Human Rights in North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or North Korea was established in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in 1948. At independence, North Korea’s uncontested ruler was Kim il-sung, a former Soviet army officer who claimed to be a guerrilla hero in the struggle against Japanese colonial rule over Korea, which began in 1910. North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 in an attempt to reunify the peninsula under Communist rule. ... Kim Jong-il has carried out limited economic reforms and made sporadic efforts to improve relations with the United States, Japan, and South Korea in the hopes of gaining increased aid. ... North Korea is one of the most tightly controlled countries in the world. The regime denies North Koreans the most basic rights, holds tens of thousands of political prisoners, and controls nearly all aspects of social, political, and economic life. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong il along with a handful of elites from the Korean Worker’s Party rule by declaration, although little is known about the regime’s inner workings. ... North Korea’s Parliament, known as the Supreme People’s Assembly, has little independent power. ... Ordinary North Koreans reportedly have been executed merely for criticizing the regime. North Korean authorities have also executed some North Koreans who were sent back by Chinese officials after they fled across the border. “An estimated 300,000 North Koreans have fled to China in recent years to escape food shortages and other hardships” (AI, 1999). ... The UN Human Rights Committee in 2001 called on the capital city of Pyongyang to allow international human rights groups into the country to verify the “many allegations of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and conditions of inadequate medical care in reform institutions, prisons, and prison camps.” South Korean media have reported that North Korean officials subject camp inmates to forced labor, beating, torture, and public execution. ... They also assign to each North Korean a security rating that partly determines access to education, employment, and health services as well as place of residence (Freedom House, 2003). ... Ordinary North Koreans face a steady onslaught of propaganda from radios and televisions that are pre-tuned to receive stations that are accepted by the government. ... Before the economic collapse that began in the early 1990’s, the government provided all North Koreans with free food, housing, clothing, and medical care. ... The United States does not have diplomatic relations with the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. North Korea does not allow representatives of foreign governments, journalists, or other invited guests the freedom of movement that would enable them to fully assess human rights conditions there. However, the State Department along with non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Freedom House has gathered information for more than a decade from various sources concerning the human rights situation in North Korea today. ... State Department’s view of human rights in North Korea classifies the country as among the most repressive regimes in the world. The closed nature of the North Korean regime makes it difficult to obtain information on the conditions inside the country. ... In North Korea, individual rights are considered subversive to the goals of the State and Party. ... However, “the State Department estimates that one dozen political prison camps and approximately 30 forced labor camps are located in remote regions of North Korea and that between 150,000 and 200,000 political prisoners are held in these camps”. ... “The government requires all prayer and religious study to be supervised by the state and severely punishes North Koreans for worshipping independently in underground churches” (State Dept, 2002). Officials have killed, beaten, arrested, or detained in prison camps many members of underground churches, foreign religious and human rights groups. In 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell designated North Korea a country of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act for "particularly severe violations of religious freedom.