The document often highlights the opaque criminal justice system, in which suspects are considered “less valuable than animals.”
The report describes North Korea as a “weak legal and institutional structure” as well as the political nature of its courts and law enforcement agencies under the country’s ruling party.
The report interviewed eight former government officials and 22 former detainees. All of those interviewed fled the country after 2011 – the year the country’s current leader, Kim Jong-un, took power.
In a testimony given to HRW, former detainee Lim Ok Kyung said he was arrested in 2014 for smuggling goods from China. She said her husband is a member of a middle-class party and was able to free her after ten days through connections. However, Lime said he was beaten and abused during his detention. “Some of the guards who passed by would hit me with their hands or kick me with their shoes … for five days they forced me to stay standing and did not let me sleep.”
Other testimonies matched Lim’s claims of arbitrary beatings and torture, with former detainees recounting how they were forced to sit on the floor for sixteen hours on their knees or on cross legs. The report claims that he was beaten if he moved.
Other women spoke of the lack of legal support as well as the lack of other basic facilities such as soap, menstruation or blankets once detained. All said they are in an extremely unhealthy situation.
Another former detainee, Yoon Young Cheol, said that once inside the system, “you are treated as if you are less valuable than an animal, and that’s what you end up being.” Summary After the trial, Yoon was sentenced by a former government employee to five years of unpaid labor for smuggling banned products such as herbal medicines, silver and gold.
Officers who spoke to former detainees and CNN confirmed the report’s findings. Heo Jong-hee, a former police officer, said she and her colleagues were given justice based on how many confessions they had made. “As soon as they reach the police station, they start beating me. They are thinking, ‘Let’s add my number.’
“If they solve the crime, it helps them grow and rise from the ranks,” Hio told CNN.
Hyo worked in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, in 2000, but is still in North Korea, based on information provided by his family and friends, claiming that things are worse now.
Former army officer Kangana Re-Huke told CNN that he was jailed for four days in 2013 for stealing corn. He was released after bribing a guard with money and tobacco. “In prison, they treat you like a pig or a dog. They beat you mercilessly. I couldn’t walk for a week after that because they hit me on the knee.”
Kang said the beating was so bad that, even after many years now, he struggles to walk on rainy days, and his joints were damaged while in detention.
HRW said it had sent questions to the North Korean regime and sought cooperation with the report but had received no response. Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW’s Asia division, told reporters on Monday that this was not surprising, adding that the response from North Korea was “generally condemning only the news we find.”
HRW is calling on North Korea to “end its domestic torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment in prior detention and interrogation facilities.”
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