The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps
Prisoners’ Testimonies and Satellite Photographs
PART THREE
SUMMARY OF TORTURE AND INFANTICIDE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY FORMER PRISONERS AND DETAINEES INTERVIEWED FOR THIS REPORT
I. Torture Summary
According to almost all of the former-prisoner testimony gathered for this report — from Ali Lamada’s 1967 Sariwon prison testimony to the post-2000 testimonies of North Koreans forcibly repatriated from China — the practice of torture permeates the North Korean prison and detention system.
Former Detainee #1 was beaten unconscious for hunger-related rule infractions in 1997 at the Nongpo jip-kyul-so (detention center) in Chongjin City. He also reported that detainees there were beaten with shovels if they did not work fast enough. Former Detainee #3 reported the use of an undersized punishment box at the Danchun prison camp in which camp rule-breakers were held for fifteen days, unable to stand-up or lie down. He also reported that beatings of the prisoners by guards were common.
LEE Young Kuk reported that he was subjected to motionless-kneeling and water torture and facial and shin beatings with rifle butts at the Kuk-ga-bo-wi-bu inter-rogation/detention facility in Pyongyang in 1994, leaving permanent damage in one ear, double vision in one eye, and his shins still bruised and discolored as of late 2002.
KANG Chol Hwan reported the existence of separate punishment cells within Kwan-li-so No. 15 Yodok, from which few prisoners returned alive.
Former Prisoner #6 reported that prisoners were beaten to death by prison workunit leaders at Danchun Kyo-hwa-so No. 77 in North Hamgyong Province in the late 1980s.
AHN Myong Chol, a former guard, reported that all three of the kwan-li-so at which he worked had isolated detention facilities in which many prisoners died from mistreatment, and that at Kwan-li-so No. 22 there were so many deaths by beatings from guards that the guards were told to be less violent.
Former Detainee #8 reported that male prisoners were beaten by guards at the Chongjin jip-kyul-so in mid-2000.
Former Detainee #9 reported that detainees at the Onsong ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae (labor-training camp) were compelled to beat each other.
KIM Sung Min reported that in 1997 at the Onsong bo-wi-bu (National Security Agency) detention center, his fingers were broken and he was kicked and beaten on the head and face until his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth bled.
RHYU Young Il saw, in 1997, that out of six persons in an adjacent cell in the bo-wi-bu interrogation facility where he was detained in Pyongyang, two were carried out on stretchers, two could walk only with the assistance of guards, and two could walk out by themselves. Detainees who moved while they were supposed to be sitting motionless and silent for long periods were handcuffed from the upper bars of their cells with their feet off the floor. Detainees who talked when they were supposed to be sitting motionless and silent were compelled to slap and hit each other.
Former Prisoner #12 reported that at Hoeryong kyo-hwa-so in the early to middle 1990s, minor rule-breakers were beaten by their cellmates on the orders of the guards, and major rule-breakers were placed in a 1.5-meter-square (16.5-feet-square) punishment cell for a week or more.
LEE Min Bok reported being beaten “many times” on his fingernails and the back of his hands with a metal rod during interrogation at the Hyesan detention center in 1990. He also reported that at the Hyesan In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) detention facility, where he was subsequently held, prisoners were compelled to beat each other. Lee witnessed one prisoner, KIM Jae Chul, beaten to death.
Former Detainee #15 reported that he was beaten with chairs and sticks at both the Hoeryong and Onsong In-min-bo-an-seong jails in early 2002.
LEE Soon Ok reported that she experienced beatings, strappings, and water torture leading to loss of consciousness, and was held outside in freezing January weather at the Chongjin In-min-bo-an-seong pre-trial detention center in 1986. Her account of beatings and brutalities in the early to middle 1990s at Kaechon women’s prison, Kyo-hwa-so No. 1, (in her prison memoirs) are too numerous to detail here.
