Nutrition Survey 2012", March 2013. Available from http://
www.unicef.org/eapro/DPRK_National_Nutrition_Survey_2012.pdf.
790
UNICEF, "DPRK National Nutrition Survey 2012", March 2013.
791
Kristen Devlin, "Stunting Limits Learning and Future Earnings of
Children", Population Reference Bureau, October 2012. Available
from http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/stunting-among-
children.aspx; World Bank, http://worldbank.org/children/
devstages.html. "The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study", by the
departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Gynecology
and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine of the Academic Medical Centre
in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the MRC Environmental
Epidemiology Unit of the University of Southampton in the United
Kingdom, found that the children of pregnant women exposed to
famine were more susceptible to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular
disease, microalbuminuria and other health problems. Moreover, the
children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were
smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children
grew up and had children those children were also smaller than
average. These data suggest that the famine experienced by the
mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed
down to the next generation.
792
Kathryn G. Dewey and Khadija Begum, "Long-term consequences of
stunting in early life", Maternal and Child Nutrition, vol. 7,
suppl. 3 (2011), pp. 5–18.
793
Cesar G. Victora and others, "Maternal and child undernutrition:
consequences for adult health and human capital", Lancet, vol. 371
(2008).
794
Center for Children Medicine Support Inc., "Symposium on the Health
Conditions of North Korean Children", Sejong Cultural Center, 14
November 2002.
795
On the situation of street children, see also section IV.C.1.
796
CRC/C/65/Add.24.
797
Confidential interview.
798
The name reportedly refers to the date of 27 September 1995 when
Kim Jong-Il issued the edict requesting their establishment.
Amnesty International, "Starved of Rights", p.16.
799
Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), "Child is
the King of the Country, Briefing Report on the Situation of the
Rights of the Child in the DPRK", 2009, p. 22.
800
See for instance, Doctors Without Borders, "MSF Calls on Donors to
Review Their Policy in DPRK", 30 September 1998. Available from
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=460.
801
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (00:08:57).
802 TSH020.
803
TSH051.
804
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 431.
805
TJH004.
806
See testimony of Mr Ishimaru Jiro, Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August
2013, afternoon.
807
Article 14, CEDAW.
808
See section IV.B.
809
Hazel Smith, Hungry for Peace: International Security, Humanitarian
Assistance, and Social Change in North Korea, p. 89.
810
Lim Soon-hee, "The Food Crisis and the Changing Roles and Attitudes
of North Korean Women", p. 38.
811
KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, p. 337.
812
Ibid., p. 341.
813
NKHR, "Status of Women's Rights in the Context of Socio-Economic
Changes in the DPRK, Briefing Report", May 2013, p. 28.
814
See section IV.C on related issues of trafficking in women.
815
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (01:32:00).
816
Lim Soon-hee, "The Food Crisis and the Changing Roles and Attitudes
of North Korean women", p. 26.
817
Hazel Smith, "Crimes against Humanity in North Korea? Unpacking
‘Common Knowledge' about Violations of the Right to Food," KINU, UN
Human Rights Mechanisms & Improvement of Human Rights
Conditions in North Korea," (Seoul, 2013), pp. 235, 245.
818
KINU, "Relations between corruption and human rights in North
Korea", 2013, p. 35. Hazel Smith states that "There were no
indications that the ranks of the army were given excessively large
rations, but unlike the general population they were more or less
assured of a basic food supply all year around. These were basic
rations, however, and ordinary soldiers of the million-strong army
often remained hungry, as did their families, who did not receive
preferential treatment simply because a son or daughter was serving
in the armed forces," Hazel Smith, Hungry for Peace: International
Security, Humanitarian Assistance, and Social Change in North
Korea, pp. 87-88.
819
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 3 (00:25:55).
820
TJH027.
821
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 4 (00:24:18).
822
Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine, p. 117.
823
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea, p. 111;
Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine, pp. 117 ff.
824
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 3 (00:54:12).
825
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 4 (00:24:53).
826
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, afternoon (01:51:19).
827
KINU, "Relations Between Corruption and Human Rights in North
Korea", p. 36.
828
Confidential interview.
829
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 3, and confidential
interview.
830
TSH004.
831
"Kim Jong Il Berates Cadres for Food Anarchy" (in Korean), Wolgan
Chosun, 20 March 1997, pp. 306-317; "Kim Jong Il, Speech at Kim Il
Sung University, December 1996", British Broadcasting Corporation,
21 March 1997.
832
Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine, p. 40.
833
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, afternoon (01:40:00).
834
TBG027.
835
CESCR, General Comment No. 12, para. 28.
836
See section IV.B.
837
ROK Ministry of Unification, "Food rations by class: Understanding
North Korea 2005", Education Center for Unification, March 2006,
pp. 245-247.
838
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning (00:23:35).
839
TLC033.
840
TAP001.
841
TGC004.
842
TBG004.
843
TSH019.
844
TLC040.
845
TJH019.
846
See section IV.C.
847
EJH002.
848
See footage of the negotiations between DPRK authorities and the
representative of the non-governmental organization CARE who tried
to initiate programmes in Tongsin and Huichon in Chagang province.
"The 1997 Famine Still Affecting North Korea Today".
Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30-2sPGNGEw.
849
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning (00:23:53).
This is detailed in Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine,
particularly p. 89 onwards.
850
Map produced by World Food Programme DPRK, April 2011 in "Overview
of Needs and Assistance", 2012.
851
OCHA, "DPR Korea 2013, Humanitarian Needs and priorities", p. 4.
Available from http://www.wfp.org/sites/default/files/
DPRK%20Overview%20Of%20Needs%20And%20Assistance%202012.pdf
852
CESCR, General Comment No. 12: The right to adequate food (1999),
para. 17. See also CESCR, General Comment No. 3, para. 10.
853
Hwang Jang-yop Hoegorok (Hwang Jang-yop's memoirs) (Published in
Korean by Zeitgeist, 2006, translated by Daily NK).
854
Spokesperson for the DPRK Agricultural Commission, North Korean
Policy Trend, No. 27 (January 1994), p. 47 cited in Lee Suk, "The
DPRK famine of 1994-2000: Existence and Impact", KINU, 2005, p. 8.
855
TBG022, a former ministry official; TLC033.
856
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning.
857
Official DPRK sources have emphasised that Kim Jong-il's devoted
his frequent field visits to military units and other work units
"talking to soldiers and people and acquainting himself in detail
with their living conditions." Between 1964 and 2002, Kim Jong-il
reportedly "provided field guidance to at least 8,460 units,
spending over 4,200 days." See "Kim Jong Il's Hobbies", KCNA, 24
May 2002. Available from: http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2002/200205/
news05/24.htm. "In the period from 1995 to 2001, he gave on-site
guidance to 1,300 units, covering some 116,700 kilometres." See
"Splendid fruition of Songun politics", KCNA, 9 April 2003.
Available from: http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2003/200304/news04/
10.htm.
858
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 4 (00:25:27).
859
Several agencies have expressed their concerns about the lack or
unavailability of data which impact the work in their sector.
"Students at primary schools need food and basic necessities such
as books, pencils and notebooks. The government does not reveal any
official statistics about ICT [information and communication
technologies], not even the number of people using computers."
(ICT, UNESCO, http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/themes/policy/
regional-country-overviews/north-korea/). See also World Health
Organization, "WHO Country Cooperation Strategy Democratic People's
Republic of Korea 2009-2013", p. 16.
860
See CRC/C/15/Add.88 and CEDAW/C/PRK/CO/1.
861
Human Rights Watch notes: "North Korea rarely publishes reliable
data on basics facts of life in the country. In the few exceptional
cases when it does do, the data is often limited, inconsistent, or
otherwise of questionable utility. North Korea almost never allows
foreigners to conduct research in the country. The research for
this report was carried out in the context of these
limitations." Human Rights Watch, "A Matter of Survival", May
2006.
862
CESCR, General Comment No. 12.
863
Ibid.
864
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1.
865
See section IV.D.2.a.
866
Heather Smith and Yiping Huang, "Trade disruption, collectivisation
and food crisis in North Korea", in Peter Drysdale, Yiping Huang,
and Masahiro Kawai, eds., Achieving High Growth: Experience of
Transitional Economies in East Asia (London, Routledge, 2003).
867
Lee Suk, "Food Shortages and Economic Institutions in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea"; EBG003; Jean François,
"Corée du Nord: Un régime de famine", Esprit (February 1999), p. 5.
868
EBG002, ELC007.
869
Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea, p. 36.
870
Andrei Lankov, "North Korea Makes Mistake by Not Emulating China-
Style Land Reform", Radio Free Asia, 14 October 2013. Available
from http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/famine-
10142013151315.html.
871
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning.
872
TLC033, TBG032.
873
Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea, p. 194.
874
John Everard, "The Markets of Pyongyang", Korea Economic Institute,
Academic Paper Series, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2011
875
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning (00:16:26).
876
Kim Jong-il, "Giving Priority to Ideological Work Is Essential for
accomplish Socialism", 1995, available from: http://www.korea-
dpr.com/lib/101.pdf
877
As translated in John Everard, "The Markets of Pyongyang", quoting
Wolgan Chosun of April 1997.
878
A/HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1, para. 56.
879
"Uli sig-ui gyeongjegwanlibangbeob-ui wanseong-eul/naegag gwangyeja
inteobyusahoejuuiwonchig gosu, guggaui tong-iljeogjido",
[Completing our way of economy management method—Interview with a
government official] Choson Sinbo, 10 May 2013. Available from
http://chosonsinbo.com/2013/05/0510th-4/. See also Andrei Lankov,
"How economic reforms are changing N. Korea's farming industry", NK
News, 2 January 2014, http://www.nknews.org/2014/01/how-economic-
reforms-are-changing-north-koreas-farming-industry/
880
"North Korea's 'New Economic Management System': Main features and
Problems", Korea Focus, October 2013 Available from: http://
www.koreafocus.or.kr/design2/layout/
content_print.asp?group_id=105092.
881
KINU Center for North Korean Studies, "Analysis of North Korea's
2014 New Year's Address by Kim Jong-un and Domestic and Foreign
Policy Prospects", Online Series CO 14-01.
882
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning (03:22:00).
883
TLC033.
884
Andrei Lankov, "How economic reforms are changing N. Korea's
farming industry", NK News, 2 January 2014. Available from http://
www.nknews.org/2014/01/how-economic-reforms-are-changing-north-
koreas-farming-industry.
885
See Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking
Glass (Brookings Institute, 2000), p. 55.
886
TLC013.
887
TBG028.
888
TCC014.
889
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 4 (00:59:30)
890
TLC033.
891
TJH044.
892
TLC038.
893
TBG032.
894
TJH027, TJH044, TSH052.
895
TBG015, TBG016.
896
TBG005.
897
TBG020.
898
TSH019.
899
TSH052.
900
TLC013.
901
TJH027.
902
WFP, "The Coping Strategies Index: A tool for rapid measurement of
household food security and the impact of food aid programmes in
humanitarian emergencies, Field Methods Manual", Second Edition,
January 2008, p. 3.
903
See section IV.C.
904
See section IV.C.1.
905
Andrew Natsios, "The Politics of Famine in North Korea", p.12.
906
Amnesty International, "Starved of Rights", p. 16.
907
See section IV.C.
908
See also section IV.C.
909
Washington Public Hearing, 30 October 2013 (00:35:00).
910
Idid. (00:36 :00).
911
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
912
See section IV.C.2.
913
See section IV.C.2.
914
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the decree from Kim Jong-il
said, "If anyone crosses the border because they are in need of
food, they shall live." This decree was effective between 16
February 2000 (Kim Jong-il's birthday) to 10 October 2000 (the
fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Korean Workers
Party). HRW, "The Invisible Exodus: North Koreans in the PRC".
Available from http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/northkorea/
norkor1102.pdf.
915
Meredith Woo-Cumings, "The Political Ecology of Famine: The North
Korean Catastrophe and Its Lessons".
916
See Decision No. 2483 of the Presidium of the Supreme People's
Assembly, adopted on 19 December 2007.
917
For details on the inhumane conditions prevailing in these
detention facilities, see section IV.E.4 b).
918
TSH038.
919
TBG001.
920
TBG010.
921
For more details on the use of Chinese mobile phones, see section
IV.A.
922
TBG004.
923
CESCR, General Comment No. 12, para. 17 (E/C.12/1999/5).
924
A/65/282, paras. 81 and 82.
925
A/65/282, paras. 86 ff.
926
See for instance, Doctors Without Borders, "MSF Calls on Donors to
Review Their Policy in DPRK", 30 September 1998. Available from
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=460. See
also L. Gordon Flake and Scott Snyder, Paved withGoodIntentions.
The NGO Experience in North Korea (Praeger Publishers, 2003), p.
111.
927
John Feffer, "North Korea and the politics of famine, Part 2: Human
rights violations", Asia Times, 23 September 2006. Available
fromhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HI23Dg01.html
928
TLC033, ELC003.
929
See in this regard sections IV.B, IV.C and IV.D.2.
930
See above, section IV.D.1.
931
Exhibit W-2. Provided by Marcus Noland, "Accessible &
Restricted Counties 1995-1996", WFP Asia Regional Bureau
(2005).
932
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning (02:51:38).
933
Fiona Therry, Condemned to Repeat?: The Paradox of Humanitarian
Action(Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 243.
934
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea, p. 89.
See also section IV.D.1.
935
On its web site, WFP states that its operations currently target
"2.4 million women and children in 87 of DPRK's 210 counties".
Available from http://www.wfp.org/countries/korea-democratic-
peoples-republic-dprk/overview.
936
WFP, "Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Newly Proposed PRRO
Operational Coverage 2012-2013". Available from http://
reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/
Democratic%20Peoples%20Republic%20of%20Korea%20Newly%20Proposed%20PRRO%20Operational%20Coverage%202012%202013_0.pdf.
937
CESCR Committee, Concluding Observations on DPRK, E/C.12/1/Add.95,
para. 21; CRC Concluding Observations CRC/C/PRK/CO/4, para. 16;
CEDAW Concluding Observations A/60/38, para. 60.
938
See for instance WFP, "Emergency Food Assistance to Vulnerable
Groups in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea". Available
from http://one.wfp.org/operations/current_operations/project_docs/
200266.pdf.
939
Action Contre la Faim, "Action Against Hunger stops its activities
in North Korea", 10 March 2000. Available from http://
reliefweb.int/report/democratic-peoples-republic-korea/action-
against-hunger-stops-its-activities-north-
korea#sthash.Yp6AJhK8.dpuf.
