North Korea has expanded its political prison camps in the past decade to hold about 200,000 people in “horrific” conditions, with some inmates eating rats to survive, Amnesty International said yesterday.
A report from the London-based rights group painted a nightmarish picture of overwork, starvation and executions which detainees were forced to watch.
Amnesty said it had obtained satellite images revealing the location and size of the camps, along with new testimony from former inmates of the Yodok camp complex and others.
The ex-detainees testified that “prisoners are forced to work in conditions approaching slavery and are frequently subjected to torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment,” Amnesty said.
All ex-detainees at Yodok in South Hamkyong Province had witnessed public executions, it said.
Amnesty said comparison of the latest images with ones from 2001 showed a significant increase in the scale of the camps.
“As North Korea seems to be moving towards a new leader in Kim Jong-un and a period of political instability, the big worry is that the prison camps appear to be growing in size,” Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director Sam Zarifi said.
Amnesty said that in just one camp, Kwanliso 15 at Yodok, thousands are believed to be held after being judged “guilty by association” or simply because one of their relatives has been detained. Many did not even know what crimes they were accused of.
Amnesty quoted Jeong Kyoun-gil, a detainee at Yodok from 2000 to 2003, as saying the working day started at 4am and ended at 8pm, but was followed by two hours of ideological education.
“If we don’t memorize the 10 codes of ethics, we would not be allowed to sleep,” Jeong was quoted as saying in an interview last month.
Only those who finished their assigned tasks would receive the ration of a 200g bowl of corn gruel, and inmates died daily.
“Seeing people die happened frequently — every day,” Jeong said in the Seoul interview. “Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it rather than feel sad because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food.”
Some prisoners ate rats or picked corn kernels out of animal excreta to survive, the report said. One former detainee at Yodok estimated that 40 percent of inmates died from malnutrition between 1999 and 2001, it added.
Amnesty said authorities are also known to use a cube-shaped “torture cell” in which it is impossible either to stand or lie down.
It said inmates deemed disruptive were thrown in for at least one week, “but Amnesty International is aware of one case of a child thrown into the cell for eight months.”
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS