By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor
PYONGYANG, North Korea – The word’s attention was turned to North Korea over the weekend when the secretive regime released two American citizens, Matthew Todd Miller and Kenneth Bae. The Americans had both been charged with crimes against the North Korean state and sentence to hard labor. The two were the last Americans held by North Korea following the release last month of Chris Fowle. The released of the two Americans may have been an attempt to shine a more favorable light on the regime and draw the word’s attention away from the crimes committed by the regime. Including crimes against the tens of thousands of people detained in labor camps by the regime. The release of the two Americans came just days after the publication of a damming report by the United Nations’ special rapporteur dealing with North Korea which called on the case to be referred to the International Criminal Court, which could potentially lead to an indictment of North Koreas new leader Kim Jong Un.
A report relapsed by Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations’ special rapporteur dealing with North Korea called on the North Korean regime to by referred to the international criminal court due to the country’s gross violations of human rights. “The international community must seize this unique opportunity and momentum created by the commission of inquiry to help to make a difference in the lives of the people of Korea, including victims, and to ensure accountability of those responsible for serious violations of human rights, including crimes against humanity,” Darusman wrote in his report. Darusman ]’s report comes six months after a United Nations commission of inquiry released a 372-page report detailing human rights abuses and crimes against humanity committed by the secretive state including allegations of brainwashing, torture, starvation and imprisonment for “crimes” such as questioning the system or trying to escape the country, or for secretly practicing Christianity and other faiths.
The North Korean regime allegedly practices a form of collective punishment known as “three generations of punishment” in which three generations of a single family are forcibly imprisoned in North Korea’s labor camps. The system was established by North Korea’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung, as a means of whipping out the entire families of political dissidents under the theory that if one person commits crimes against the state their offspring will as well. Under this system children born in the late 20th or even the 21st century may remain in prison for the alleged crimes of their grandparents. Shin, A survivor of North Korea’s Camp 14 stated that he had no idea why he was in prison or even that the outside world existed. “Because I was born there, I just thought that those people who carry guns were born to carry guns and prisoners like me were born as prisoners, he said.”
An estimated 150,000 North Koreans are detained under the regimes inhuman labor camp system. The North Korean state has never acknowledged that prisons camps exist in the country but survivors have relayed horrific stories of starvation, fearsome labor, torture, rape and murder through public execution. Under the “three generations of punishment” regime entire generations are born, live and die in these horrifically inhuman prisons. Last year Amnesty international released satellite images purportedly showing evidence of existence and even the expansion, including the construction of new housing blocks and production facilities, at two of the isolated regime’s largest camps or “kwanliso,” Camp 15 and Camp 16. Both prison camps are used to hold political prisoners. “The gruesome reality of North Korea’s continued investment in this vast network of repression has been exposed,” said Rajiv Narayan, Amnesty International’s East Asia Researcher. “We urge the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those prisoners of conscience held in political prison camps and close the camps immediately.”
For more information please see:
Al Jazeera – North Korea Frees Two Detained US Citizens – 9 November 2014
The Washington Post – U.N. Human Rights Report Says it’s Time to Hold North Korea to Account — In Court – 28 October 2014
CNN International – Photos Show Scale of North Korea’s Repressive Prison Camps — Amnesty – 4 December 2014
CBS News – Horrors Revealed At North Korean Prison Camp – 30 November 2012