940
Doctors Without Borders, "MSF Calls on Donors to Review Their
Policy in DPRK", 30 September 1998. Available from http://
www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=460
941
EBG003.
942
According to a nutritionist who visited a nursery and orphanage in
Cheongjin, in North Hamgyeong Province, on 15 July 1999, aid did
not reach the most vulnerable children. At the nursery, the
nutritionist saw 20 severely malnourished children, 3 of whom were
about to die. At the orphanage, she saw 11 severely malnourished
children. The children were dirty and suffering from skin
infections such as scabies, and appeared as if they had been left
unattended by the staff. The children received goats milk mixed
with water and water mixed with sugar, neither of which is adequate
as a treatment for malnutrition. The nursery did not have any high-
energy milk even though UNICEF had delivered two tons of high-
energy milk to the nursery in Chongjin in May 1999. Jean-Fabrice
Pietri, Action Contre la Faim, "The Inadequacies of Food Aid In
North Korea", Summary of Comments (Plenary Session II), IVth
International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees,
Prague, March 2003.
943
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea, p. 96.
944
L. Gordon Flake and Scott Snyder, Paved withGoodIntentions. The NGO
Experience in North Korea, p. 115.
945
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning (01:44:48).
946
Humanitarian Practice Network, "North Korea: Conflict Management,
Food Aid and Humanitarian Principles". Available from http://
www.odihpn.org/general/north-korea-conflict-management-food-aid-
and-humanitarian-principles.
947
Doctors Without Borders, "MSF Calls on Donors to Review Their
Policy in DPRK", 30 September 1998.
948
United Nations Country Team, "Overview of needs and assistance",
2012. Available from http://www.wfp.org/sites/default/files/DPRK
per_cent20Overview_per_cent20Of_per_cent20Needs_per_cent20And_per
cent20Assistance_per_cent202012.pdf.
949
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "Frequently Asked
Questions on Economic, Social and cultural Rights," Geneva, 2008,
p. 13.
950
See CESCR, General Comment No. 12, para. 17, (E/C.12/1999/5), and
CESCR, General Comment No. 3, annex III, para. 10 (E/1991/23).
951
FAO/WFP, "Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea", 28 November 2013.
952
"Report on Implementation of 2009 Budget and 2010 Budget", KCNA, 9
April 2010. Available from http://kcna.co.jp/item/2010/201004/
news09/20100409-10ee.html.
953
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, "U.S. Defense
Spending vs. Global Defense Spending", 24 April 2013. Available
from http://armscontrolcentre.org/issues/securityspending/articles/
2012_topline_global_defense_spending/.
954
See also section III.E.
955
On 21 March 2003 an Editorial Bureau Special Article in the DPRK
newspaper Rodong Sinmun, "Military-First Ideology Is an ever-
Victorious, Invincible Banner for Our Era's Cause of Independence"
was broadcast on Pyongyang Korean Central Broadcasting Station
(KCBS). The translated text is available from http://nautilus.org/
publications/books/dprkbb/military/dprk-briefing-book-dprk-
military-first-doctrinal-declaration/.
956
"Military- First Politics is a Precious Sword of Sure Victory for
National Sovereignty", Rodong Sinmun, 2003. Translated text
available from http://nautilus.org/publications/books/dprkbb/
military/dprk-briefing-book-dprk-military-first-doctrinal-
declaration/.
957
Note that the IMF estimates the price of rice at USD 448 in
November 2013 (Commodity Market Monthly, December 2013. Available
from http://www.imf.org/external/np/res/commod/pdf/monthly/
121313.pdf).
958
Other figures at the disposal of the Commission suggest this figure
to be higher and around 14.7 billion dollars.
959
Submission to the Commission: Marcus Noland.
960
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, morning (01:16:00).
961
See for instance, "North Korea Buying Old Russian Subs", New York
Times, 20 January 1994. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/1994/
01/20/world/north-korea-buying-old-russian-subs.html.
962
Submission to the Commission: Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland,
Hunger and Human Rights, p. 16.
963
A/60/306, para. 17.
964
Speech delivered by Kim Jong-un on 15 April 2012 in Kim Il-sung
square in Pyongyang. An unofficial English translation of the full
text is available at: http://www.northkoreatech.org/2012/04/18/
english-transcript-of-kim-jong-uns-speech/
965
"Review of Fulfilment of State Budget for Last Year and State
Budget for This Year", KCNA, 1 April 2013. Mr Choe's report was
given before the 7th Session of the 12th Supreme People's Assembly.
966
Reportedly, the DPRK spent $1.34 billion for the launch of two
rockets in 2012. "North Korea's rocket costs as much as a year's
worth of food,"The Hankyoreh, 8 December 2012. Available from http:
//www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/564382.html.
967
Kristin Gustavson and Jinmin Lee Rudolf, "Political and Economic
Human Rights Violations in North Korea" in Thomas H. Henrikson and
Jongryn Mo, eds., North Korea after Kim Il Sung :Continuity
orChange? (Hoover Institution Press, 1997), p. 142.
968
Kim Jong-il, "On preserving the Juche Character and National
Character of the Revolution and Construction" (19 June 1997).
Available from http://www.korea-dpr.com/lib/111.pdf.
969
"North Korea warns against outside aid", The Associated Press, 4
October 2000.
970
According to the United Nations Country Team in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, "the Government continues to link the
granting of more favourable operating conditions to the amount of
resources being brought into the country, which means that an
agency with lower funding is allowed less access to populations."
See "Overview of needs and assistance", 2012.
971
Submission to the Commission: Marcus Noland based on FAO/WFP data
available in the International Food Aid Information System
(INTERFAIS) database.
972
Submission to the Commission: Marcus Noland based on data provided
by the ROK Ministry of Unification, FAO Special reports, and Mr
Noland's own calculations.
973
Congressional Research Service (CRS), "Foreign Assistance to North
Korea", 11 June 2013.
974
See "North Korea rejects UN food aid", BBC News, 23 September 2005.
Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4273844.stm.
975
CRS, "Foreign Assistance to North Korea".
976
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea, p. 245.
977
TBG025, TJH015.
978
CRS, "Report for Congress, North Korean Crime-for-Profit
Activities", 25 August 2008.
979
See, for instance, "Overseas North Koreans Work like Kim Jong Il's
Slaves", Daily NK, 29 April 2011.
980
TLC032.
981
TBG025. The name of this company is also mentioned in the report of
the Panel of Experts to assist the Security Council Committee
established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009), S/2013/337.
982
TJH015.
983
TJH005.
984
TJH022.
985
TBG022.
986
"The First disclosure of the Kim Il Sung Tomb Castle which was
built at the expense of 3 million lives," Daily NK, 3 July 2006.
Available from http://www.dailynk.com/english/
read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=606 and the DPRK Uriminzokkiri
website which shows pictures of this facility
(www.uriminzokkiri.com).
987
TBG022.
988
TSH019. See also "Oriental medicine doctor gives S. Koreans tastes
of N. Korea's 'royal court medicine'", Yonhap News, 22 August 2011.
989
TAP011.
990
TBG012.
991
For instance, the extension of the Victorious Fatherland War Museum
took 10 months. "Report on WPK Leadership over Construction of War
Museum, 13 August 2013", KCNA. Available from http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDk3WjuRkw4&feature=player_embedded.
992
"Review of Fulfilment of State Budget for Last Year and State
Budget for This Year", KCNA, 1 April 2013. Available from http://
www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201304/news01/20130401-20ee.html.
993
"Kim Jong Un Visits Masik Pass Skiing Ground", KCNA, 26 May 2013.
994
"Songdowon Bathing Resort Crowded with Visitors", KCNA, 24 August
2013. Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2004/200408/news08/
25.htm; "Munsu Water Park Completed", KCNA, 15 October 2013.
Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201310/news15/
20131015-30ee.html; "Runga Dolphinarium Crowded with Visitors",
KCNA, 21 August 2013. Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/
2013/201308/news21/20130821-15ee.html. See also "Kim splurges on
vanity projects while his people go hungry", DW, 1 November 2013.
Available from http://www.dw.de/kim-splurges-on-vanity-projects-
while-his-people-go-hungry/a-17198244.
995
2010Report S/2010/571; Report of the Panel of Experts established
pursuant to resolution 1874 (2009). Available fromhttp://
www.un.org/sc/committees/1718/panelofexperts.shtml.
996
"North Korea's Kim Jong-un splurges on luxury goods in bid to
strengthen rule," The Telegraph, 14 October 2013. Available from
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10377154/North-
Koreas-Kim-Jong-un-splurges-on-luxury-goods-in-bid-to-strengthen-
rule.html.
997
"North Korea Admits Its Famine Killed Hundreds of Thousands",
Associated Press, 10 May 1999.
998
TBG020.
999
"North Korea 'loses 3 million to famine'", BBC News, 17 February
1999. Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/
281132.stm.
1000Hwang Jang-yop,North Korea: Truth or Lies,(Intitute for
Reunification Policy Studies, 1998), p. 15.SUB0064.
1001
Daniel Goodkind and Loraine West, "The North Korean Famine and Its
Demographic Impact", Population and Development Review, vol. 27,
No. 2 (June 2001). Available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/
2695207.
1002
Daniel Goodkind, Loraine West and Peter Johnson, "A Reassessment of
Mortality in North Korea, 1993-2008", 28 March 2011. Available from
http://paa2011.princeton.edu/papers/111030.
1003
W Courtland Robinson and others ,"Rising Mortality in North Korean
Households Reported by Migrants in China", Lancet, vol. 354, No.
9175 (July 1999).
1004
Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea, pp. 72-
76.
1005
See for instance "Ending Malnutrition by 2020: an Agenda for Change
in the Millennium", Final Report to the Administrative Committee on
Coordination of the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition
(ACC/SCN) by the Commission on the Nutrition Challenges of the 21st
Century, February 2000.
1006
See E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/12, para. 22.
1007
See section V.F.
1008
Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and
Deprivation (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983).
1009
This argument was originally developed by Amrita Rangasami "Failure
of exchange entitlements theory of famine: a response", Economic
and Political Weekly, vol. 20, No. 41 (1985), p. 1748 and has also
been cited with approval by Jenny Edkins, "Starvations and the
Limitations of Famine Theorising", Institute of Development Studies
(IDS)Bulletin, vol. 33, No. 2, (2002), p. 14.
1010
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, afternoon (01:35:17).
1011
See sections IV.E.3 and IV.E.4 for a more detailed description of
conditions in political and ordinary prisons
1012
See section IV.E.
1013
DPRK Code of Criminal Procedure, articles 160, 180 and 182. See
also statements by the delegation of the DPRK before the Human
Rights Committee, as reflected in CCPR/C/SR.1946 (2001), para. 20.
1014
KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, p. 202.
1015
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
1016
According to article 124 of the DPRK Code of Criminal Procedure,
the SSD is designated to investigate the political crimes that the
DPRK Criminal Code refers to as "anti-state and anti-people
crimes". The KPA Military Security Command is in principle only
responsible for political crimes involving military personnel, but
in practices also takes on other cases. See also section III.E.
1017
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:40:59).
1018
TLC028.
1019
TJH010.
1020
See KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p.
203.
1021
According to the preamble of the United Nations Declaration on the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by
General Assembly 47/133, enforced disappearances occur where
"persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or
otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different
branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private
individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or
indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a
refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons
concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their
liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the
law."
Almost the same definition is contained in article 2 of the
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance, which the DPRK has not yet signed.
1022
The treatment of suspects in jipkyulso holding centres is also
covered in section IV.C.2.
1023
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (00:31:25).
1024
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning.
1025
TBG005.
1026
Former officials TJH015, TAP024.
1027
TJH015.
1028
TLC01.
1029
TBG023.
1030
Human Rights Council, National Report for the Universal Periodic
Review submitted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, A/
HRC/WG.6/6/PRK/1 (2009), para. 36.
1031
Relevant testimony was provided by TAP011, a former official. See
also State Report of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to
the Human Rights Committee, CCPR/C/PRK/2000/2, para. 47.
1032
See Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), Political
Prison Camps in North Korea Today, 2nd ed. (Seoul, NKDB, 2012), p.
485 (referring to the conviction and sentence of an SSD officer to
10 years of imprisonment for torturing and killing a political
prisoner)..
1033
On the obligation to provide adequate effective and prompt
reparation for torture and other gross human rights violations, see
Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and
Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human
Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian
Law, adopted by General Assembly resolution 60/147, paras 15 ff..
See also Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 20, article 7,
HRI/GEN/1/Rev.1 at 30 (1994), para. 15.
1034
See the legal standards reflected in section IV.E.4.a) (iii).
1035
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning (02:04:50).
A depiction of the pigeon torture, drawn by another victim, Mr Kim
Gwang-il, is reproduced at the end of section IV.E.2 c).
1036
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning (02:09:00).
1037
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning (02:09:45).
1038
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
1039
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning (01:35:00).
1040
Washington Public Hearing, 30 October 2013.
1041
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning.
1042
TJH028.
1043
TBG018.
1044
TJH032.
1045
TJH024.
1046
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (02:48:46).
1047
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
1048
Depictions of the "pigeon", "plane" and "motorcycle" tortures,
drawn and submitted by Mr Kim Gwang-il, are reproduced at the end
of this section.
1049
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon.
1050
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (00:36:01).
1051
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning, with additional
information provided in a more detailed confidential interview.
1052
TSH014.
1053
For instance, the death sentence preceding the execution of Mr Jang
Song-Thaek was handed down by the Special Military Court of the
State Security Department handed down. See "Traitor Jang Song Thaek
Executed", KCNA, 13 December 2013. Available from http://
www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201312/news13/20131213-05ee.html. See also
below, section V.E.5 a).
1054
The Commission could not establish how much autonomy the MPS enjoys
in taking decisions on how to dispose of a case. According to the
Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), cases
handled by the MPS are usually referred to a People's Safety
Committee dominated by the Workers' Party of Korea, which instructs
the MPS how to handle the case. See Kim Soo-am, "The North Korean
Penal Code, Criminal Procedures, and their Actual Applications",
KINU, 2006, p. 40.
1055
A survey among persons who fled the DPRK, carried out by the Seoul-
based, non-governmental Database Center for Human Rights (NKDB),
found that 75 per cent of respondents knew about the existence of
political prison camps, while they still lived in the DPRK. See
NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, p. 16.
1056
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (01:07:50).
1057
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (00:50:45).
1058
During the Universal Periodic Review, the delegate of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea insisted that "so-called
political prisoners' camps do not exist", admitting only to the
existence of reform institutions where persons sentenced of anti-
state or other crimes serve sentences of reform through labour. See
A/HRC/13/13, para. 45. See also the statements of the DPRK
delegation denying the existence of political prison camps before
the Human Rights Committee reflected in CCPR/C/SR.1945 , para. 31.
