NORTH KOREA FACT SHEET
A starving child in a North Korean nursery school
More than 200,000 prisoners are being held in just 5 of the 12 prison camps of North Korea, a nation of less than 20 million people. (the number of additional prisoners who are imprisoned in the other known and unknown camps, some of which are said to be completely underground, is unknown)[1]
North Korea's State Security Agency maintains at least 12 political prisons and about 30 forced labor and labor education camps.1
At least two of the camps are larger in area than the District of Columbia
Camp Huaong is 3 times the size of Washington, DC.1
At one camp, Camp 22 in Haengyong, 50,000 prisoners toil each day in conditions that U.S. officials and former inmates say result in the death of 20 to 25 percent of the prison population every year.1
In the last three decades more than 400,000 people are believed to have perished in the gulag.[2]
The many violations of human rights that occur include:[3]
Systematic use of torture
Arbitrary and brutal imprisonment
Extreme deprivation and starvation (one daily ration is 100g of broken corn)
Intense forced labor
Frequent 'accidents', disfigurement and death due to oppressive conditions
The nation is characterized by injustice, such as:3
No due process
Arbitrary public execution
Punishment of up to 3 generations for the accusations against 1 family member
Caste/Class system based on hereditary family background limits opportunities and/or internally exiles at least 2/3 of North Korea's people
Imprisonment or execution of anyone who attepts to defect to South Korea or who has had contact with South Korean Christian or political groups
Pregnant Women forcibly repatriated to North Korea from China who are found to have been impregnated by Chinese men are subject to forced abortion or forced into labor by kicking them and then (if it survives) made to smother their newborn child. (According to some reports, the bodies of these newly born children are then collected and used for some kind of 'medicine'.)
President Kim Jong II uses starvation as a means of ethnic cleansing and religious persecution: [4]
In most rural areas there is no medicine, running water, heating, food, or bandages where as the capital city, Pyongyang, glitters with nightclubs, casinos, luxury hotels, gourmet restaurants and state-of-the-art hospitals.
Humanitarian Relief Experts say that more than 4 million North Koreans have died of starvation since 1995 despite the fact that North Korea receives more food aid than any nation in the world.4
Lee Young Kuk, former bodyguard to President Kim says that millions of dollars of food is stockpiled in military complexes and used to feed soldiers and the ruling elite.4
North Korea illicitly exports narcotics to Russia, China, South Korea and Japan
The North Korea manufactures 1/3 of all Methamphetamines sold in Japan
Between 4,200 and 7,000 hectares of land are dedicated to cultivating the opium poppy, which is used to make the illegal addictive drug heroin.[5]
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[1] MSNBC. 'Death, terror in N. Korea gulag.' January 15, 2003.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/859191.asp?0cv=CA01&cp1=1#BODY
[2] U.S. News and World Report. 'Gulag Nation.' June 23, 2003.
[3] Compiled from the Congressional Testimony of Soon Ok Lee before the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. April 22, 2002.
http://wwwa.house.gov/international_relations/107/lee0502.htm
[4] WORLD magazine. 'View from the Axis.' March 9, 2002.
http://worldmag.com/world/issue/03-09-02/cover_1.asp
[5] TIME asia, 'Kim's Rackets.' June 9, 2003.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/printout/0,13675,501030609-455850,00.html