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Bribery, rape and torture: Life in North Korea's prison cells - Walla! news

2020-10-20T19:42:50.919Z


A first-of-its-kind report, based on conversations with former detainees who fled the country, details the harsh conditions at detention centers. The detainees are crammed into small cells, and those who dare to move suffer severe physical punishments. The detainees are sexually assaulted, as part of an effort to obtain confessions by force. "We received less animal treatment"


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Bribery, rape and torture: life in North Korean prison cells

A first-of-its-kind report, based on conversations with former detainees who fled the country, details the harsh conditions at detention centers.

The detainees are crammed into small cells, and those who dare to move suffer severe physical punishments.

The detainees are sexually assaulted, as part of an effort to obtain confessions by force.

"We received less animal treatment"

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  • North Korea

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Tuesday, 20 October 2020, 12:54

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In the video: A military parade in Pyongyang to mark the 75th anniversary of the Labor Party (Photo: Reuters)

North Korean suspects are regularly tortured, humiliated and sexually assaulted as part of a criminal justice system that sees them as "less than animals" - according to a first-of-its-kind report detailing the brutality of the isolated communist state detention centers.



The Human Rights Watch, which operates in the United States, said the suspects were being sent to detention centers, where the cells were crowded and not genital.

They are forced to confess and they do not receive proper food and clothing unless they manage to bribe the guards so that their families will send them food.



The report is based on interviews with 15 women and men arrested in the country, as well as with former officials familiar with the North Korean justice system.

They all fled the handrail after 2011, the year Kim Jong Un came to power.



"People have a very good reason to be afraid of arrest and incarceration before a trial in North Korea," said Phil Robertson, the organization's deputy director for Asia.

According to him, only those with political or financial connections to bribe police officers, wardens and prosecutors can save themselves and their families.

In addition to the torture of detainees, women face harassment and sexual assault, including rape.



According to the report, violence against detainees, which includes beatings with sticks or kicks, is "particularly severe" in the early stages of detention.

"Regulations state that there must be no violence, but we need confessions in the initial stages of investigation and investigation," a former police officer said.

"So you have to hit them to get a confession."

All the interviewees fled the country before coming to power.

Kim jong un

Former detainees said they were forced to sit on the floor of their cell, sometimes on their knees, for 16 hours a day, with every small movement leading to punishments - from beatings with hands, sticks or leather belts - to running in circles in the yard up to a thousand times.



"If I or others moved, the guards ordered me or all the cell members to get their hands out of the bars and they would step on them with their boots," said Park Ji-chul, a former detainee.



Yun Yang-chul, another former detainee, said the suspects were treated "as if they were worth less than an animal, and that's what you become."



Ion, who worked in the government at the time he was arrested by the secret police in 2011, said he was severely beaten before being questioned, and that he was not told he was charged with espionage until the next day.

"They beat me for half an hour, kicked me with their boots, and hit me with their fists anywhere on my body," said Ion, who was in his 30s.

He was not prosecuted for espionage, but was held for five years in a camp for her on a charge of illegal smuggling.

More on Walla!

NEWS

Bribery to Survive: The Cruel Circle of Life of North Korean Citizens

To the full article

Kim Sun-jong, a former trafficker in her 50s who fled the country five years ago, said she was raped by her interrogator at a detention center.

She added that another police officer sexually assaulted her during the interrogation.

"I was powerless to resist," she said.



The report called on the communist regime to acknowledge human rights violations and put an end to "torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" of detainees.

He called on South Korea, the United States and other countries to "exert public and private pressure" on Pyongyang.



Similar allegations of systematic torture and extrajudicial executions have been heard by the UN, according to which North Korea operates a network of Golgoths and political detention camps.

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Source: walla

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