North Korea has a history of imprisoning both foreigners and its own citizens with terrible
brutality.
From horrific living conditions to routine executions, here are the reasons why you probably
wouldn't survive in a North Korean prison.
Several foreigners have been victimized by the North Korean regime.
Perhaps the most notorious example is that of Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old student who
visited the country with a tour group in December of 2015.
On January 2, Warmbier was detained at Pyongyang airport.
The regime announced the arrest 20 days later, stating Warmbier was being held for committing
"anti-republic activities."
On February 29, Warmbier was forced to announce he had stolen a propaganda sign from his hotel,
for which he was sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor.
"On the early morning of January 1st, 2016, I committed my crime."
In his dubious "confession," Warmbier said that he had stolen the item for the Friendship
United Methodist Church, who offered him a $10,000 car in exchange for the sign.
In June 2017, the Trump administration learned that Warmbier was unconscious, so a diplomatic
mission was sent to resolve the issue.
On June 13th, it was reported that Warmbier had been medically evacuated to Sapporo, Japan,
en route to Cincinnati, Ohio, where his parents Fred and Cindy waited eagerly.
Tragically, it was revealed that Warmbier had been in a year-long coma, and was now
in a state of unresponsive wakefulness.
Warmbier died six days later on June 19.
The hardship Warmbier experienced in North Korea may never be known.
Pyongyang blamed his death on botulism and an adverse reaction to a sleeping pill, but
this was dismissed by American authorities.
Warmbier's father Fred was convinced that his son had been tortured, citing how his
straight teeth had become crooked and that his foot bore a large scar.
North Korean citizens comprise the overwhelming majority of the nation’s prison system.
After all, North Korea is among the most ethnically homogenous countries in the world.
The BBC reported that North Korea's prisons are home to approximately 80,000 to 120,000
people, and the accounts of their lives make for a horrible reading.
A UN report from July 2021 highlighted the continuing human rights violations in the
North Korean prison system.
The report drew on many testimonies, including one from a man who was brutalized for moving
very slightly while being forced to kneel for four hours.
According to The Hidden Gulag, prisoners are victims of so-called "arbitrary detention,"
which involves random punishments that bear no relation to the constitution or court system.
One former detainee described her punishment as being forced to write the history of her
entire life for hours on end.
After this strange and arbitrary task, she was accused of lying in her statement and
was subjected to repeated beatings.
As outrageous as her treatment was, other victims' experiences have been even more Orwellian.
The Hidden Gulag reported that some suspects are detained for being what are called "wrong-thinkers"
and are sometimes accused of having "wrong knowledge."
If a citizen is accused of these bogus crimes, they will be banished to a labor colony and
receive no judicial process.
According to the U.S. Department of State, conditions in North Korean facilities are
"life threatening" because of poor sanitation, limited medical care, considerable overcrowding,
and scarce food supplies.
According to a former inmate interviewed by Sky News, the prison she was sentenced to
consisted of endless corridors crammed with cells that were much too small for any human
to be even marginally comfortable.
Former inmates interviewed for The Hidden Gulag remembered their shock when they arrived
at the camps.
“In one of the camps, Kyohwaso, is 540 square kilometers.
That’s three times the size of Washington D.C..”
Their fellow detainees were emaciated husks draped in torn rags and covered in filth,
and their bodies were hunched and broken from years of labor and malnourishment.
Some even had digits and limbs missing, which had succumbed to frostbite or been lost in
work accidents.
One labor camp detainee claimed to have been fed only small amounts of cornmeal each day.
Rationing was so poor that both detainees and guards relied on visiting family members
to supplement the government produce.
According to two escapees, the combination of dire nutrition and relentless hard labor
caused starvation and death.
The Hidden Gulag found that prisoners are driven to eat anything they can find, which
includes grass, bark, plants, rats, snakes, and animal feed.
According to The Hidden Gulag, hard manual labor occupies prisoners 12 hours a day, seven
days a week.
Detainees are allowed just one day of rest per month as well as three national holidays,
which are New Year's Day and the birthdays of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il.
Both men and women are forced to work in farming, logging, mining, and factory work.
They are typically assigned work quotas and are punished should they fail to meet them,
usually through beatings or withdrawal of food.
The penal system's slave labor serves an important role in the North Korean economy, which relies
on a "voluntary" hard labor to operate.
Joanna Hosaniak of the Citizens' Alliance for North Korea Human Rights said:
"Generations of people are born, live, and die in the mining zones and experience the
worst type of persecution and discrimination throughout their lifetime."
They view prisoners as subhuman
The seemingly endless violence and cruelty is the result of a very deliberate mindset.
According to The Infographics Show, a former guard said that her fellow guards were brainwashed
to believe that the prisoners were monstrous and less than human.
However, she would later find out that some of these inmates were arrested on bogus charges
such as foraging for food or following the Christian faith.
This "othering" of citizens is reflective of North Korea's rigid caste system, which
is known as songbun.
Established by Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea, songbun is split into three broad
categories:
"Core":, the patriotic governing class; "Wavering", the sufficiently obedient middle class; and
"Hostile", who are accused of being "anti-party and anti-revolutionary forces"".
It goes without saying that this sort of broad, over-simplified labeling is a sure recipe
for a harshly divided populace.
Summary executions are common in the North Korean penal system.
In fact, the Transitional Justice Working Group identified 318 execution sites across
North Korea, which are used to serve the ultimate punishment for a raft of bogus "crimes."
Some victims are hanged, but more are shot by firing squad.
One victim recalled how guards took two women away after they told them they had converted
to Christianity when they lived in China.
When the guards returned, they said the women had been executed.
The Hidden Gulag stated that the vast majority of interviewed detainees had witnessed executions.
This is because it was compulsory to assemble and witness these barbarous acts, which caused
much distress and fear among the penal population.
Not even high-ranking family members are safe.
In 2013, Kim Jong-Un arrested and executed his uncle Jang Song-thaek, whom he accused
of treason.
"Today the White House said that the North Korean dictator's decision to execute his
uncle reflects the brutality of the regime."
North Korean media described Jang as, quote, "worse than a dog" and "despicable human scum".
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