NORTH KOREA

U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva

Testimony by Kang Chol Hwan,

co-author of the highly acclaimed book "The Aquariums of Pyongyang:

Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag" (Pierre Rigoulot)

1 April 2003

Testimony by Kang Chol Hwan,

co-author of the highly acclaimed book "The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag" (Pierre Rigoulot)

HRWF Int. (01.04.2003) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - At a time when the European Union countries are finalizing their draft resolution on North Korea for the ongoing session of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, two North Korean defectors had the opportunity to present their testimonies at a special event on "Grave Human Rights and Humaniatrian Concerns in North Korea" chaired by Baroness Caroline Cox, Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, and at a separately organised press conference. Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. attended both events.

Kang Chol Hwan is a former child prisoner at Yodok Prison, officially known in North Korea as DPRK guard division No.15. He was imprisoned in August 1977 at the age of nine alongside his entire family. He spent ten years in prison where he witnessed the horrors of public executions, repression, starvation and intimidation. Prisoners are starved and worked to their death and Kang Chol Hwan points out that North Korean authorities are achieving two objectives by keeping the system of camps - eliminating politically undesirable elements and at the same time, using them for the production of goods for the North Korean economy.

"During my ten years stay in the camp, I was three times on the verge of death due to undernourishment. When I arrived in the camp, there were many children at my age. There were many old people and women. They were put to hard labour. As children, we had to accomplish the same daily quota as our seniors".

North Korea is known to operate five concentration camps now, accommodating a total of over 200,000. Kang Chol Hwan describes his camp as a huge disctrict with many different sectors. The sector he was in had public executions about ten times each year.

"To watch a public execution is a very cruel scene. The objetcive of public executions is to intimidate the prisoners. Convicts are starved and by the time of their execution, they are so weak that they can not even walk. People are horrified not by the shooting but by the figure of the convict brought to the site. Normally, guard officers gag convicts. For political prisoners they use big stones, which they put in their mouth. The purpose of gagging is to stop them from speaking anything. Teeths are broken and the mouths are bleeding. This is a horrifying scene and prisoners are already scared. Then the snipers fire nine bullets C three in the face, three in the body, and three in the legs. When the shooting is over, the body is so badly torn out, the person is hardly recognizable. Another form of public execution is hanging. Prisoners are ordered to throw stones at the executed".

Kang Chol Hwan is now thirty-five years old and works as a newspaper reporter in Seoul, South Korea, for Chosun Daily.

"When I was in North Korea, I had no understanding of human rights. I learned about the value of human rights when wrriving in South Korea".