JI Hae Nam confirmed the existence of miniature punishment cells at Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 and reported that beatings and kicking of women prisoners were a daily occurrence in the mid-1990s. She also reported beatings, during interrogation or for prison regulation infractions, in late 1999 at the Sinuiju bo-wi-bu jail, where she was required to kneel motionless, hit with broomsticks, and required to do stand-up/sit-down repetitions to the point of collapse, in her case in thirty to forty minutes.
KIM Yong reported that he was beaten at the bo-wi-bu police jail at Maram and was subjected to water torture and hung by his wrists in the bo-wi-bu police jail at Moonsu in 1993.
KIM Tae Jin reported that he was beaten, deprived of sleep, and made to kneel motionless for many hours at the bo-wi-bu police detention/interrogation facility in Chongjin in late 1998/early 1999.
YOU Chun Sik reported that he was kicked, beaten, and subjected to daylong motionless-sitting torture at the bo-wi-bu police jail in Sinuiju in 2000. He described the motionless-sitting as being more painful than the beatings.
Former Detainee #21 reported that she was beaten unconscious in mid-1999 at the In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) ku-ryu-jang (detention/interroga-tion facility) at Onsong, where detainees were beaten so badly that they confessed to doing things they had not done. Women were hit on their fingertips. She witnessed one very ill woman who was compelled to do stand-up/sit-down repetitions until she died.
Former Detainee #22 reported that he was beaten with chairs at Onsong bo-wi-bu (State Security Agency) police jail in late 2001, and beaten even worse at the Chongjin In-min-bo-an-seong detention center in early 2002.
Former Detainee #24 reported that there were beatings at the bo-wi-bu police jail in Sinuiju in January 2000.
Former Detainee #25 reported that one woman, a former schoolteacher who had been caught in Mongolia and repatriated to China and North Korea, was beaten nearly to death at the Onsong In-min-bo-an-seong detention center in November 1999, and then taken away either to die or, if she recovered, for transfer to Kyo-hwa-so No. 22.
Former Detainee #26 was made to kneel motionless at the Onsong bo-wi-bu police jail in June 2000 and was made to sit motionless for six days at the Hoeryong bo-wi-bu police jail in July 2001.
Former Detainee #28 reported that prisoners were beaten to death at the Kyo-hwa-so No. 12 at Jeonger-ri in North Hamgyong Province in 1999.
II. Ethnic Infanticide Summary
There are sporadic reports of forced abortions and baby killings at the kwan-li-so, where, except for a very few privileged couples, the prisoners were not allowed to have sex or children. There are also sporadic reports of forced abortion and baby killings at the kwan-li-so, where sex between prisoners is prohibited. And there are sporadic reports of killings of pregnant women who were raped or coerced into sex by prison guards. However, this report focuses on the forced abortions and baby killings directed against and inflicted on women forcibly repatriated from China, because of the ethnic and policy components of those atrocities.
CHOI Yong Hwa assisted in the delivery of babies, three of whom were promptly killed, at the Sinuiju do-jip-kyul-so (provincial detention center) in mid-2000.
Former Detainee #8 witnessed six forced abortions at Chongjin do-jip-kyul-so in mid-2000.
Former Detainee #9 witnessed ten forced abortions at Onsong ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae (labor-training camp) in mid-2000.
YOU Chun Sik reported that four pregnant women at the bo-wi-bu (National Security Agency) police station in Sinuiju were subjected to forced abortions in mid-2000.
Former Detainee #21 reported two baby killings at the Onsong In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) police station in late 1999.
Former Detainee #24 helped deliver seven babies who were killed at the Backtori, South Sinuiju In-min-bo-an-seong police detention center in January 2000.
Former Detainee #25 witnessed four babies killed at Nongpo In-min-bo-an-seong police detention center in Chongjin in late 1999, and another six pregnant women subjected to forced abortion.
Former Detainee #26 witnessed three forced abortions and seven babies killed at the Nongpo jip-kyul-so (detention center), Chongjin City, in May 2000.
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