1059
See Minnesota Lawyers' International Human Rights Committee and
Human Rights Watch/Asia, Human Rights in the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea (Minneapolis, Minnesota Lawyers International
Human Rights Committee, 1988).
1060
Testimony of Mr Ahn Myong-chol, Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August
2013, afternoon (00:18:10). Confidential interviews with witnesses
TJH004 and TJH041. See also the testimony provided by Mr K and Mr
Song Yoon-bok, Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, afternoon.
1061
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning.
1062
Seoul Public Hearing: Mr Shin Dong-hyuk, 20 August 2013, afternoon;
Ms Kim Young-soon; Mr Jeong Kwang-il and Mr Kim Eun-chol, all 21
August 2013, morning; Mr Ahn Myong-chol, 21 August 2013, afternoon;
Mr Ji Seong-ho, 22 August 201, morning; and Mr Kang Chol-hwan, 24
August 2013, afternoon. Tokyo Public Hearing: Mr K, 30 August 2013,
afternoon. London Public Hearing: Ms Park Ji-hyun, 23 October 2013,
session 2.
1063
During the Seoul Public Hearing, former inmates Mr. Shin Dong-hyuk
(20 August 2013, afternoon), Mr. Jeong Kwang-il (21 August 2013,
morning) and former guard Mr. Ahn Myong-chol (21 August 2013,
afternoon) displayed and explained satellite images covering Camps
No. 14 and 15. During the Washington Public hearing (31 October
2013, afternoon), David Hawk of the U.S. American, non-governmental
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and professional
satellite imagery analyst Joel S. Bermudez provided evidence
relating to Camp 18 and 22. In addition, HRNK submitted recent
satellite imagery on Camp No. 25, which is also included in the
public report of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea/
Digital Globe, "North Korea's Camp No. 25", 2013. Available from
http://hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/HRNK_Camp25_201302_Updated_LQ.pdf.
Amnesty International submitted to the Commission recent satellite
imagery and pertaining expert analysis covering Camps No. 14, 15
and 16. The satellite images and related information submitted is
also reflected in Amnesty International, "North Korea: New
Satellite Images show continued Investment in the Infrastructure of
Repression", 2013. Available from http://www.amnesty.org/en/
library/info/ASA24/010/2013/en and Amnesty International, "North
Korea: New images show blurring of prison camps and villages",
2013. Available from http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/north-korea-
new-images-show-blurring-prison-camps-and-villages-2013-03-07
Some of the images presented at the public hearings and in
submissions, as well as a map showing the approximate location of
political and ordinary prison camps are available on the website of
the Commission: www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK.
The satellite images at the disposal of the Commission were
obtained from commercial satellite services. The Commission was
informed that the intelligence services of the United States of
America, the Republic of Korea and perhaps also other countries are
likely to have higher resolution images of the camps. The
declassification of such imagery would provide an even clearer
picture of the evolution and current situation of the camps.
1064
It is common practice in the DPRK to assign numbers to
institutions. However, the system for the numbers assigned to
different Political Prison Camps(kwanliso) is not clear. The camps
do not seem to have been numbered based on the order of their
establishment, and there also appear to be missing or unknown
numbers.
1065
The GeoCoordinates of the central area of Camp No. 14 are 39.3415N
-126.0319E.
1066
See testimony of former Camp No. 14 inmate Mr Shin Dong-hyuk, Seoul
Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon.
1067
The GeoCoordinates of the central area of Camp 15 are 39.4032N-
126.5059E.
1068
Only in very rare occasions, a high-level officials sent to a total
control zone might be released based on instructions from the very
top. See Mr Ahn Myong-chol, Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013,
afternoon. One such reported case is that of Mr Kim Yong, a former
Lieutenant-Colonel, who was incarcerated at Camp No. 14 after
details about his father's badsongbun were discovered. See David
Hawk, The Hidden Gulag, 2nd ed. (Washington D.C., HRNK, 2012), pp.
51 ff.
1069
Seoul Public Hearing: Ms Kim Young-soon; Mr Jeong Kwang-il and Mr
Kim Eun-chol, 21 August 2013, morning; Mr Ahn Myong-chol, 21 August
2013, afternoon; and Mr Kang Chol-hwan, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
Some observers fear that releases from the revolutionizing zones
are no longer carried out. See testimony of Mr David Hawk,
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, afternoon.
1070
The GeoCoordinates for the central area of Camp 16 are 41.1849N
129.2032E.
1071
TJH041.
1072
The GeoCoordinates for Camp 25 are 41.5002N 129.4334E.
1073
TLC025 and TJH041. See also NKDB, Prisoners in North Korea Today,
2nd ed. (Seoul, NKDB, 2012), p. 93 referring to a camp operated by
the KPA Military Security Command in Hoechang County, South Pyongan
Province. See also Good Friends, "North Korea Today No. 465", 25
July 2012. Available from http://www.goodfriendsusa.blogspot.ch/
2012/08/north-korea-today-no-465-july-25-2012.html, providing
details on a KPA Military Security Command detention camp in Kumya
County, South Hamgyong Province.
1074
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 4 (00:34:26).
1075
Relevant testimony was provided by Mr Ahn Myong-chol in a follow-up
interview to his public hearing testimony and confidential
interviews with Ms Kim Hye-sook; TJH004; and TJH041. See also NKDB,
Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, pp. 68 ff.
1076
Lee Keum-soon, "Human Rights Conditions of the Political Prison
Camps in North Korea", in KINU, UN Human Rights Mechanisms and
Improvement of Human Rights Conditions in North Korea, 2013, p.
195, p. 206. See also David Hawk, North Korea's Hidden Gulag:
Interpreting Reports of Changes in the Prison Camps(Washington
D.C., HRNK, 2013), p. 14.
1077
Lee Keum-soon, "Human Rights Conditions of the Political Prison
Camps in North Korea", id..
1078
See testimony of Mr Song Yoon-bok, Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August
2013, afternoon and Mr David Hawk, Washington Public Hearing, 31
October 2013, afternoon. See also David Hawk, North Korea's Hidden
Gulag: Interpreting Reports of Changes in the Prison Camps
(Washington D.C., HRNK, 2013), p. 20.
1079
See testimony of Mr K and Mr Song Yoon-bok, Tokyo Public Hearing,
30 August 2013, afternoon and Mr David Hawk, Washington Public
Hearing, 31 October 2013, afternoon. See also NKDB, Political
Prison Camps in North Korea Today, p. 73. David Hawk, The Hidden
Gulag, p. 28.
1080
Confidential interview with TJH041, TJH011. See also NKDB,
Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, pp. 74-77.
1081
At the Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, afternoon, Mr Shibata
Hiroyuki presented information indicating that his brother Shibata
Kozo was incarcerated in this prison for political reasons from the
early 1960s until the early 1990s. In a follow-up interview to his
public hearing testimony, Mr Ahn Myong-chol also confirmed that a
political prison known as Camp 26 existed at Sungho.
1082
See Amnesty International, "North Korea: Concern about the fate of
Shibata Kozo and his family", September 1994 (ASA 24/007/1994).
1083
Interview with former Camp 18 inmate Ms Kim Hye-sook and Witnesses
TGC004, TSH029, TAP012.
1084
Satellite images show a newly constructed restricted area of
about14.6 square kilometres in Ch'oma Bong, which features housing
facilities, barbwire fences and guard posts This facility is
located just west of Camp No. 14 and shares part of its perimeter
with Camp No. 14. See testimony of professional satellite analyst,
Mr Joseph S.Bermudez Jr., Washington Public Hearing, 31 October
2013, afternoon.
1085
TJH004. NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, p. 16.
Song Yoon-bok, Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, afternoon,
also referred to Camp 17, indicating that it may still operate.
1086
See below, section IV.E.3 b).
1087
See also NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, pp. 105
ff. The existence of camp 19 was confirmed by former official
TBG031.
1088
See NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, p. 71; David
Hawk, The Hidden Gulag, pp. 27 ff.
1089
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 148.
1090
David Hawk, North Korea's Hidden Gulag: Interpreting Reports of
Changes in the Prison Camps, p. 36.
1091
NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, p. 111.
1092
Confidential Interview with TJH041, a former political prison camp
official. Hwang Jang-yop, the most senior official who ever fled
from the DPRK, has reportedly also testified that the first camp
was established in 1958 in Bukchang County, South Pyongan Province.
See NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, pp. 95-96.
A diplomatic cable sent in 1959 by the Ambassador of German
Democratic Republic (GDR) notes the following: "In recent time the
persecution of comrades who express a different opinion has been
increased. They are being sent to rural areas, mines, hydropower
dams and also into prison camps." In 1957, the GDR Embassy already
noted information according to which students who had returned from
Poland had been sent to prison camps in Pyongyang that were guarded
by soldiers. For a citation of the original German texts, which
were found in GDR archives after Germany's reunification, see Liana
Kang-Schmitz, Nordkoreas Umgang mit Abhängigkeit und
Sicherheitsrisiko, pp. 225-226. On the purges see also section
III.D.
1093
Most inmates of the Soviet Union prison camps operated by the
Glavnoye upravleniye lagerey i koloniy (Main Administration of
Corrective Labor Camps and Labor Settlements), better known by its
acronym GULag, could occasionally receive visits and correspondence
from family. However, the prisoners in the DPRK's political prison
camps are held completely incommunicado, making them more
vulnerable to gross violations. See David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag,
p. 32. For a comprehensive description of the GULag system see
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1973).
1094
TJH011.
1095
Testimony provided by Witnesses TJH004, TJH039, TJH044. See also
the witness testimony reflected in National Human Rights Commission
of Korea [Republic of Korea], Compilation of North Korean Human
Rights Violations (2012), pp. 62, 63 and 68; NKDB, Political Prison
Camps in North Korea Today, pp. 133, 476 & 478.
1096
TCC014.
1097
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
1098
According to former SSD political prison camp Ahn Myong-chol, Kim
Il-sung made this statement first on the occasion of an unpublished
speech before officials of the Ministry of State Security in 1958,
during which he addressed the ongoing purges of rival factions. See
Kim Yong-sam with Ahn Myong-chol, Political Prisoners' Camps in
North Korea (Seoul, Center for the Advance of North Korean Human
Rights, 195), p. 52.
On 1 March 1958, the Ambassador of the Soviet Union to the DPRK
recorded in his journal that Kim Il-sung told him that on that day
he would be delivering a speech before officials of the Ministry of
State Security making reference to "increasing the struggle against
the intrigues of counterrevolutionary elements". See Journal of
Soviet Ambassador to the DPRK A.M. Puzanov for 1 March 1958, as
translated by Gary Goldberg and published by the Wilson Center
History and Public Policy Program Digital. Available from http://
digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/115970.
Other sources have indicated that Kim Il-sung first made the
statement in 1972. See Ian Jeffries, North Korea, 2009-2012: A
Guide to Economic and Political Developments (Routledge, 2012), p.
28; David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag, p. 29.
1099
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon
1100
Confidential interviews with Ahn Myong-chol.
1101
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (00:43:36).
1102
Ms Kim could not participate in the public hearings. The Commission
conducted a video-conference-based interview with her, during which
she agreed to have her name published in this report.
1103
TAP012.
1104
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon.
1105
TJH007.
1106
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning.
1107
TJH019.
1108
See also section IV.F.1 f).
1109
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
1110
TJH018.
1111
TJH009.
1112
NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, p.128.
1113
One observer has claimed that from the mid- or late-1990s, after
Kim Jong-il became Supreme Leader, instructions were given to the
security agencies to only send the family of a political wrongdoer
to a political prison camp in special circumstances. See Andrei
Lankov, The Real North Korea, p. 47. See also Andrei Lankov, "How
Human Rights in North Korea are gradually improving", NK News, 12
September 2013. Available from http://www.nknews.org/2013/09/how-
human-rights-in-north-korea-are-gradually-improving/.
1114
TJH019.
1115
TLC004.
1116
See "Arrested Terrorist Interviewed", KCNA,19 July 2012. Available
from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201207/news19/20120719-
08ee.html. Footage of Mr Jon's alleged confession, produced by
KCNA, is available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl2g-h2zMyM.
1117
See also "Jang's Family Hit with Prison Camp Transfer", Daily NK,
20 December 2013. Available from http://www.dailynk.com/english/
read.php?num=11296&cataId=nk01500.
1118
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:58:40).
1119
See Mr David Hawk, Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013,
afternoon.
1120
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (01:11:40).
1121
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:14:35).
1122
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning.
1123
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon.
1124
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (00:57:50).
1125
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon.
1126
Kang Chol-hwan, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, pp. 95-96. The contents
of the book were authenticated by Mr Kang in the Seoul Public
Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
1127
TLC008.
1128
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (01:09:47).
1129
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:10:40).
1130
Confidential interview by video-conference.
1131
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (00:41:00).
1132
Camp 18, which was run by the Ministry of People's Security, marked
an exception to this practice. In that camp, prisoners of a certain
age (30 years for men, 28 years for women) were allowed to choose a
partner and marry, provided that they had a good record of work and
obedience.
1133
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (00:46:36).
1134
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:31:45).
1135
TLC018.
1136
TSH019.
1137
NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, p. 492.
1138
Taking advantage of coercive circumstances as a type of coercion
giving raise to rape has been recognized inter alia by the
jurisprudence of the ICTY Appeals Chamber and the official
interpretation of rape under the ICC Statute. See Kunarac, Kovac,
and Vokovic, IT-96-23& IT-96-23/1-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber],
Judgment of 12 June 2002, para. 129 [finding that the lack of
consent on the part of victim characteristic of rape also exists
where the perpetrator is "taking advantage of coercive
circumstances without relying on physical force"]. See also
Elements of Crime, Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court, 1st Session, Sept. 3–10, 2002,
article 7(1)(g)-1, article 8(2)(b)(xxii)-1, article 8(2)(e)(vi)-1.
1139
NKDB, Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today, pp. 487-88.
1140
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon. The last two
incidents were described by Mr Ahn in a follow-up interview
conducted by the Commission after the public hearing. Mr Ahn
provides the same testimony in NKDB, Political Prison Camps in
North Korea Today, pp. 236, 289.
1141
Confidential interview with Ms Kim Hye-sook.
1142
TSH029.
1143
TJH041.
1144
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:16:40).
1145
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (01:39:05).
1146
For more details on the starvation of prisoners, see also section
IV.D.9.
1147
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning (00:31:50).
1148
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (03:31:30).
1149
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon.
1150
Confidential interview.
1151
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning.
1152
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (00:30:29).
1153
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, morning (01:48:10).
1154
TSH029.
1155
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon.
1156
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (00:34:50).
1157
Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, afternoon.
1158
Confidential interview.
1159
TSH029.
1160
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (01:39:50).
1161
Blaine Harden with Shin Dong-hyuk, Escape from Camp No. 14 (New
York, Penguin Books, 2012), p. 77.
1162
Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, afternoon.
1163
Confidential interivew.
1164
TAP012.
1165
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (01:18:00).
1166
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
1167
Kang Chol-hwan, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, p. 101.
1168
Kang Chol-hwan, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, p. 102.
1169
Considering the particularly dismal living conditions in the
political prison camps and also taken into account the death rates
of sometimes 20 per cent or more reported from ordinary prison
camps (see below, section VI.D.4.a) , it can be conservatively
assumed that the average annual death rate among political prison
camp inmates is at least 10 per cent. This would be a death rate
ten times higher than the crude death rate for the general
population in the DPRK. According to the latest figures available
to the World Health Organization, this mortality rate stands at 1
per cent (10 per 1000 persons). See World Health Organization,
"South Eastern Asia Region: Democratic People's Republic of Korea
statistics summary (2002 - present)". Available from http://
apps.who.int/gho/data/view.country.7400). If this estimated annual
death rate of 10 per cent is applied to the reported estimates of
105,000 prisoners for the period of 1982-1990 and 150,000 for the
period 1991-2005 and 100,000 for the period 2006-2013, the
estimated number of deaths would be 395,500 for the last 31 years
alone. This figure corresponds with the estimate of at least
400,000 dead over the course of three decades, which has been put
forward by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK).
See HRNK, "Founding Document". Available from http://www.hrnk.org/
publications/founding-document.php.
1170
Only the usage of police holding centres (jipkyulso) as places of
punishment has no apparent basis in the Criminal Code.
1171
See section IV.C.
1172
CCPR/C/SR.1944, para. 26.
1173
Responses of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the list
of issues and questions for consideration of the initial report,
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) Working Group 33rd session, CEDAW/PSWG/2005/II/CRP.2/add.3,
p. 8.
1174
See below, sub-section a) for a listing of known ordinary prison
camps and sub-section b) for figures on short-term forced labour
detention facilities.
1175
Human Rights Council, Report of the Working Group on the Universal
Periodic Review: Democratic People's Republic of Korea, A/HRC/13/13
(2009), para. 45. This principle is also anchored in article 31 of
the DPRK Criminal Code.
1176
CCPR/C/SR.1944, para. 28.
1177
DPRK responses to the list of issues and questions for
consideration of the initial report, Committee on the Elimination
of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Working Group 33rd session,
CEDAW/PSWG/2005/II/CRP.2/add.3, p. 7.
1178
See above, section IV.A.
1179
The Commission could confirm the existence of these prisons based
on testimony from former inmates and/or admission of their
existence by the DPRK. Additional information on the prisons is
based on NKDB, Prisoners in North Korea Today, pp. 59 ff. See also
the list of known kyohwaso in David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag, pp. 19
and 83 ff.
1180
NKDB, Prisoners in North Korea Today, pp. 59 ff.
1181
On the lack of independence and impartiality of the judicial
system, see also section III.E.
1182
United Kingdom All Party Parliamentary Group for North Korea,
"Building Bridges not Walls: The Case for Constructive, Critical
Engagement with North Korea", October 2010, p. 23. Available from
http://www.jubileecampaign.org/BuildBridgesNotWalls.pdf.
1183
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (00:23:48).
1184
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning.
1185
TBG011.
1186
TJH009.
1187
See KBA, 2012 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013),
pp. 210 ff.
1188
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
1189
TAP016.
1190
TBG013.
1191
TBG010.
1192
In application of the standards set out by International Labour
Organization (ILO) Conventions No. 29 and No. 105 on Forced Labour,
the ILO considers that any of the following types of involuntary
prison labour amounts to forced labour : involuntary work performed
by prisoners who have not been duly convicted in a court of law ;
involuntary work performed by a prisoner for the benefit of a
private undertaking ; any involuntary labour that serves the
purposes of political coercion or education, or as a punishment for
holding or expressing political views; workforce mobilization for
purposes of economic development; labour discipline; punishment for
having participated in strikes; or racial, social, national or
religious discrimination. See ILO, "Combatting Forced Labour: A
Handbook for Employers and Business", 2008, pp. 10 and 15.
1193
TSH035.
1194
TAP016.
1195
TBG018.
1196
CEDAW/PSWG/2005/II/CRP.2/add.3, p. 8.
1197
TBG003.
1198
TLC023.
1199
TSH018.
1200
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has established a
Minimum Dietary Energy Requirement of 1870 calories per day for the
average adult in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Available from http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/ess/
documents/food_security_statistics/
MinimumDietaryEnergyRequirement_en.xls. Thre hundred grams of good
quality corn porridge provide only about 300 calories. The same
amount of cooked rice and beans provide about 350 calories.
1201
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (00:53:10).
1202
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning (00:37:42).
1203
TJH009.
1204
TSH019.
1205
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
1206
TBG014.
1207
TJH009.
1208
TJH010.
1209
TAP016.
1210
Confidential interview.
1211
TBG006.
1212
TAP016.
1213
Sexual contact by taking advantage of coercive circumstances
amounts to rape. See the references provided in section IV.E.3 d).
1214
Information provided during a confidential interview preceding Mr.
Kim's participation in the Seoul Public Hearing.
1215
TBG003.
1216
See also NKDB, Prisoners in North Korea Today, p. 436.
1217
TSH019.
1218
TAP016.
1219
TSH019.
1220
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning (00:50:20).
1221
TSH036.
1222
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon (02:55:10).
1223
TBG010.
1224
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning.
1225
TAP016.
1226
TSH018.
1227
TJH009.
1228
TBG018.
1229
TGC004.
1230
See also section IV.C.1 a) (i).
1231
NKDB, Prisoners in North Korea Today, p. 33.
1232
NKDB, Prisoners in North Korea Today, p. 51.
1233
A more accurate literal translation of the Korean word kyoyangso
would be "reform through teaching centre".
1234
See section IV.C.2.d) iii on the treatment in the police holding
centres (jipkyulso).
1235
See section IV.E.1 b).
1236
TJH028.
1237
TBG010.
1238
TAP010.
1239
TAP016 was a witness to three executions of persons who attempted
to escape an SSD holding centre in North Hamgyong. See also NKDB,
Prisoners in North Korea Today, pp. 283, 352, which finds no cases
of executions in police holding centres and only one example of a
labour training camp, where those who try to escape are executed.
1240
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (01:57:00).
1241
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (01:47:10).
1242
TJH028.
1243
TGC001.
1244
TBG017.
1245
TSH039.
1246
TAP003.
1247
See DPRK Criminal Code, article 67.
1248
CCPR/C/SR.1944, para. 24.
1249
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), pp. 105-
106.
1250
London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, sessions 3 and 4.
1251
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, morning.
1252
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning.
1253
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon (00:30:41).
1254
TBG017.
1255
TJH038.
1256
TBG001.
1257
TSH038.
1258
TAP006.
1259
A/HRC/13/13, para. 88.
1260
See "Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed", KCNA, 13 December 2013.
Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201312/news13/
20131213-05ee.html.
1261
Ibid.
1262
See "Report on Enlarged Meeting of Political Bureau of Central
Committee of WPK", KCNA, 9 December 2013. Available from http://
www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201312/news09/20131209-05ee.html.
1263
See "Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed", KCNA, 13 December 2013.
Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201312/news13/
20131213-05ee.html.
1264
Relevant information was submitted by various credible sources.
1265
See "Report on Enlarged Meeting of Political Bureau of Central
Committee of WPK", KCNA
1266
See "Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed", KCNA.
1267
On the currency reform, see also section IV.D.
1268
KINU, Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon.
1269
See "Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed", KCNA. The same term was
used to describe recent public execution victim Jang Song-thaek
1270
TBG028, TBG030, TBG032, TLC039, TLC042.
1271
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:26:30).
1272
Interview by video-conference.
1273
TLC008.
1274
Information provided in a more detailed confidential interview
preceding Mr. Kim's public hearing testimony.
1275
These killings are also reflected in a book received as Exhibit S29
during the testimony of Mr Kim Gwang-il at the Seoul Public
Hearing, 24 August 2013, morning. See The Third Way, Prima Facie
Evidence: Chonko-ri Prison (2012), pp. 76 ff.
1276
TSH035.
1277
The reported wording of the directive, allegedly issued on 19
September 1997 and known as the 919 Directive, is restated in The
Third Way, Prima Facie Evidence: Chonko-ri Prison, p. 75. This
directive was also referred to by Mr Yoon Nam-geun of the National
Human Rights Commission of Korea [Republic of Korea] at the Seoul
Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
1278
Former DPRK military officers provided detailed information to the
Commission in confidential interviews. In his memoirs, Hwang Jang-
yop Hoegorok (Hwang Jang-yop's memoirs) (Published in Korean by
Zeitgeist, 2006, translated by Daily NK), Hwang Jang-yop, the
highest-ranking official to flee the DPRK, also recalled that DPRK
officers who had studied in Russia were being shot by the KPA
Military Security Command for having plotted against Kim Il-sung.
One of Mr Hwang's interpreters was arrested and disappeared in
relation to the Frunze purge. Additional testimony from former DPRK
officials is reflected in Ken E. Gause, "Coercion, Control,
Surveillance, and Punishment", pp. 121, 122. See also Ralph Hassig
and Kongdan Oh, The Hidden People of North Korea: Everyday Life in
the Hermit Kingdom(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), p.
176.
1279
TJH041.
1280
Confidential interview with Mr Ahn.
1281
Such allegations were, inter alia, conveyed in the public hearing
testimony provided by Mr. Stuart Windsor (London Public Hearing,
session 5) and Mr. Joseph S.Bermudez Jr. (Washington Public
Hearing, 31 October 2013, afternoon).
1282
Declaration for the Protection of All Persons From Enforced
Disappearances, adopted by General Assembly resolution 47/133 of 18
December 1992.
1283
Submission to the Commission: HRNK dated 1 November 2013,p.79;KINU,
White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2012), p. 488; NHRCK,
Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon.
1284
Submission to the Commission: Korean War Abductees Family Union
(KWAFU).
1285
Submission to the Commission: KWAFU.
1286
Korean War Abduction Research Institute (KWARI), People of No
Return: Korean War Abduction Pictorial History (2012),pp. 16-18.
1287
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (02:55:00).
1288
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (03:01:00).
1289
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (03:00:00).
1290
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (02:13:30).
1291
For example: "Regarding Bringing Intellectuals from South Korea" in
Kim Il-sung's Collected Works,vol 4, 31 July 1946; "Yeonchun
Resident Project Report", 5 August 1949; "The Demand for Key
Technical Personnel", 6 June 1950; "Special treatment for Experts",
27 June 1960; "Gang Won Internal Affairs No 3440", 5 September
1950.
1292
"Order issued by the DPRK Ministry of National Protection entitled
‘The Demand for Key Technical Personnel'", 6 June 1950, as provided
by KWAFU.
1293
For example: "A Secret Telegram to the US from Muccio, the American
Ambassador to Korea" dated 19 December 1951; "A telegram by the
American Embassy in Japan", dated 13 October 1950; "The 18th
Decision of the North Korean Army Committee: Classified Russian
Document", dated 17 August 1950.
1294
KWARI, People of No Return: Korean War Abduction Pictorial History
(2012), p. 47.
1295
See section III.
1296
"Yeonchun Resident Project Report", 5 August 1949, as provided by
KWAFU.
1297
The Korean Armistice Agreement, article III, section 59 (a): All
civilians who, at the time this Armistice Agreement become
effective, are in territory under the military control of the
Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command, and who, on 24 June
1950, resided north of the Military Demarcation Line established in
this Armistice Agreement shall, if they desire to return home, be
permitted and assisted by the Commander-in-Chief, United Nations
Command, to return to the area north of the Military Demarcation
Line; and all civilians who, at the time this Armistice Agreement
becomes effective, are in territory under the military control of
the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and the Commander
of the Chinese People's Volunteers, and who on 24 June 1950,
resided south of the Military Demarcation Line established in this
Armistice Agreement shall, if they desire to return home, be
permitted and assisted by the Supreme Commander of the Korean
People's Army and the Commander of the Chinese People's Volunteers
to return to the area south Military Demarcation Line. The
Commander of each side shall be responsible for publicizing widely
throughout the territory under his military control the contents of
the provisions of this Sub-paragraph, and for calling upon the
appropriate civil authorities to give necessary guidance and
assistance to all such civilians who desire to return home.
1298
Article 134 of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV, which the DPRK has
ratified, provides: "The High Contracting Parties shall endeavour,
upon the close of hostilities or occupation, to ensure the return
of all internees to their last place of residence, or to facilitate
their repatriation. The same obligation is also entrenched in
customary international humanitarian law." See ICRC Study, rule
128.
1299
For example, during the Armistice negotiations,the North denied
having taken the civilians, "you [UN Command] said that when our
army advanced to the south we took people to the north; but, as I
said yesterday, there was no necessity for us to do so, and in fact
we did not do so": Military Armistice Conference Minutes, tenth
session 2 January 1952, transcript of the General Headquarters
United Nations Command Advance, in KWARI, People of No Return:
Korean War Abduction Pictorial History (2012), p. 57; At the
Universal Periodic Review of the DPRK at the thirteenth session of
the Human Rights Council, the DPRK delegate advised the "issue of
abduction does not exist", A/HRC713/13, 4 January
2010;"Jogukjeonseon namjoseondanggukui ‘jeonsirabbukja' gyujeongeul
danjoe"(SouthKorean Authorities Flayed for Branding Pro-
Reunification Champions as"Wartime SouthKorean Abductees"),KCNA,28
June 2013. Availablefromhttp://www.kcna.co.jp/calendar/2013/06/06-
28/2013-0628-012.html;"DPRK Insists there were no Korean War
Kidnappings",New Focus International,29 March
2013.Availablefromhttp://newfocusintl.com/Korean-war-kidnappings/.
1300
"Ridiculous [War Abductees] fuss", Rodong Sinmun, 30 June 2013.
1301
Submission to the Commission: KWAFU.
1302
Witnesses at the Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon;
TSH030.
1303
"Gang Won Internal Affairs No 3440", 5 September 1950, as provided
by KWAFU.
1304
TSH030.
1305
TSH032.
