Soon Ok Lee
The following is an exerpt of an interview with
Soon Ok Lee and it gives a description of the North Korean Gulags.
The prison camp that I was sent to is in Kae-Chon, which is in the southern province of Pyung-Yang. There are 6000+ prisoners in there: 4000+ males and 2000+ females. Most of the prisoners are there for ridiculous reasons. Some are caught while traveling in places they didn’t have the permits to go to in search of food. Some are mothers, who had complained that their children were starving to death… they wondered ‘why do I have to die like this? Why can’t I eat till I’m full, like people in other countries…’ and people with these kinds of thoughts were considered to have bad ideology.
If the mother is pregnant, according to the North Korean law that says that a criminal’s seed must be scorched up to its 3rd generation, they abort the baby. If somehow the baby survives and is born, they strangle the baby by stepping on them in front of its own mother.
I also witnessed many human experiments. They said it was pointless to test weapons and chemicals on animals because they were created to target their enemies, other human beings. I also saw many Christians in the camp. Because of their belief in God, and because they sang hymns in the camps, they were stepped on until death. If they didn’t deny God, they were often times burned to death from boiling hot liquid metal.
I saw many unspeakable things. And these weren’t rare sights for me. Because I went through many physical tortures, I still have many after-affects left on my body. The right side of my face is still a little distorted, the left half of my mouth is crooked, and the whole left half of my teeth were crushed. I live with a lot of physical pain on my body and it’s difficult to get through each day. But there are still many people going through tortures, and human experiments even at this very moment.
Update:
SEOUL (Reuters) - Up to 3,000 people were killed or injured when two trains loaded with fuel collided and exploded at a North Korean station Thursday, hours after leader Kim Jong-il had passed through, South Korea’s YTN television said. There was no immediate suggestion the blast was anything other than an accident.
North Korea appears to have cut international telephone lines to the area to prevent information about the explosion getting out, Yonhap added. The North appears to have declared a type of emergency in the area.
North Korea’s official media broke their silence on Kim’s three-day trip to Beijing Thursday — strongly suggesting Kim was safely back in Pyongyang — but did not mention the explosion. Kim does not travel by air when he does venture outside North Korea.
Residents in Pyongyang said by telephone there was nothing unusual in the capital. North Korean television was broadcasting military songs and music — standard evening fare.
Update: The death toll has been revised down to 135 with 1200 injured. The cause of the explosion has been attributed to “gunpowder for irrigation” per the Russians. Some speculate rocket fuel or heavy munitions may have caused a blast of this type. The North Korean government has not affirmed the incident took place and North Korean TV continues to show sunsets and play patriotic music.
