White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, 2007

책 소개

1. Human Rights and the Characteristics of the North Korean System First of all, due to the economic hardship and political repressions inherent in the North Korean system, the civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights of North Korean people have long been routinely violated. As social deviance has increased since the 1990s owing to the deteriorating economic situation, North Korean authorities have constantly tried to tighten their control over society. In the process, North Koreans’ rights to life and liberty have been seriously violated. The most inhuman practice in the country is “public execution,” which is enforced on a regular basis to reinforce the atmosphere of fear and suspicion that is used by authorities to wield control over society. North Korea used to enforce public executions once every month in each of its regions. However, as the outcry from the international community rose louder, the frequency has reduced (to about once every three months). Nevertheless, capital punishment is still carried out. Second, abuse and indiscriminate beatings result in frequent death at the various detention facilities (such as correction centers, management centers, collection points, and labor training camps). Many North Korea defectors (in South Korea) have also testified that countless deaths stemming from malnutrition and starvation also occur at these facilities. Many defectors in South Korea have testified that as recently as 2005, beatings and torture were routinely carried out at various detention facilities like correctional centers, labor training camps, collection points, and holding cells. Many have also testified that incidents of death even in 2006 were frequent in the detention facilities due to the overall atrocious treatment, disease, and malnutrition. Third, as social deviance increased, North Korea began to operate “labor training camps” for the purpose of enforcing short-term punishment. This practice has led to a significant increase in the number of North Koreans subjected to forced labor--a penalty newly added when the DPRK Penal Code was amended in 2004. When North Korea amended its penal code, it introduced a new type of penalty called “labor training.” Many North Korean defectors have testified that North Korean courts were rendering sentences of labor training based on the revised code. Since this is a significant new development, it would be worth describing an appropriate case in detail. Fourth, the practices of assessing guilt by association and collective retribution are particularly inhuman human rights violations we still see in North Korea today. In the cases of political and ideological criminals the rule of crime by association is applied, meaning that, depending on the seriousness of the crime, relatives of the guilty are also punished, along with his children’s generation. Authorities see this as a most effective mechanism to discourage individuals from complaining or gathering others for collective action. North Korean defectors have testified that this “crime by association” system is the most cruel and irrational justice system in the North. Indeed, it is a tool of despotic rule. Fifth and most affecting the every day lives of North Koreans is the covert and repressive surveillance network run by the government. The three coercive agents of police, secret police, and the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), respectively, plant their own informants in all work places and units of organization. The informants are not dispatched from their central headquarters, but recruited and trained locally from among ordinary citizens who are assessed as having favorable personal background. They are charged with monitoring and reporting on other workers on a regular basis. People have no way of knowing who among them are the informants. Some defectors say one in five or one in six North Koreans are informants, others say the ratio is closer to one in ten. No one knows for sure.…

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