1306
TSH030, TBG001, and witnesses at the Seoul Public Hearing, 23
August 2013, afternoon.
1307
TBG001.
1308
The United Nations Command at the time of the armistice estimated
82,000 of the Korean Armed Forces to be missing: KINU,White Paper
of Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 541.
1309
Heo Man-ho, "North Korea's Continued Detention of South Korean POWs
since the Korean and Vietnam Wars", The Korean Journal of Defence
Analysis,vol. 14, No. 2(Fall 2002),p. 142; Wada Haruki, The Korean
War (New York, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013), p. 289.
1310
Soviet Union verbatim "Record of a Conversation between Stalin, Kim
Il Sung, Pak Heon-yeong, Zhou Enlai, and Peng Dehuai", 4 September
1952, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Translated
into English from the original by Gary Goldberg. Available from:
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/114936.
1311
It is unclear from the conversation about the ROK POWs whether the
approximately 8000 ROK POWs that have been listed for repatriation
are in addition to the 40,000 held by Chinese forces, or are 8000
of the 40,000 ROK POWs held by Chinese forces.
1312
KINU, White Paper of Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 541.
1313
See KINU,White Paper of Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 541,
and Seoul Public Hearing witness Mr Yoo Young-bok, 23 August 2013,
afternoon (00:20:30). Institute for Unification Education "Issue of
Abductees and POWs" 2012 cites the number of surviving POWs to be
approximately 560.
1314
KINU, White Paper of Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 542.
1315
Article 118, first paragraph, of the 1949 Geneva Convention III,
which the DPRK has ratified, provides: "Prisoners of war shall be
released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of
active hostilities". Building on state practice harkening back to
the Hague Regulations of 1899 and 1907, this obligation also
emerges from Customary International Humanitarian Law. See
International Committee of the Red Cross, Customary International
Humanitarian Law, vol.1 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2005), p. 451 [Rule 128].
1316
The Korean Armistice Agreement, article III, 51 – 58.
1317
The Korean Armistice Agreement, article III, 51 (a).
1318
The Korean Armistice Agreement, article III, 56 (b).
1319
Armistice Agreement, article III, 56 (c).
1320
Kim Il-sung, as cited in the Soviet Union's verbatim "Record of a
Conversation between Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Pak Heon-yeong, Zhou
Enlai, and Peng Dehuai", 04 September 1952, History and Public
Policy Program Digital Archive, Translated by Gary Goldberg.
Available from http://digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/
114936.
1321
KINU, White Paper of Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 542.
1322
TBG015 and TJH029.
1323
TBG008.
1324
TJH030.
1325
TBG021.
1326
TBG007, TBG008, TBG015, TBG021, TJH029, TJH016.
1327
TBG021, TBG015.
1328
TJH029.
1329
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (00:08:00).
1330
TBG021.
1331
TJH029.
1332
TBG007, TBG008.
1333
TBG007, TBG008, TBG015, TBG021, TJH029.
1334
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (00:39:00).
1335
TBG021, TJH029, TJH030 and Seoul Public Hearing witness Mr Yoo
Young-bok, 23 August 2013, afternoon.
1336
TJH029, TBG021.
1337
TBG021, TJH029.
1338
TJH029.
1339
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (00:14:30).
1340
TJH029, TJH016.
1341
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (00:11:00).
1342
TJH029.
1343
TBG015, TBG002, TBG007.
1344
TBG002.
1345
TBG002.
1346
TJH024.
1347
TJH009.
1348
TBG002.
1349
TBG021, TBG008, TJH029, TBG015, TBG002.
1350
TJH029.
1351
TJH024.
1352
TJH029.
1353
TJH030.
1354
TJH030.
1355
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013).
1356
See section IV.F for a detailed description of the Separated Family
Reunions.
1357
The Centre's Korean name is Mulmangcho. Mulmangcho website.
Available from http://www.mulmangcho.org/?c=2/
21&p=2&uid=1310.
1358
A/HRC/13/13, para. 81 (4 January 2010).
1359
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (00:20:00).
1360
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (00:51:00).
1361
John Zimmerlee, WashingtonPublic Hearing, 31 October 2013,
afternoon (00:12:00).
1362
"Record of a Conversation between Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Pak Heon-
yeong, Zhou Enlai, and Peng Dehuai",04September1952, History and
Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Translated for NKIDP by Gary
Goldberg. Available fromhttp://digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/
document/114936.
1363
Washington Public Hearing, 31 October 2013, afternoon. Also,
Submission to the Commission: Mark Sauter and John Zimmerlee,
American Trophies: How US POWs Were Surrendered to North Korea,
China and Russia by Washington's "Cynical Attitude" (Lexington,
Kentucky, 2013).
1364
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 526.
1365
ROK, Ministry of Unification.
1366
Submission to the Commission: ROK Government.
1367
TLC022.
1368
TLC040, TLC022.
1369
Mr Choi Sung-yong, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning.
1370
TLC022.
1371
TAP014, TLC014, TBG016.
1372
The Odeyang 61 and Odeyang 62 disappeared at sea in December 1972.
1373
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (01:31:00).
1374
TLC022.
1375
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (01:44:00).
1376
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (01:35:00).
1377
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (01:39:00).
1378
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (01:33:00).
1379
TAP014, TLC014, TBG016.
1380
TBG016.
1381
Mr Lee Jae-geun, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (01:
50:00).
1382
Mr Lee Jae-geun, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (01:
55:00).
1383
ROK Ministry of Unification, Tongil Baekseo (Unification White
Paper) (2012), p. 142.
1384
TLC040.
1385
TLC022.
1386
TLC022.
1387
"1969 KA gi napbooksageon" (1969 Abduction of Korean Airlines
Flight), Donga Ilbo, 26 February 2001. Available from http://
www2.donga.com/news/print.php?n=200102260483.
1388
KINU, White Paperon Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 531.
1389
"Je 3 cha isangajok gyohwanbangmoon pyongyang sangbong sosik
jonghap"(News Update of the Third Family Reunion in Pyongyang),
Radio Free Asia, 25 February 2001. Available from http://
www.rfa.org/korean/news/51210-20010225.html.
1390
"Eokryugaeksonghwan 4dangye daechaek" (4-step strategies to return
the detained passengers), Kyunghyang Sinmun, 21 February 1970.
1391
Mr Jung Hyun-soo, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning
(03:55:00).
1392
Mr Hwang In-chul, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning
(03:43:00).
1393
Ibid.
1394
S/RES/286 (1970).
1395
A/RES/2645 (1970).
1396
See Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft,
article 9. The same obligation emerges from article 11 of the
Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board
Aircraft, which the DPRK also ratified in 1983.
1397
KBA,White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea(2006),p.294.
1398
TLC040.
1399
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (01:04:00).
1400
See also "Vietnam War Soldier is POW, Not Defector to Pyongyang",
The Korea Times, 30 September 2009. Available from http://
www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/09/113_52798.html.
1401
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (01:25:00).
1402
Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok, Jogukeun Jeohaneul Jeommeolli
(Kidnapped to the Kingdom of Kim Jong- Il), vol. 1, p. 24, as cited
in The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Taken!: North
Korea's Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries (2011), pp. 14 and
50.
1403
Ibid.
1404
TBG031.
1405
Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok, Jogukeun Jeohaneul Jeommeolli
(Kidnapped to the Kingdom of Kim Jong- Il), vol. 1.
1406
TLC022, TBG025, TLC040.
1407
KBA,White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea(2006),p.296.
1408
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Taken!: North
Korea's Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries (2011), p. 33.
1409
A/67/370[31-38].
1410
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Taken!: North
Korea's Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries (2011), p. 43.
1411
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (00:13:00).
1412
TSH024.
1413
Mr Jung Hyun-soo, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning
(03:55:00); TSH024, TSH026 and TSH027.
1414
Mr Jung Hyun-soo, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning
(03:55:00).
1415
Mr Choi Sung-yong, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning
(00:53:00).
1416
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (01:27:00).
1417
KINU, White Paperon Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 513.
1418
TSH021.
1419
ROK, Law on Compensation and Support of the Abductees after the
Military Armistice Agreement (27 April 2007).
1420
ROK, Law on Korean War Abduction Truth Ascertainment and Regaining
Honour of Abductees, Law no. 11690, (26 March 2010), article 3.
1421
Mr Choi Sung-yong, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning
(00:07:15).
1422
Mr Yamada Fumiaki, Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, morning.
1423
Kikuchi Yoshiaki, Kitachousen kikoku jigyou ‘soudaina rachi' ka
‘tsuihou' ka (The North Korean Return Home Movement: A Grand
Abduction or Exile?) (Chuokoron-shinsha, Tokyo, 2009).
1424
Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, afternoon.
1425
Exhibit 8A-T and 8B-T, provided by Mr Yamada Fumiaki at the Tokyo
Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, morning (00:29:30).
1426
TSH012.
1427
Mr Yamada Fumiaki, Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, morning
(00:32:00); TSH008, TSH009, TSH005, TSH010, TSH011.
1428
TSH003.
1429
Mr Kato Hiroshi, Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013, afternoon.
1430
Mr Shibata Hiroyuki, Tokyo Public Hearing, 30 August 2013,
afternoon (00:51:45).
1431
Amnesty International, "North Korea: Concern about the fate of
Shibata Kozo and his family", September 1994 (ASA 24/007/1994).
Available from https://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA24/007/
1994/fr/34cd971d-ebf0-11dd-9b3b-8bf635492364/asa240071994en.pdf.
1432
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon.
1433
Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Opening Statement by Prime
Minister Koizumi Junichiro at the Press Conference on the Outcome
of his Visit to North Korea", Press statement, 17 September 2002.
Available from http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/n_korea/
pmv0209/press.html.
1434
Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Japan-DPRK Pyongyang
Declaration", 17 September 2002. Available from http://
www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/n_korea/pmv0209/pyongyang.html.
1435
TLC040.
1436
Mr Lee Jae-geun, Seoul Public Hearing 23 August 2013, morning;
TLC022.
1437
TLC022.
1438
TLC040.
1439
TLC022.
1440
TLC040.
1441
See section (g) below.
1442
Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Opening Statement by Prime
Minister Koizumi Junichiro at the Press Conference on the Outcome
of his Visit to North Korea". Available at http://www.mofa.go.jp/
region/asia-paci/n_korea/pmv0209/press.html
1443
Submission to the Commission: The Government of Japan. This number
fluctuates as cases are opened and closed. The current number can
be found at Japanese National Police Agency Webpage. Available from
http://www.npa.go.jp/keibi/gaiji1/abduct/index.html.
1444
Submission to the Commission: ICNK Japan Team.
1445
Three of these cases are contained below under "abductions from
abroad".
1446
DNA tests have established the child to be that of Ms Yokota Megumi
and Mr Kim Young-nam. Samples for the tests were provided by the
respective grandparents.
1447
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, morning (01:25:00).
1448
Submission to the Commission: Masumoto Teruaki.
1449
A fifth defector Mr Joseph T White is believed to have crossed into
the DPRK in 1982, however Mr Jenkins does not appear to have met
him. A sixth American serviceperson, Mr Roy Chung, is reported to
have defected to the DPRK from the US Army whilst on service in
West Germany in 1979.
1450
Charles Robert Jenkins with Jim Frederick, The Reluctant Communist:
My Desertion, Court-Martial and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North
Korea (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2008), p. 171.
1451
TSH037.
1452
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, morning (00:19:25).
1453
The fourth case, that of Mr Tanaka Minoru, is contained below,
under "abductions from abroad".
1454
Ishidaka Kenji, Koredemo shirawo kirunoka kitachousen: nijonjin
rachi zokuzoku todoku ‘shozaino akashi' (North Korea, do you still
deny?: The Abduction of Japanese Continues), 2nd ed. (Tokyo,
Kobunsha, 2003).
1455
Tottori Prefecture website, "Rachi higaisha Matsumoto Kyoko san"
(abduction victim Kyoko Matsumoto). Available from http://
www.pref.tottori.lg.jp/93163.htm.
1456
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Taken!: North
Korea's Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries (2011), p. 35.
1457 Japan's National Police Agency Report, Focus: The Growing
Severity of the International Terror Situation: Movements of the
Japanese Red Army and the "Yodo-go" Group, vol. 271, as cited in
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Taken!: North
Korea's Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries (2011), p. 35.
1458
Former DPRK agent TSH059.
1459
TSH055.
1460
Former DPRK agent TSH059.
1461
Former DPRK agent TSH059.
1462
TSH055.
1463
TSH033, TSH034.
1464
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, morning.
1465
TLC040.
1466
TSH055.
1467
TLC022.
1468
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, afternoon, and exhibit T3.
1469
TSH055.
1470
TLC040.
1471
Charles Robert Jenkins with Jim Frederick, The Reluctant Communist:
My Desertion Court-Martial and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North
Korea, pp. 60-63, 72.
1472
Ishidaka Kenji, Koredemo shirawo kirunoka kitachousen: nijonjin
rachi zokuzoku todoku ‘shozono akashi' (North Korea, do you still
deny?: The Abduction of Japanese Continues'), 2nd ed. (Tokyo,
Kobunsha, 2003).
1473
Charles Robert Jenkins with Jim Frederick, The Reluctant Communist:
My Desertion Court-Martial and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North
Korea, p. 72.
1474
Macao Daily News, 5 July 1978.
1475
National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North
Korea (NARKN). Available from http://www.sukuukai.jp/narkn/
updates.html.
1476
Macao Daily News, 5 July 1978.
1477
The Star, 15 December 2005. Available from http://
www.thestar.com.my/story.aspx?file= per cent2f2005 per cent2f12 per
cent2f15 per cent2fnation per cent2f12876706&sec=nation.
1478
The Straits Times, 17 December 2005.
1479
TJH040.
1480
Letter dated 19 December 2013 to the Commission of Inquiry on the
DPRK from the Permanent Mission of Romania.
1481
Information provided by the National Association for the Rescue of
Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea (NARKN).
1482
TSH054.
1483
NARKN.
1484
See HRNK, Taken!report, p. 33 (citing statements made by the
victims in 1979 to a Lebanese newspaper).
1485
Seoul Public Hearing, 24 August 2013, afternoon (00:20:00).
1486
Seoul Central District Court, 21 April 2005 (Case: 2005Gohap43).
1487
The judgment indicates that is based on closed proceedings, because
the court considered that it involved state secrets. The Commission
obtained a copy of the judgment from a reliable source.
1488
TBG031 and TLC026.
1489
Testimony of Jeong Gwang-il at the Seoul Public Hearings, 21 August
2013, morning, with additional details on the injuries sustained by
Reverend Kim provided in a confidential interview with Jeong Gwang-
il. Relevant evidence was also received from witness EJH003.
