“When
I saw the lives of the prisoners, I’d be the first to kill myself if I had to
live there.”
-A former North Korean prison guard
Mothers
forced to abort unborn children; even forced to murder their own infants.
Children sent away to prison camps for decades for crimes committed by their
grandparents. Food as a weapon of control not only among prisoners, but also
among the entire population. It sounds like the setup of a dystopian movie
hellscape where modern rule of law has ceased to function. Instead, these are
just some of the everyday realities faced by the people of North Korea.
While
North Korea’s horrific human rights record can hardly come as a surprise to
observers, a UN report released Monday presenting evidence of abuses adds
concrete facts to vague suspicions. By collecting the testimonies of hundreds
of North Korean defectors and refugees, the UN presents a case of crimes
against humanity that is – by its own estimation – on the level of the
Holocaust. Testimonies came from former regime loyalists as well as former
prisoners, and reveal a somber picture of the inestimable damage done to the
North Korean people in the last six decades.
