Human Rights Violations The Norm In North Korean Prison Camps

Human Rights Violations The Norm In North Korean Prison Camps

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

SEOUL, North Korea – North Korean political prisoner camp is a place where public executions, death by starvation and torture are rampant.

Human Rights group, Amnesty International, conducted an investigation into this death camp. Amnesty held interviews with fifteen former inmates and prison guards, expressing their daily experiences in the camps and describing the lack of food, conditions of hard labor.

200,000 people are reported to held in these camps, which according to satellite imagery obtained by the Amnesty, are being built across central North Korea.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable. For decades the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International Asia Pacific Director.

Satellite images show four of the six camps occupying huge areas of land and located in vast wilderness sites in South Pyongan, South Hamkyung and North Hamkyung provinces, and producing products ranging from soy bean paste and sweets to coal and cement.

As facilities expand common detainees include house prisoners accused of criticizing the leadership, those believed to be part of anti-government groups and even those caught listening to South Korean broadcasts.

“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.” reports Amnesty.

“Guilt-by-association” is reported to keep thousands confined to these camps.

Amnesty estimated that 40% of inmates die from malnutrition. And testimonials reveal that every former inmate at one camp had witnessed a public execution.

Conditions in these camps are very poor for children who are often tortured through inhumane living conditions.

One child was held for eight months in a “torture-cube-cell” so small it was impossible to stand or lie down.

Many witnesses say that other more common forms of torture include sleep deprivation, bamboo slivers under the fingernails, water-boarding and suspending prisoners whose feet and hands have been bound behind them.

One former inmate told Amnesty how he and his father were forced to witness the public execution of his mother and brother.

A former prison guard expressed how inmates would eat snakes, rats and pig feed for survival. In particular a former inmate told how she had picked, cleaned and eaten corn kernels from cow dung.

Education was limited or non-existent inside these camps; the youth are frequently worked until they collapse.

Aidan Foster-Carter, Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds University in England, said: “It is difficult to get hard data (on North Korea) for obvious reasons, and it could be that the numbers of people in the camps are growing. What may be happening is that as part of the changing political situation the government has conducted a purge of people opposed to the succession (of leader Kim Jong ll by his son Kim Jong-un).”

In its most recent human rights report on North Korea, the U.S. State Department describes the country’s human rights record as “deplorable.”

Amnesty International believes an estimated 40% of inmates at Yodok, the prison camp, died from malnutrition between 1999 and 2001.

“These are places out of sight of the rest of the world, where almost the entire range of human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for last 60 years are ignored.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people exist with virtually no rights, treated essentially as slaves, in some of the worst circumstances we’ve documented in the last 50 years,” said Sam Zarifi.

Amnesty International is urging North Korea to close its prison camps and release political prisoners.

For more  information, please see:

CNN – Report: Torture, starvation rife in North Korea political prisons – 4 May 2011

Amnesty International – Images reveal scale of North Korean political prison camps – 3 May 2011

Arirang – Korea for the World, The World for Korea – 4 May 2011

Bangladesh News – North Korea jail camps ‘growing’ – 4 May 2011

Bahrain Will Try Medical Personnel in Military Court for Aiding Protesters


By Eileen Gould
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

MANAMA, Bahrain – Bahrain has detained approximately fifty doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel for aiding anti-government protesters, according to human rights officials.  The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has reported that among those detained were twenty-four doctors, twenty-three nurses and paramedics.  Further reports indicate that the detainees are possibly being held on a military base and that almost all of them were tortured.

One medical professional who had been detained claimed that she was humiliated by her captors, beat with a hose, and forced to dance for them.

The Center for Human Rights also reported that most people who need treatment are no longer going to hospitals but are staying at home because the military is now occupying the hospital.  People are afraid that they will be arrested and tortured should they go to the hospital.

It is alleged that the military forces has tortured medical personnel because they have revealed to the international press the number of people who Sheik Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa, Bahrain’s king, has suppressed.

Bahrain’s Justice Ministry has charged forty-seven doctors and nurses with attempting to overthrow the monarchy and participating in illegal demonstrations and plans to try them in military court.

A senior party leader of the Al-Wefaq party, Khalil Al-Marzzoq, claimed that the government was targeting the opposition systematically “segment by segment”.

In addition to medical personnel, the government has also detained other groups of people who have supported the uprising, including teachers, politicians, and students.  According to the Center for Human Rights, people have been fired from their jobs and had their money stolen.

President Barack Obama has spoken with King Hamed by phone, urging him to be lenient with four protesters, who were sentenced to death last week for their involvement in killing two police officers during the uprising.

Amnesty International has called upon the Bahraini government to end its repressive actions and to release any opposition protesters who have been detained for demonstrating peacefully.  Bahrain’s parliament voted to extend the state of emergency today.  Emergency law has been used to arrest without a warrant, detain protesters, and try civilians in military courts.

Reports have also indicated that the military has allegedly destroyed a few Shi’a mosques because they did not have building permits.

For more information please see:
Amnesty International – Bahrain Renews Emergency Law as Repression Persists – 04 May 2011

LA Times – Bahrain: Medical staff face prosecution, alleged torture after aiding anti-government protesters – 04 May 2011

Wall Street Journal – Bahrain to Put Medical Staff on Trial – 04 May 2011 

[Breaking News] Osama Bin Laden Reported Dead

By Kylie M Tsudama

Special Features Editor

United States President Barack Obama has announced that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is dead.