1490
KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2006), p. 252;
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, "North Korea: A Case To Answer – A
Call To Act", p. 57, tendered to the Commission by Reverend Stuart
Windsor at the fifth session of the London Public Hearing (exhibit
L4).
1491
Seoul Central District Court, 21 April 2005 (Case: 2005Gohap43).
1492
These cases were found to have occurred according to the Seoul
Central District Court, 21 April 2005 (Case: 2005Gohap43), and
second judgment referred to above, issued in 2006 by the
Intermediate People's Court of Yanbian Korean Autonomous
Prefecture, Jilin Province, China.
1493
TBG012.
1494
TLC026 and a written submission from a reliable confidential
source. The case is also reflected in the HRNK, Taken!report, p.
30.
1495
See Christian Solidarity Worldwide, "North Korea: A Case To Answer
– A Call To Act", p. 57, (exhibit L4).
1496
North Korea Freedom Coalition, "The List' of North Korean Refugees
and Humanitarian Workers Seized by Chinese Authorities",2013, pp. 9
and 20.
1497
TLC018.
1498
EJH003, TGC004, TJH010, TJH024.
1499
TLC026.
1500
EJH003, TGC004, TJH024.
1501
TGC004.
1502
TBG022.
1503
The Declaration for the Protection of All Persons From Enforced
Disappearances 1992,article 1.1.
1504
ICCPR, articles 9 and 12.
1505
ICCPR, article 16.
1506
ICCPR, article 7.
1507
TLC040, TSH054.
1508
See section IV.A.
1509
TJH005, TJH021, TJH022, TBG016.
1510
A/67/370, [31-38].
1511
TJH029.
1512
TBG015, TJH029.
1513
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning.
1514
TBG015.
1515
General Comment on women affected by enforced disappearances
adopted by the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances at its ninety-eighth session, 14 February 2013 (A/
HRC/WGEID/98/2), 3.
1516
Ibid.
1517
ICCPR, article 7.
1518
ICCPR, article 2.
1519
On the violations entailed in enforced disappearances and their
continuous nature, see Declaration for the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearances, adopted by General Assembly
resolution 47/133 of 18 December 1992, preamble and article 17.
1520
TSH021.
1521
Only one witness that spoke with the Commission had attended a
separated family reunion, but the Commission does not conclude that
this has been the total sum of abduction related family members
that have been able to attend the separated family reunions.
1522
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, afternoon (02:41:51).
1523
Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August 2013, morning (02:34:43).
1524
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (03:05:00).
1525
The four Lebanese women, Ms Anocha Panjoy, Ms Dona Bumbea and Ms
Soga Hitomi.
1526
See United Nations study on violence against children (A/61/299, 29
August 2006).
1527
Submission to the Commission: KWAFU.
1528
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), article 9.
1529
CRC, article 7.
1530
CRC, article 13.
1531
CRC, article 14.
1532
CRC, article 16. See section I.A for further information about
violations of children's rights in the DPRK.
1533
CRC, article 5.
1534
CRC, article 9.
1535
Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning (03:35:00).
1536
See for example the testimonies of Mr Nam Jang-ho and Mr Choi Sung-
yong, Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013, morning.
1537
A/HRC/22/57.
1538
For details on the standard of proof, see section II.E.
1539
The Commission notes that other patterns of violations could entail
crimes against humanity as well. In particular, purges undertaken
to consolidate the rule of Kim Il-sung and stifle any challenges to
the dynastic successions of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un deserve to
be closely examined with regard to crimes against humanity after
access to relevant archives and more witnesses from within the
state system becomes more readily available.
1540
See section V.A.
1541
See Antonio Cassese and Paola Gaeta, Cassese's International
Criminal Law, 3rd ed. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), p.
105; Julian Fernandez and Xavier Pacreau, Statut de Rome de la Cour
Pénale Internationale (Paris, Editions Pedone, 2012), p. 419. Where
the definitions under the Rome Statute and customary international
law apparently diverge from another, this has been noted.
Considering that crimes against humanity could become subject to
prosecution before the International Criminal court on the basis of
the Rome Statute or prosecution before another international or
national court that applies customary international law (see
section VI.B), the commission has followed a "lowest common
denominator" approach, Thus, it has applied the Rome Statute where
it is narrower than customary international law and vice versa.
Therefore, all crimes against humanity established by the
Commission would amount to crimes under the definitions of crimes
against humanity under both the Rome Statuate and customary
international law.
1542
The policy required under the Rome Statute does not have to be
incorporated in a written document or formal statement. The policy
"need not be explicitly defined … an attack which is planned,
directed or organized – as opposed to spontaneous or isolated acts
of violence - will satisfy this [policy] criterion". See Prosecutor
v. Katanga et al, ICC-01/04-01/07 [ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I],
Decision on the Confirmation of Charges of 30 September 2008, para.
396.
It is debated whether the requirement of a State or other
organizational policy also forms part of customary international
law or whether the Rome Statute introduces a new requirement.
Against the proposition that customary international law requires
the existence of a policy: Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-
23& IT-96-23/1-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber], Judgment of 12 June
2002, para. 98 [with further references in id., fn 114]. For an
overview of relevant arguments see William Schabas, Unimaginable
Atrocities (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 128 ff.; Antonio
Cassese, "Crimes Against Humanity" in Antonio Cassese, Paola Gaeta,
and John R.W.D. Jones, eds.,The Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court: A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press,
2002), pp. 375-376; Guénaël Mettraux, "The Definition of Crimes
Against Humanity and the Question of a "Policy" Element", in Leila
Nadya Sadat, Forging a Convention on Crimes against Humanity
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 143 ff. This
contested question of law has no bearing on the legal findings of
the Commission since it finds reasonable grounds indicating that
the crimes against humanity committed in the DPRK form part of
systematic attacks. The notion of a systematic attack already
indicates the existence of an underlying policy.
1543
See Rome Statute, article 7 (1). See also Antonio Cassese and Paola
Gaeta, Cassese's International Criminal Law, pp. 94 ff.
1544
See Rome Statute, article 30. It is subject to debate whether
customary international law accepts a wider ambit of criminal
intent that also extends to cases where perpetrators are aware of
the possible risk that their conduct will result in the
consequences defining the inhumane act and accept this risk (dolus
eventualis in civil law systems; advertent recklessness in common
law systems). For this proposition see e.g. Antonio Cassese and
Paola Gaeta,Cassese's International Criminal Law, p. 99.
1545
Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-23& IT-96-23/1-A [ICTY
Appeals Chamber], Judgment of 12 June 2002, para. 86; Prosecutor v.
Blagojevic IT-02-60-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 17 January
2005, para. 543.
1546
Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR–96–4–T [ICTR Trial Chamber], Judgment
of 2 Sept 1998, para. 580. (2 September 1998); see alsoProsecutor
v. Musema, Judgment, No. ICTR–96–13–T, para. 204. (27 January
2000); Prosecutor v. William Sameoi Ruto, Henry Kiprono Kosgey and
Joshua Arap Sang, Case No. ICC-01/09-01/11, Decision on the
Confirmation of the Charges Pursuant to article 61(7)(a) and (b) of
the Rome Statute, 23 January 2012, para. 176.
1547
Prosecutor v. Musema, ICTR–96–13–T [ICTR Trial Chamber], Judgment
of 27 January 2000, para. 204.
1548
See Prosecutor v. Blaškic, Judgment, No. IT–95–14, Judgment of 3
March 2002, para. 204; Prosecutor v. Dordevic, ICTY Trial Chamber,
paras. 1262 – 1380; Prosecutor v. Dario Kordic & Mario Cerkez,
IT-95-14/2-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber], Judgment of 17 December 2004,
paras. 98 & 179; Prosecutor v. Katanga, Decision on the
Confirmation of Charges, ICC-01/04-01/07 [ICTY Pre-Trial Chamber
I], Decision of 30 September 2008, para. 397.
1549
See in particular section IV.E.3.
1550
See also Prosecutor v. Kordic et al, IT-95-14/2-T [ICTY Trial
chamber], Judgment of 26 February 2001, para. 302.
1551
See Prosecutor v. Krnojelac, IT-97-25-A, [ICTY Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 15 March 2002, para. ; Paul De Hert and others, eds.,
Code of International Criminal Law and Procedure (Uitgeverij
Larcier, 2013), p. 39; Fernandez and Parcreau, Statut de Rome de la
Cour Pénale Internationale, p. 432.
1552
See also Robert Cryer and others, An Introduction to International
Criminal Law and Procedure, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press,
2010), p. 251; Fernandez and Parcreau, Statut de Rome de la Cour
Pénale Internationale, p. 432; Prosecutor v. Krnojelac, IT-97-25-T
[ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 15 March 2002, para. 122.
1553
See Rome Statute, article 7(2)(i). The definition builds on
international human rights law, but is somewhat narrower in
demanding a specific intent to deprive inmates for a prolonged
period of time of the protection of the law. On the recognition of
conduct amounting to enforced disappearance as an inhumane act
under customary international law since Nuremberg, see section V.G.
1554
Rome Statute, article 7 (2). See also Prosecutor v. Popovic et al,
IT-05-88-T [ICTY Trial Chamber,] Judgment of 10 June 2010, para.
800; Prosecutor v. Munyakazi, ICTR-97-36A-T [ICTR Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 5 July 2010, para. 506.
1555
Prosecutorv. Ntagerura, ICTR-99-46-T [ICTR Trial Chamber], Judgment
of 25 February 2004, para. 701.
1556
Prosecutor v. Kayishema, ICTR-95-1 [ICTR Trial Chamber], Judgment
of 21 May 1999, para. 146.
1557
See Prosecutor v. Lukic, IT-98-32/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 20 July 2009, para. 938.
1558
Prosecutor v. Lukic, IT-98-32/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of
20 July 2009, para. 939. See also M. Cherif Bassiouni, Crimes
against Humanity : Historical Evolution and Contemporary
Application (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 369;
Elias Davidsson, "Economic Oppression as an International
Wrong or as Crime against Humanity", Netherlands Quarterly of
Human Rights, vol. 23, No. 2 (2005), p. 195; Antonio Cassese,
"Crimes against Humanity", in Antonio Cassese, Paola Gaeta, and
John R.W.D. Jones, eds., The Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court: A Commentary, p. 365; Albin Eser, "Mental Elements-
Mistake of Fact and Mistake of Law", in Cassesse, Gaeta and Jones,
eds., The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, p. 917.
Prosecutor v. Kayishema, ICTR-95-1-T, ICTR Trial Chamber, Judgment
of 21 May 1999, para. 144 even finds that recklessness or
negligence are sufficient, but this appear to go beyond the
accepted state of customary international law or, for that matter,
the explicit wording of the Rome Statute. Some authors have argued
that the fact that living conditions must be "calculated" to
destroy part of the population indicates the mental requirement of
a specific objective. See Christopher K. Hall, " article 7: Crimes
against Humanity" in Otto Triffterer and Kai Ambos, Commentary on
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Code(2008), at
article 7, para. 95; Evelyne Schmid, "Violations of Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights in International and Transnational
Criminal Law", PhD dissertation, Graduate Institute of
International and Development Studies, 2012, p. 111. The term
"calculated", however, can also be understood as the perpetrator
making the calculated assessment that the infliction of the
particular conditions of life will in the ordinary course of events
result in mass killing, even though this might not by the
perpetrator's subjective purpose.
1559
See above, section IV.E.3.
1560
Seoul Public Hearing, 21 August 2013, afternoon (00:16:40).
1561
Elements of Crimes, Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court, 1st Sess., Sept. 3–10, 2002,
article 7 (1) (a); M. Cherif Bassiouni, Crimes against Humanity:
Historical Evolution and Contemporary Application, p. 365.
1562
See Rome Statute, article 30. See also Prosecutor v. Katanaga ICC-
01/04-01/07 [ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I], Decision on the Confirmation
of Charges of 30 September 2008, para. 423. International customary
law, as defined by the ICTY and ICTR, also indicates that
intentionally causing serious injury in reckless disregard of the
risk for human life can amount to murder. See Prosecutor v. Mucic
et al, IT-96-21-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 16 Nov 1998,
para. 439; Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR-96-4-T [ICTR Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 2 Sept 1998, para. 589.
1563
Rome Statute, article 7 (2) (c); Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-
96-23/IT-96-23/1, ICTY Trial Chamber, Judgment of 22 February 2001,
para. 539; Prosecutor v. Kunarac, Kovac and Vukovic, IT-96-23-A, 12
June 2002, ICTY Appeals Chamber, para. 117; Prosecutor v Taylor,
SCSL-03-01-T, SCSL Trial Chamber, Judgment of 18 May 2012, para.
446.
1564
See Elements of Crimes, Assembly of States Parties to the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1st Sess., Sept. 3–10,
2002, article 7 (2) (c), footnote 10; Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al,
IT-96-23/IT-96-23/1 [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 22 February
2001, para. 541; Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-23-A, 12 June
2002, ICTY Appeals Chamber, para. 117; Prosecutor v. Taylor, SCSL-
03-1-T [SCSL Trial Chamber], Judgment of 26 April 2012, para. 448.
1565
See Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-23-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber],
Judgment of 12 June 2002, para. 119; Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al,
IT-96-23/IT-96-23/1 [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 22 February
2001, paras. 542 and 543; Prosecutor v. Taylor, SCSL-03-1-T [SCSL
Trial Chamber], Judgment of 26 April 2012, para. 447.
1566
Seoul Public Hearing, 20 August 2013, afternoon.
1567
See Rome Statute, article 2 (e).
1568
Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-23-A, 12 June 2002, ICTY Appeals
Chamber, para. 117.
1569
See Prosecutor v. Kaing Guek Eav (Duch), Case 001/18-07-2007/ECCC/
Tc [Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, Trial
Chamber], Judgment of 26 July 2010, para. 372. The court found that
conditions of detention amounted to inhumane acts that included
shackling and chaining, blindfolding and handcuffing when being
moved outside the cells, severe beatings and corporal punishments,
detention in overly small or overcrowded cells, lack of adequate
food, hygiene and medical care. See also Prosecutor v. Kvocka et
al, IT-98-30/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 2 November 2001,
paras. 190 & 1991, affirmed by Prosecutor v. Kvocka et al, IT-
98-30/1-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber], Judgment of 28 February 2005],
paras. 324-325. The ICTY considered that the conditions prevailing
in internment camp amounted to crimes against humanity: "gross
overcrowding in small rooms without ventilation, requiring the
detainees to beg for water, and forcing them to relieve bodily
functions in their clothes… constant berating, demoralizing, and
threatening of detainees, including the guards' coercive demands
for money from detainees, and the housing of detainees in lice-
infected and cramped facilities."
