Inside North Korea: Unbelievable Excerpts From UN Report #5

These camps sprang up in the 50’s as part of Kim Il-sung’s sweeping purges. They were inspired by Soviet gulags but their conditions are considered to be even worse. They swelled in size for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was incredibly easy to do something considered wrong. As an example many North Koreans who fought against Japan were captured by the Japanese and ended up lving in Japan’s for some time. These returning POWs were imprisoned, because they “knew too much” about capitalist society.

Secondly if you were arrested, the rest of your family including parents, siblings and children (of any age) were incarcerated too. In the most extreme cases even the grandchildren of “criminals” were taken away. This ensured there would be no revenge attacks from aggrieved descendants in future decades.

I’ll leave you with a final example that sort of sums the whole thing up:

Ms Kim Hye-sook was 13 years old, when SSD agents arrested her just as she returned from school. 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 would 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.

The horrors of it all are fascinating and hugely depressing. It’s like reading ancient history, you just can’t believe this has been allowed to happen for so long. Next time we cover execution…

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