A/HRC/25/CRP.1 particular actions taken by family members. Based on this assessment, citizens fall into three broad classes: core, wavering and hostile.53 Decisions about residency, occupation, access to food, health care, education and other services are contingent on songbun. While the official songbun structure was quite elaborate and changed over time, its main feature has been the unchallengeable nature of the designation which is inherited mainly through the paternal line.54 Following the May 30th Resolution, the Cabinet issued Decree No. 149 prohibiting members of the hostile class from residing near the Demilitarized Zone or coastal areas, within 50 km of Pyongyang or Kaesong, or within 20 km of any other large city. In effect, a large number of people were forcibly transferred to the rough mountainous regions in the northern part of the country where special settlements were created for these exiles.55 118. After the Korean War ended in 1953, the DPRK government collectivized agriculture and established a centrally-planned economy based largely on heavy industry. Those people who remained on farms were allowed to keep a small proportion of their production while the rest was taken by the state. The government assigned people to compulsory employment.56 In 1957, the DPRK instituted the Public Distribution System to provide food and to ration other goods. As the DPRK was highly urbanized, an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of the population relied on the state for these food distributions. The Public Distribution System suppressed private production and monopolized distribution of food and household necessities. The entire economic framework of the country, and in particular the Public Distribution System, became an important means of social, economic and political control.57 119. By the early 1960s, Kim Il-sung successfully suppressed public dissent. Any critical remark about the political or economic situation could, and not infrequently did, lead to imprisonment and worse. According to Russian observers who were in the DPRK at the time, arrests and even executions were imposed for an attitude deemed to be excessively warm towards the Soviet Union, as well as any positive remarks about the scientific, technical, or cultural achievements of other countries.58 120. While the threat of these extreme human rights violations constituted a form of terror deployed against the general population, Kim Il-sung continued periodically to instigate purges within the leadership of the party and military.59 For example, in 1964, 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 30 This classification appears to have been revised at various points, and later the three broad categories became the core, basic and “complex”, which includes both the wavering and hostile classes. See section IV.B. Ken E. Gause, “Coercion, Control, Surveillance and Punishment”, p. 101. In December 2003, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its concluding observations of the DPRK’s initial report, expressed concern “that the right to work may not be fully assured in the present system of compulsory state-allocated employment, which is contrary to the right of the individual to freely choose his/her career or his/her workplace” (E/C.12/1/Add.95). See section IV.D. Andrei Lankov, “The Repressive System and Political Control in North Korea”. See also section IV.E. The First Secretary of the Polish Embassy in Pyongyang noted in 1958, “In the party and in private life it would be unthought-of to express the smallest critique or to express doubts regarding the correctness of this or that party directive from the party or the government. If one does critique, then along the lines of the formulations used in official speeches. I.e., first one needs to point to a large number of achievements and then criticize what is officially being criticized. If one does not want to be deprived of the means of support and of all perspectives for the future, including removal from Pyongyang, one must act this way only.” “Notes from a Conversation between the 1st Secretary of the PRL Embassy in the DPRK with the Director of a Department in One of the Ministries”, 05 January 1958, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Polish Foreign Ministry Archive. Obtained