1570
See also Rome Statute, article 7 (1) (g).
1571
Taking advantage of coercive circumstances as a factor giving rise
to rape has been recognized by the jurisprudence of the ICTY
Appeals Chamber and the official interpretation of rape under the
Rome Statute. See Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-23& IT-96-
23/1-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber], 12 June 2002, para. 129 [finding
that the lack of consent on the part of victim characteristic of
rape also exists where the perpetrator is "taking advantage of
coercive circumstances without relying on physical force"]. See
also Elements of Crime, Assembly of States Parties to the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1st Sess., Sept. 3–10,
2002, article 7(1)(g)-1, article 8(2)(b)(xxii)-1, article 8 (2) (e)
(vi)-1.
1572
The Nuremberg Judgment and the ICTY recognized forced abortion as a
crime against humanity. See also Judgment of the International
Military Tribunal, I The Trial of German Major War Criminals,
Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal sitting at
Nuremberg, Germany 2 (1946), p. 471 [considering the imposition of
forced abortions on female forced labourers in coming to the
conclusions that the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party was a
criminal organization implicated in crimes against humanity]. See
also Prosecutor v. Kvocka et al, IT-98-30/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 2 November 2001, note 343; Prosecutor v. Greifelt et al
["The RuSHA Case"]. V Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg
Military Tribunals, October 1946-April 1949 153 (1949) [ "The RuSHA
Case"] pp. 109 ff., 160-61. See also Valeria Oosterveld, "Gender-
based crimes against humanity" in Leila Nadya Sadat, Forging a
Convention on Crimes against Humanity,pp. 98-99 [noting the
similarity between forced sterilization, which is a specified crime
against humanity under the Rome Statute, and forced abortion].
1573
International criminal jurisprudence has long recognized that rape
can entail torture. See Prosecutor v. Delalic et al, IT-96-21-T
[ICTY Trial Chamber], paras. 475 ff; Prosecutor v. Furundzija, IT-
95-17/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 10 December 1998, para.
164; Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR–96–4–T [ICTR Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 2 Sept 1998, para. 687. Forced abortion as an act of
torture has been recognized by successive Special Rapporteurs on
Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment. See A/
HRC/22/53 (2013), para. 48; A/HRC/7/3 (2008), para. 69. See also
Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 28, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/
Add.10 (2000), para. 11.
1574
Rome Statute, article 7(2). See also Prosecutor v. Krnojelac, ICTY-
97-25-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber], Judgement of 17 September 2003,
para. 185; Prosecutor v. Nahimana et al, ICTR-99-52-A [ICTR Appeals
Chamber], Judgment of 28 November, para. 985.
1575
Rome Statute, article 7(2). Prosecutor v. Kvočka et al., IT-98-30/
1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgement of 2 November 2001, para. 186.
1576
The Rome Statute introduced gender-based persecution as a crime
against humanity, which was not yet included in the statutes of the
ICTY and ICTR. In the opinion of the Commission, this norm is
crystalizing into customary international law.
1577
See section VI.A.
1578
See section IV.E.3.
1579
See section IV.E.4.
1580
See also section V.B.1 (c).
1581
For details, see section IV.E.5 b).
1582
See also section V.B.1 (f).
1583
See also section V.B.1 (g).
1584
See section IV.E.4.
1585
See Rome Statute, article 7 (2) (d). See also Prosecutor v
Krajisnik, IT-00-39-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber], Judgment of 17 March
2009, paras. 304 & 305. Forcible transfer is distinguished from
the crime of deportation only by the fact that victims are not
moved across an international border. See Prosecutor v Krstic, IT-
98-33-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 2 August 2001, para. 521.
1586
For details, see section IV.C.1 a) (i).
1587
See DPRK Constitution articles 8 and 162. DPRK Code of Criminal
Procedure, article 2. For a more detailed discussion of the
political function of the criminal justice system, see section
III.5.
1588
See section IV.E.4.
1589
For details, see in particular section IV.A.
1590
See section V.B and V.C for the additional crimes against humanity
that religious believers and others considered to have engaged in
subversive behaviour experience in political prison camps and other
prisons.
1591
The abusive application of the death penalty in violation of
international law can also amount to a crime against humanity, even
if its imposition is technically in line with relevant national
laws. See United States of America v. Alstötter et al. [The
Nuremberg Justice Case] 3 T.W.C. 1 (1948), at 1155. In that case,
the court found that a defendant incurred criminal responsibility
for extermination and persecution based on death penalties he
handed down.
1592
For details, see section IV.C.2.
1593
See Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions, A/HRC/14/24/Add.6 (2010), para. 32.
1594
See section V.C.1 (g).
1595
Forced nudity has been recognized as an inhumane act that can give
rise to crimes against humanity also by the ICTR and ICTY. See
Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR–96–4–T [ICTR Trial Chamber], Judgment
of 2 Sept 1998, paras. 688 & 697 [specifically finding that
forcing victims to undress and perform exercises while fully nude
in a public setting amounts to an inhumane act]. See also
Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-23/IT-96-23/1 [ICTY Trial
Chamber], Judgment of 22 February 2001, paras. 766-774; Prosecutor
v. Kvocka et al, IT-98-30/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 2
November 2001, para. 190. Sexual molestation has been recognized as
an inhumane act involving sexual violence by Prosecutor v. Kvocka
et al, IT-98-30/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 2 November
2001, para. 180.
1596
DPRK Code of Criminal Procedure, article 143.
1597
See World Medical Association, "Statement on Body Searches of
Prisoners, adopted by the 45th World Medical Assembly held in
Budapest, Hungary", October 1993. Available from http://
www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b5. See also Committee
against Torture, CAT/C/HKG/CO/4, para. 10.
1598
See Elements of Crime, Assembly of States Parties to the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1st Session, Sept.
3–10, 2002, article 7(1)(g)-1, para. 1. See also Prosecutor v,
Furundzija,. IT-95-17/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber] Judgment of 10
December 1998, para. 185; Prosecutor v. Seasay et al, Case No.
SCSL-04-15-T [SCSL Trial Chamber, Judgment of 2 March 2009, para.
145; Prosecutor v Akeyesu , paras. 688 and 686, where the ICTR
specifically finds that thrusting a piece of wood into a woman's
vagina constitutes rape.
1599
For details, see section IV.F.1. g).
1600
For a definition of enforced disappearance see section V.B.1 (b).
1601
For details, see section IV.D.
1602
Rome Statute, article 7(2). See also Prosecutor v. Popovic et al,
IT-05-88-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 10 June 2010, para.
800; Prosecutor v. Munyakazi, ICTR-97-36A-T [ICTR Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 5 July 2010, para. 506.
1603
Prosectuor Ntagerura et al, ICTR-99-46-T [ICTR Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 25 February 2004, para. 701; Prosecutor v. Semanza,
ICTR-97-20-T [ICTR Trial Chamber], Judgment of 15 May 2003, para.
340; Prosecutor v. Vasiljevic, IT-98-32-T [ICTY Trial Chamber],
Judgment of 29 November 2002, paras. 227 & 232.
1604
See above, section V.B.1 [Extermination].
1605
See section III.
1606
The exception constitutes the segment of the population kept in
prison camps. See sections V.B and V.C.
1607
See Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on
Accountability in Sri Lanka (2011), paras. 212 and 251. Available
from http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Sri_Lanka/
POE_Report_Full.pdf. See also Christa Rottensteiner, "The denial of
humanitarian assistance as a crime under international law",
International Review of the Red Cross, 1999. Available from http://
www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jq32.htm; Sigrun I.
Skogly, "Crimes Against Humanity – Revisited: Is there a Role for
Economic and Social Rights?", The International Journal of Human
Rights, vol. 5, No. 1 (2001), pp. 69-70.
1608
For details, see section IV.D.3.
1609
See section IV.D.6.
1610
See sections IV.D.2 and IV.D.5.
1611
See sections IV.C.2 and IV.D.4 d)
1612
For the full quote of the speech see section IV.D.4 a).
1613
For details, see section IV.D.4 c).
1614
For the definition of murder under international criminal law, see
section V.B.1 (d).
1615
See section IV.E.5.
1616
The abusive application of the death penalty in violation of
international law can also amount to a crime against humanity, even
if its imposition is technically in line with relevant national
laws. See section V.D.4 (b).
1617
See section IV.D.1 a) (i).
1618
Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al, IT-96-23& IT-96-23/1-A [ICTY
Appeals Chamber], Judgment of 12 June 2002, para. 86; Prosecutor v.
Blagojevic, IT-02-60-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 17 January
2005, para. 543.
1619
The requirement of a State or other organizational policy serves to
ensure that crimes against humanity are limited to crimes that are
"thoroughly organized and follow a regular pattern", so as to
exclude crimes that are isolated or haphazard. See also Prosecutor
v. Katanga et al, ICC-01/04-01/07 [ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I],
Decision on the Confirmation of Charges of 30 September 2008, para.
396. For this reason, State policies that are being set by senior
decision-makers, without their full awareness and appreciation of
their connection to the harm done on the ground, would not appear
to provide a sufficient foundation for an attack directed against a
civilian population. The Commission does therefore not agree with
interpretations so extensive that they would also extend to
reckless policies, as put forward e.g. by David Marcus, "Famine
Crimes in International Law", The American Journal of International
Law, vol. 97, No. 245 (2003), pp. 247 & 273; David Butler,
"Enforced Starvation : Exploring Individual Criminal Responsibility
for State-Induced Famines", Human Rights Law Commentary, vol. 3,
University of Nottingham, 2007, p. 17. In this regard, Marcus, id.,
p. 272, also acknowledges that "the argument that a plan or policy
to annihilate citizens through famine can be arrived at recklessly
makes little sense".
Other authors seem to favour a more restrictive interpretation than
that advanced by the Commission, according to which only policies
that target civilians, i.e. aim at causing starvation could amount
to crimes against humanity. See Evelyne Schmid, "Violations of
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International and
Transnational Criminal Law", p. 55. However, this interpretation
would effectively introduce an element of criminal intent into the
requirement of a State policy that is incongruent with and
effectively narrows the established categories of criminal intent
(dolus directus of the first and second degree) recognized under
international criminal law and article 30 of the Rome Statute in
particular. International Criminal Law, as also set out in the Rome
Statute, demands that the attack must be pursuant to State policy.
It does not require that the State policy must pursue the attack.
1620
In the Nuremberg judgment, for instance, the policy to force non-
Jewish foreign workers into slave labour was considered a central
part of the attack against the civilian population in countries
occupied by Nazi Germany. Judgment of the International Military
Tribunal, The Trial of German Major War Criminals, Proceedings of
the International Military Tribunal sitting at Nuremberg, Germany,
Vol.1 (1946), pp. 460 ff. In coming to this conclusion, the
Nuremberg judgment took into account statements of Heinrich
Himmler, one of the main architects of the slave labour policy,
which indicated that the objective of the policy was to boost the
German war effort, but was driven by awareness and acceptance that
inhumane acts were being committed in pursuing this objective. See
Judgment of the International Military Tribunal, pp. 460 and 463.
1621
See in particular section IV.F.
1622
See section IV.F.1.
1623
See article 18(i). The Draft Code is included in the Yearbook of
the International Law Commission, 1996, vol. II (Part Two), A/CN.4/
Ser.A/1886/Add.1.
1624
In Nuremberg, it was held that the practice of arresting partisans
in occupied territory and deporting them to Germany, while
deliberately not informing their family members about their fate,
amounted to a war crime and a crime against humanity. This practice
was based on the infamous "Nacht und Nebel Erlass" [Night and Fog
Decree] issued by Adolf Hitler. In considering that the defendant
Keitel had committed war crimes that also amounted to crimes
against humanity, the International Military Tribunal specifically
emphasized the anxiety for the families that the Night and Fog
Decree meant to cause. See Judgment of the International Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg, p. 453 read in conjunction with p. 468. See
also United States of America v. Alstötter et al. ["The Justice
Case"] 3 Law Reports on the Trial of War Criminals 1 (1948), at
1031 ff.
In support of the conclusion that enforce disappearances are not a
"new" crime against humanity, but constituted a crime against
humanity since Nuremberg see also Darryl Robinson, "Defining Crimes
against Humanity at the Rome Conference", The AmericanJournal of
International Law, vol. 93, No. 1 (January 1999), p. 58 [n.76];
Robert Cryer and others, An Introduction to International Criminal
Law and Procedure, pp. 262-263.
When first addressing enforced disappearances, the General Assembly
also clarified that the systematic practice of enforced
disappearances was of a nature of a crime against humanity. See
General Assembly, Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance, A/RES/47/133, preamble. The ICTY also
recognized enforced disappearances as inhumane acts giving rise to
crimes against humanity, even though they were not explicitly
listed in its statute. See Prosecutor v Kupreskic, IT-95-16-T [ICTY
Trial Chamber], Judgment of 14 January 2000, para. 566; Prosecutor
v. Kvocka et al, IT-98-30/1-T [ICTY Trial Chamber], Judgment of 2
November 2001, para. 208. The Commission notes that some authors
consider that the Rome Statute has not codified pre-existing
customary law, albeit without apparently considering the Nuremberg
precedents noted above. See e.g. Antonio Cassese and Paola Gaeta,
Cassese's International Criminal Law, p. 98.
1625
See article 7(2)(i) Rome Statute.
1626
Article 118, first paragraph, of the 1949 Geneva Convention III,
which the DPRK has ratified, provides: "Prisoners of war shall be
released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of
active hostilities". Building on state practice harkening back to
the Hague Regulations of 1899 and 1907, this obligation also forms
part of Customary International Humanitarian Law. See International
Committee of the Red Cross, Customary International Humanitarian
Law vol. 1 (2005), p. 451 [Rule 128].
1627
During their imprisonment, they also suffered the crimes against
humanity detailed in sections V.B and V.C.
1628
An enforced disappearance can also result from an initially legal
arrest. See Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary
Disappearances, General Comment on the Definition of Enforced
Disappearance, para. 7, contained in: A/HRC/7/2; Julian Fernandez
& Xavier Pacreau, Statut de Rome de la Cour Pénale
Internationale: Commentaire article par article (2012), p. 451. For
purposes of legal analysis, it is therefore immaterial whether the
fishers concerned were illegally arrested on the high seas or in
ROK waters or whether they had illegally entered DPRK waters, which
would allow for their temporary arrest under certain circumstances
in accordance with the International Law of the Sea as it stood at
the time the arrests were carried out.
