The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) has heard the testimonies of two Christian survivors from a North Korean prison camp. The two were imprisoned at the Yodok Political Prison Camp, and have now told their story of horrendous abuse to the UNCHR as well as the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the EU.

One survivor – Kim Tae Jin, 49 told how he defected to China in 1986 to escape North Korea. During his time in China he became a Christian, something that would attract great persecution from his home country of North Korea.

Sixteen months after arriving he was repatriated by the Chinese authorities, and a Bible was found as his belongings were checked. This resulted in severe punishment and torture for eight months, and he told how he even preferred to swallow a nail to be able to have an operation, hence saving himself from more abuse in his cell.

Without trial he was then imprisoned in the Yodok Political Prison Camp where the barbaric treatment continued. He spoke about how he was beaten with burning wood, and forced to carry out all sorts of labouring tasks with just minimal food rations, and if he was too weak to fulfil his tasks he would be beaten unconscious.

Kim Tae Jin managed to survive the ordeal and later defected once more to South Korea in June 2001. He is now Director of Missionary Works at NKGulag and Chairman of the Special Committee for North Korean Gulag Dismantlement. He is also currently studying at Chongshin University, a theological school in South Korea.

The Korean told the UNCHR, "In a political prison camp in North Korea, one must forget that he or she is a human being. I had to do many things to survive. I carefully watched a dog so that I could steal its food. I ate snakes, frogs, rats and anything that could be a source of nutrition. My prayer is that the situation in North Korea will be improved by your prayers, partnership and advocacy in both national and international arenas."

He expressed his thankfulness to Christian Solidarity Worldwide that had arranged for him to have the opportunity to testify the horrific ordeal he had been through and expose the appalling religious freedom situation in North Korea.

The other speaker was Kim Young Soon, 67. She was arrested in North Korea after her husband had disappeared. She, along with her four children, were placed in the Yodok Political Prison Camp as they were "associated with him (her husband)", reported CSW.

For eight years she remained a prisoner in the camp from 1970-78, and she told of having to partake in forced labour, be exposed to regular physical and verbal abuse. Also she told how she endured ideological indoctrination and severe degradation whilst she was at the prison.

She said, "(the camp was) a living hell where prisoners were treated as less than animals."

In addition she now has to go forward with the pain that her father, mother and youngest son all died whilst in the camp, her second son was executed after a failed attempt to escape from North Korea, and her eldest son is now disabled as a result of his time in the prison. In addition she has never seen her husband again since his disappearance, but she finally managed to go to South Korea in November 2003. She is now a member of the Operations Committee of NKGulag, a human rights agency representing survivors of the political prison camps.

She concluded, "I had to go through the tremendous pain of losing family members, which was much more painful than being killed myself. The pain and suffering I have described is still shared by many people in North Korea, even today."

It is thought that there are more than 100,000 prisoners being held in prison camps similar to the ones described in North Korea. CSW attended the UNCHR, the FCO and the EU to add try and ensure that pressure would increase on North Korea to improve its human rights records.

The National Director of CSW, Stuart Windsor said, "It is vital the international community hears the truth about conditions inside the prison camps of North Korea. These two survivors need to be heard by the world as they share the horrors of the conditions they endured. The UNCHR, the FCO and the EU must do all they can to ensure the end of these political prison camps and all the human suffering that happens in them. We now have unprecedented filmed evidence of what defectors have been telling us for years about the use of public executions, which adds further impetus to the urgent need to address the human rights situation in North Korea."



[Source - Christian Solidarity Worldwide]