In a speech late Sunday night, President Obama addressed the nation to confirm reports that Osama Bin Laden was dead.  Appearing from the White House, the President announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed in a firefight at a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was hiding.  This confirmation came only after DNA tests confirmed that the United States did have the body of Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden was at the top of the United States “most wanted” list.

The announcement comes just months from the ten-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Al-Qaeda Leader Osama Bin Laden Dead – 01 May 2011

LA Times – Obama Announces Osama Bin Laden Killed by U.S. – 01 May 2011

VOA News – Obama Announces Death of Osama Bin Laden – 01 May 2011

U.S. States resort to black markets to obtain drugs used for lethal injection

By Erica Laster                                                                                                                       Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

ATLANTA, United States – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has opted to confiscate several State’s supplies of sodium thiopental (ST) amid concerns about how the lethal injection drug had been obtained.  With the supply of the widely recognized lethal injection drug growing even tighter, states have resorted to illegal means and black markets in order to continue its use in carrying out the death penalty on inmates. 

States are using black markets to obtain lethal injection drugs for exercutions
States are using black markets to obtain lethal injection drugs for exercutions

Human rights groups have pointed out the ethical issues drug companies face once the drug is sold and control over its use is lost.

On January 28, 2011, the only U.S. company to manufacture sodium thiopental, Hospira Incorporated, stopped production of the lethal injection drug leaving states floundering for a substitute. Swiss drug company Novartis followed suit on February 10, forbidding distributors from allowing the drug to be exported to the United States.

On March 15, The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) confiscated the entire supply of sodium thiopental held by Georgia after concern and questions arose amid the origin of the drugs.  Shortly thereafter, Kentucky and Tennessee voluntarily turned over their supply of the drug to the DEA on April 1.

On April 14, the United Kingdom placed a ban on all exports of the sodium thiopental.  Business Secretary Vince Cable confirmed in a statement that “We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and are clear that British drugs should not be used to carry out lethal injections. That is why we introduced a control on sodium thiopental last year – the first of its kind in the world. And it is also why we are now controlling the export of the other drugs used in lethal injection in the US.”

Secretary Cable further announced that the UK would encourage the European Union to follow suit and apply the control “on an EU-wide basis.”

In the frenzy to continue capital punishment amid pressure from prisons and victims rights groups, many States resorted to the use of pentobarbital.  Pentobarbital is commonly used to euthanize animals and for medical treatment.  Ohio and Oklahoma are the only states currently using the new substitute.  Georgia officials have confirmed traveling to both states to learn more about its use.

An April 13 article by the New York Times revealed that some states have conspired to continue to obtain sodium thiopental, going so far as to traffick the drug from other sources, including black markets.

One deposition in a lawsuit brought by a death row inmate indicated that an Arkansas Department of Corrections official drove to Tennessee and Texas in order to bring the drug to Arkansas for an eminent execution.

Over 1,000 inmates have been executed in the United States since the first execution on December 7, 1982.

Photo Courtesy of CNN.  For More Information Please Visit:

IPS News – Lethal Injection Treads Murky Ethical Waters – 29 April 2011

Amnesty International – Lethal Injection – January 2011

Full Text Reports – Government Bans Export of Lethal Injection Drugs to the U.S. – 20 April 2011

Syrian Military Forces Seize Control of City Mosque


By Eileen Gould
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DARAA, Syria – Syrian military forces stormed a mosque in the southern town of Daraa on Saturday, killing at least four.  Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime had turned the mosque into a temporary hospital for those who were injured in the military’s assault on the town.

In the early morning hours, soldiers, backed by tanks and helicopters, attacked Daraa and seized control of the mosque.  According to witnesses, snipers took positions in the mosque’s minaret.  In addition, this incident was the first time helicopters were used against the opposition.  Three helicopters were used in the attack.

Witnesses indicated that Daraa is running out of food and medicine.  Water, electricity and telephones have been cut off for almost a week.  Residents of Daraa have remained in their homes. Men were forbidden from leaving their homes, but women were allowed to leave to search for bread. News about the crackdown is transmitted from one house to the next through windows.

It is difficult to determine precisely how many people have been killed at this time as the government has limited the number of foreign journalists to only a few foreign journalists and has restricted them.  Families have been unable to retrieve bodies from the streets and have put the bodies in a temporary morgue, according to human rights groups.   Since the conflict began in mid-March, it is estimated that 535 people have died.

To address the worsening situation in Syria, the United Nations Human Rights Council met and approved a resolution, requesting that the UN high commissioner for human rights investigate the human rights abuses in Syria on April 29. This special session was requested by sixteen members of the Human Rights Council, including the United States, Mexico, South Korea, Zambia and Senegal.  Seven members abstained from the vote, which passed twenty-six to nine.  Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Angola did not attend the session.

This incident came only a day after nearly sixty-five people were killed, most of them in Daraa, where several teenagers put anti-government graffiti on a wall, inciting a violence uprising.  The efforts of military forces to end the uprising have become increasingly brutal.  The government’s actions have been condemned by the international community.  Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has described the crackdown as “completely disgraceful and unacceptable”.

For more information please see:
Sydney Morning Herald – Syrian Soldiers Storm City Mosque – 02 May 2011

The Guardian – Syrian Regime’s Shells Pound Deraa’s Roman Quarter – 01 May 2011

Human Rights Watch – UN: Syria Should Heed Call to End Violence – April 30, 2011

Washington Post – Syrian Troops Overwhelm Protest Town – 30 April 2011