1629
Affected countries enjoy the right to extend protection to their
nationals under customary international law. See Ahmadou Sadou
Diallo (Guinea v Dem. Republic of the Congo) 582 I.C.J. (2007)
[Preliminary Objections], at para. 39. See also article 36 of the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the DPRK acceded
in 1984.
1630
See in this regard, the testimonies of the families who appeared
before the Commission at the Seoul Public Hearing, 23 August 2013,
morning and afternoon, and at the Tokyo Public Hearing, 29 August
2013, morning and 30 August, morning and afternoon..
1631
There is some jurisprudence suggesting that up to the 1990s, crimes
against humanity may have had an additional requirement, namely
that the attack had to be based on national, political, ethnical,
racial, or religious grounds (discriminatory ground requirement).
There is weighty legal authority for and against the proposition.
The discriminatory grounds requirement is mentioned in the
International Law Commission's 1954 Draft Code of Offences against
the Peace and Security of Mankind, the 1994 Statute of the ICTR and
the 1993 Report of the Secretary-General leading up to the
establishment of the ICTY (see S/25704, para. 48). It is also
mentioned in article 5 of the Statute of the Extraordinary Chambers
of the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) in light of the fact that the ECCC
is considering crimes committed between 1975 and 1987. See also
KAING Guek Eav alias Duch, 001/18-07-2007-ECCC/SC (Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Appeals Chamber), Judgement of
3 February 2012, paras. 105 and 106. Conversely, the discriminatory
grounds requirement is not mentioned in the Statute of the ICTY.
Both the ICTY and the ICTR Trial Chamber have held that it never
constituted part of customary international law, but is instead
based on a misreading of the Nuremberg Charter. See Prosecutor
v.Tadic, IT-94-1-A [ICTY Appeals Chamber], Judgment of 15 July
1999, para. 297; Prosecutor v. Akayesu ICTR-96-4-A [ICTR Appeals
Chamber], Judgment of 1 June 2001, para. 464. Discriminatory
grounds are not required either under the definition of crimes
against humanity under the 1996 version of the International Law
Commission's Draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of
Mankind. Since the Commission finds that political grounds were
underlying the attack, namely the objective of enhancing the DPRK
in the struggle for supremacy over the Korean peninsula, it does
not have to pronounce itself on this legal question.
1632
See section IV.F.2 a).
1633
See section IV.F.1 g).
1634
On the continuous nature of the crime of enforced disappearance see
Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, General
Comment on Enforced Disappearance as a Continuous Crime (2010),
paras. 6 and 7. Available from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/
issues/disappear/docs/GC-EDCC.pdf. See also Simón, Julio Héctor y
otros s/ privación ilegítima de la libertad, etc. Causa N°17.768C
(Supreme Court of Argentina), Judgement of 13 June 2005, paras.56-
57 [concurring opinion of Judge Antonio Boggiano, para. 42].
Available from http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4721f74c2.pdf;
Juan Contreras Sepulveda y otros (crimen),Corte Suprema 517/2004,
Resolución 22267 (Supreme Court of Chile), Judgment of 17 November
2004), paras. 37-39. Available from http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/
chile/doc/krassnoff.html; José Carlos Trujillo Oroza, Case No.
1190/01-R (Constitutional Court of Bolivia), Judgment of 12
November 2001. Available from http://gestor.pradpi.org/
download.php?id_doc=1013; Caso de Jésus Piedra Ibarra, Recurso de
apelación extraordinaria 01/2003 (Supreme Court of Mexico),
Judgment of 5 Nov 2003. Available from: http://www.scjn.gob.mx/
2010/transparencia/Documents/Transparencia/Primera per cent20sala/
Novena per cent20 per centC3 per centA9poca/2003/23.doc.
1635
See Elements of Crimes, Assembly of States Parties to the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1st Session, Sept.
3–10, 2002, article 7(1)(i), para. 1. (b). See also Christopher K.
Hall, "Article 7: Crimes against Humanity", in Otto Triffterer and
Kai Ambos, Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Code(2008), at article 7, para. 134.
1636
See Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances,
General Comment on the Right to the Truth (A/HRC/16/48), para.
6.The Working Group further stipulates that, in accordance with
international standards, the remains of the person should be
clearly and indisputably identified, including through DNA
analysis. State authorities should not undertake the process of
identification of the remains, and should not dispose of those
remains, without the full participation of the family and without
fully informing the general public of such measures. They must use
forensic expertise and scientific methods of identification to the
maximum of its available resources, including through international
assistance and cooperation.
1637
See sections IV.E.3 f) and V.B.1.
1638
See Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, article 2; Rome Statute, article 6.
1639
In the drafting of the Rome Statute, the delegate of Cuba proposed
to expand the definition to political and social groups, but this
proposal found no support with other delegations. See William
Schabas, Unspeakable Atrocities, p. 106.
1640
See section IV.E.3 d).
1641
Testimony of Reverend Stuart Windsor on behalf of Christian
Solidarity Worldwide, London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013,
session 5. See also Christian Solidarity Worldwide, "North Korea: A
Case To Answer, A Call To Act", p. 63.
1642
See section IV.A.4.
1643
TBG031, a former SSD agents, placed the figure of SSD agents at
100,000, but only 6,000-8,000 could take decisions. Other observers
have indicated that the SSD has 30,000 or more than 50,000 agents;
Robert L. Worden ed., North Korea: A Country Study, p. 277; Ken E.
Gause, "Coercion, Control, Surveillance and Punishment", p. 17;
Based on testimony from former SSD officials, one analyst estimates
that the SSD may retain 250,000-300,000 paid informers. See Andrei
Lankov, The Real North Korea, p. 49. TLC041, a former SSD official,
indicated that he had 35 informers to keep track of a population of
2,600 citizens. Extrapolated to an entire population, this would
mean that more than one in every 100 DPRK citizens is an SSD
informer.
1644
TAP024, TJH015, TLC041, ECC002.
1645
See DPRK Code of Criminal Procedure, article 124.
1646
Ken E. Gause, "Coercion, Control, Surveillance and Punishment", p.
27.
1647
Former DPRK officials told the Commission that documents considered
sensitive were handled by special documents safekeeping departments
and officials could only gain access to numbered copies that they
had to hand back. Other officials indicated that written
information revealing human rights violations and other sensitive
conduct was systematically destroyed.
1648
Underlying this are shifts of power between individuals who either
have their power base primarily in the Party or in the military.
Observers generally note that under Kim Il-sung, the Party was
predominant, whereas there was a shift of power towards individuals
with their power base in the military under Kim Jong-il. The
pendulum may have shifted back to the Party to some degree during
the initial stages of Kim Jong-un's rule. However, the wider
repercussions of the purge of Jang Song-thaek remain to be
understood and could indicate a shift of power back to figures from
the military.
1649
The Supreme People's Assembly is controlled through a small
Presidium of high-ranking Workers' Party of Korea cadres. According
to article 92 of the DPRK Constitution, the Presidium convenes the
Supreme People's Assembly once or twice a year. Mr Kim Yong-nam,
the current chairperson of that Presidium, is one of the members of
the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central
Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. The Presidium has the
power to adopt its own legislative decrees. The 2007 "Annex to the
Criminal Code" Decree, which introduced a number of new criminal
offenses that are subject to the death penalty (see section
IV.D.5), was adopted by the Presidium in this manner.
1650
See Charter of the Workers' Party of Korea, as revised in 2010,
preamble article 4(1), with additional references to the solitary
leadership system in articles 2, 5, 28, 33, 40, 45, 48 and 53.
1651
"Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un's New Year Address". KCNA, 1January
2014, available from http://www.kcna.kp/
kcna.user.article.retrieveNewsViewInfoList.kcmsf#this.
1652
During Kim Il-sung's rule, the Organization and Guidance Department
of the Central Committee, which was headed by his son and successor
Kim Jong-il, was particularly influential. In the late stages of
Kim Jong-il's rule and the first two years of Kim Jong-un's rule,
the Administration Department, then headed by Kim Jong-il's
brother-in-law Jang Song-thaek, was said to be particularly
influential.
1653
See Charter of the Workers' Party of Korea, article 22.
1654
See Charter of the Workers' Party of Korea, article 21.
1655
See "Report on Enlarged Meeting of Political Bureau of Central
Committee of WPK", KCNA, 9 December 2013. Available from http://
www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201312/news09/20131209-05ee.html.
1656
DPRK Constitution, article 109.
1657
DPRK Constitution, article 100. Kim Jong-un was formally elected to
the position of First Chairman by the Supreme People's Assembly in
April 2012. See "Kim Jong-un Elected First Chairman of NDC of
DPRK", KCNA, 13 April 2013. Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/
item/2012/201204/news13/20120413-44ee.html. The designation as
‘First' Chairman apparently results from the act that the late Kim
Jong-il is considered to remain the eternal Chairman of the
National Defence Commission.
1658
DPRK Constitution, article 109.
1659
TAP024, TLC037.
1660
DPRK Constitution, articles 103 and 109.
1661
Submission to the Commission: SUB061 (from a former official).
TLC022, TLC040, TGC004, TBG025. A similar reporting practice was
reportedly continued at least during the initial stages of Kim
Jong-un's rule. See Ken E. Gause, "North Korean Leadership Dynamics
and Decision-making under Kim Jong-un".
1662
DPRK Constitution, articles 102 and 103.
1663
Testimony from former officials TBG025, TBG027, TBG029, TBG031,
TGC004, TJH015, TJH044, TLC022, TLC040, TLC041, TLC044, TSH059.
1664
Former officials TBG031, TLC041, TCC014. See also section IV.A.2
(c), IV.C.1 (a) and IV.C.2.
1665
TGC004, TJH015.
1666
See International Law Commission, "Draft Articles on Responsibility
of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with commentaries",
2001, p. 85; M. Cherif Bassiouni, Crimes against Humanity:
Historical Evolution and Contemporary Application, pp. 263 ff.
1667
A trial of alleged perpetrators based on the prohibition under
international law would not constitute a breach of the prohibition
of the retrospective application of criminal offenses. See ICCPR,
article 15 (2).
1668
See Rome Statute, article 33. See also Charter establishing the
Nuremberg Tribunal, article 8; United States v. Wilhelm List et al,
XI Reports of Trials of War Criminals (1950), p. 1236; United
States v. Erhard Milch, VII Reports of Trials of War Criminals
(1947), p. 42.
1669
The letter is reproduced in Annex II of the Commission report (A/
HRC/25/63). An unedited version of the detailed findings reflected
in the present document was shared with the People's Republic of
China for information and comments on 20 January 2014.
1670
The letter is reproduced in Annex I of the Commission report (A/
HRC/25/63).
1671
The legal requirements of this principle are set out in the Rome
Statute, article 28.
1672
International law of state responsibility requires states to
cooperate to bring to an end through lawful means any breach of
peremptory international law (jus cogens). See article 41 of the
Articles on State Responsibility, which were adopted by the
International Law Commission and commended to the attention of
States by General Assembly Resolution resolution 56/83 of 12
December 2001. A State's failure to exercise the duty to bring to
justice perpetrators of crimes against humanity amounts to a
violation of peremptory international law (jus cogens).
1673
See Rome Statute, article 24. The Rome Statute entered into force
on 1 July 2002. In the case of enforced disappearances, although
they are continuous crimes, the Elements of Crimes of the Rome
Statute explicitly requires that the initial abduction or other
deprivation of liberty would have to have taken place after July
2002. See Elements of Crimes, Assembly of States Parties to the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1st Sess., Sept.
3–10, 2002, article 7(1)(i), footnote 24. The Commission notes,
however, that no such jurisdictional limits applies to the crime
against humanity of imprisonment and other severe deprivations of
liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law,
which are often also committed in connection with international
abductions. On this basis, crimes against humanity related to the
international abductions could potentially fall under the
jurisdiction of the ICC.
1674
See Security Council Resolutions 827 (1993) and 955 (1994).
1675
General Assembly resolution 377 A (V) of 3 November 1950.
1676
The General Assembly already took a role in the establishment of
the Extraordinary Chambers of the Court of Cambodia. General
Assembly resolution 57/228(B) of 13 May 2003 approved the agreement
of 6 June 2003 between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the
United Nations that led to the establishment of these chambers.
1677
Notable examples are the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the
Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia.
1678
See in this regard the findings on the lack of independence and
impartiality of the judicial process in the DPRK contained in
sections III.E and IV.E.4 (a).
1679
During the course of its work, the Commission discovered that a
steady stream of first-hand information on the human rights
situation is emerging from the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, notably through those who are fleeing and direct contacts
facilitated by modern technology. However, building the trust
necessary to gather such information takes steady engagement with
relevant actors on the ground, which cannot be sustained based on
the headquarters-based approach pursued by the United Nations so
far in relation to the DPRK.
1680
This approach was pursued in South Africa through its Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, although most of the alleged main
perpetrators of crimes committed in Apartheid South Africa were no
longer in power when that commission took up its work.
1681
See also Prosecutor v Kallon and Kamara, SCSL-04-15AR72(E), SCSL-
04-16-AR72(E) [SCSL Appeals Chamber], Decision on Challenge to
Jurisdiction: Lomé Accord Amnesty, of 13 March 2004, para. 73;
Barrios Altos v. Peru, (Ser. C) No. 75 [Inter-American Court of
Human Rights], Int.Am. Ct. H.R, Judgment of March 14 2001, para.
41.
1682
See World Summit Outcome Document A/RES/60/1, para. 139. A
corresponding legal obligation is also emerging under the
International Law of State Responsibility, which obligates states
to cooperate to bring to an end any serious breach by a state of an
obligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international
law. See articles 40 and 41 of the International Law Commission's
"Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally
Wrongful Acts", which the General Assembly commended to the
attention of States through Resolution 56/83 of 12 December 2001.
Crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide
amount to such breaches of peremptory law.
1683
"DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman Flays Hostile Forces' Adoption of
‘Human Rights Resolution' against DPRK", KCNA, 20 November 2013.
Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201311/news20/
20131120-21ee.html; "UN Human Rights Council's ‘Resolution on Human
Rights' against DPRK Rejected by DPRK FM Spokesman", KCNA,
20 March 2013. Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/
201303/news22/20130322-39ee.html. Language of a comparable kind was
used in relation to past resolutions.
1684
See section II.2 for details on the DPRK's lack of cooperation with
United Nations human rights mechanisms.
1685
For more details on this initiative see http://www.un.org/sg/
rightsupfront/.
1686
See in this regard, the recommendations to the international
community in the Commission's report, which the Commission set out
in accordance with Human Rights Council Resolution 13/22, read in
conjunction with paragraph 31 of the report of the Special
Rapporteur on human rights situation in the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.
GE.14-10871