New Report Details Crimes against Humanity Taking Place in North Korea's Political Prison Camps

Massive and varied crimes against humanity are taking place in North Korea’s political labor camps, according to a new report released today by Freedom House.

The new report, Concentrations of Inhumanity, distinguishes between commonplace human rights violations such as miscarriages of justice, much more serious “consistent patterns of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” and severe human violations that are so egregious that they rise to the level of “crimes against humanity,” “war crimes,” or “genocide.”

David Scheffer, former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues and Head of the US delegation to the UN negotiations on the Rome Statute, says of Concentrations of Inhumanity, "[This] effort is path-breaking and should profoundly influence the formulation of any nation's policy toward the Kim Jong Il regime in the future.  In the conclusion to his report, Hawk presents a realistic set of options for meaningful initiatives by the international community to end the criminal conduct of the North Korean government."

Based on recent interviews with former North Korean political prisoners in the kwan-li-so or “control zone” labor camps, the report carefully details the criminal acts prohibited by Article 7 of the (Rome) Statute of the International Criminal Court that are being carried out in North Korea on a massive scale. Written by David Hawk, author of the acclaimed study Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps – Prisoner Testimony and Satellite Photographs; the report also outlines the international forums where other states and non-governmental organizations can seek to persuade North Korea to improve its human rights record.

“The report calls for two immediate measures,” says Hawk.  “First, the international community should recognize that the severe human rights violations in North Korea rise to the level of crimes against humanity.” Mr. Hawk continued, “Second, the DPRK should begin the measures necessary to bring their policy toward the kwan-li-so labor camps into compliance with international norms, and amend the practices that run afoul of standards set forth in international law.”

As detailed in the report, the scores of thousands of political prisoners held in the kwan-li-so encampments have been and continue to be subjected to many crimes against humanity: enforced disappearances, deportation, arbitrary imprisonment, and enslavement and forced labor. Additionally, the prison-labor camps are rife with murder, torture and “other inhumane acts,” as these crimes are now defined in international law. 

In North Korea, the children and even grandchildren of parties presumed guilty are imprisoned under the government’s yeon-jwa-je system of guilt-by-association.  As now defined in international law, they are “innocent victims of persecution.”  The report also outlines that women prisoners coerced into having sex with guards and prison officials—not uncommon in North Korean prison camps—are victims of rape and “enforced prostitution,” as defined by the judges at the Rwanda and Yugoslav tribunals.  And the extremely high levels of deaths in detention in the labor camps, along with the prohibitions on marriage and childbirth, are the result of another crime against humanity, that of “extermination.”

Concentrations of Inhumanity concludes that the DPRK has only a few years to dismantle the camps before the preponderance of evidence of crimes committed in the labor camp system come within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Freedom House sponsored the writing and publication of this report in order to increase international recognition that the severe human rights violations taking place in North Korea constitute crimes against humanity. North Korea is the only country to have received Freedom House’s lowest possible scores for both political rights and civil liberties throughout the 35 years in which the organization has published its annual global survey, Freedom in the World.

Freedom House is an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.  To learn more about Freedom House’s North Korea program, visit www.nkfreedomhouse.org.