Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
people getting tortured upstairs keeps people from going to
sleep out of the fear it inspires […] No matter how tough you
are, torture will break you.”
Physical beating constituted another widespread form of
torture and included the violent acts of hitting or kicking a
prisoner with bare hands, feet, or with objects including an
oseungakja (wooden baton), metal rifle rods, or farming tools.
One interviewee who was detained with multiple Shamanic
adherents told investigators that “it was a common sight to see
people get kicked” by correctional officers in penal facilities.
Another interviewee said, “The officers would kick you and
punch you and harass you […] The officers do not treat the
prisoners as people […] They would hit us with whatever they
had in hand.”
The testimony of Yang Keum Jung indicates how multiple
methods of torture are employed as a means to coerce
prisoners into a confession and as a means of enacting
censure. “There is a wooden stick about 1.5 meters long for
hitting people, for hitting your limbs and torso […] They
used to make us do forced squats […] They made us do 200 to
300 of those back in 2012 and 2013, and they would make
us hang from the top of the holding cells all day […] [T]hey
would grab you by your hair and dash you against walls or the
ground, kick you with boots on, hit you with sticks and fists
[…] They would hit a person who was arrested for superstition
if they did not cooperate […] Religion and superstition are
completely different. They hit you less for superstition as it is
not an enemy-related offense like religion. Practicing religion
is an enemy-related crime, but practicing superstition is an
ordinary criminal case.”
Jung Chun Deok testified that a prisoner’s expression of his
Christian faith through prayer had angered correctional
officers who in turn enacted physical beatings upon the
prisoner. Jung and his fellow prisoners were exposed to
graphic displays of violence during these occasions. “One
time they beat [the Christian prisoner] to the brink of death,
leaving the person bleeding on the ground. But this person
got up and prayed just the same the next morning. Inmates
wake up at 06:00 and there is an hour where we eat our ration
and wash ourselves. We also fold our bed linen, and this
person would pray within the 30 to 40 minutes of free time
[…] The Ministry of State Security officials would yell at the
person, “Come here!”, and they would beat the person with a
club. Correctional officers would come into the cell and kick
the person with [their] boots on, but the person would still
pray every day […] In the end, the Ministry of State Security
officials would curse at the person [saying] that he should
just drop dead. This person received 15 years in the political
prisoner camp.”
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The experience of Kim Jin Hwang is also illustrative of the
extent of physical beatings perpetrated against religious and
belief adherents. She explained how a woman in her sixties
was arrested for adhering to Shamanism in 2018 in Hyesan:
“She had been beaten severely around the head […] She told
me that [correctional officers] grabbed her by her hair and
dashed her and kicked her […] There was another fortune
teller. [She] was also beaten a lot […] She would return to
the cell beaten up in the evenings, and she made quite a
ruckus. They arrested most fortune tellers in November
2018 […] I saw that they beat the fortune tellers a lot during
interrogations. But then again, everybody gets beaten during
interrogations. No interrogator will try to cajole you with
words. They all beat you. For example, they dash you against
the floor by yanking your hair, they kick you, and they punch
you with leather gloves on. There is an allotted interrogation
period […] During this period, [the correctional officers] do
not even let you sleep, often dragging you out of the cell for
interrogations in the middle of the night […] The fortune
tellers were beaten before they were transferred into the cell.
The fortune teller who I mentioned earlier had all her teeth
knocked out from the beatings. I told her to never confess no
matter how much they beat her.”
Kim explained that Ministry of State Security interrogation
officers announced to prisoners that they would be beaten
prior to their interrogation. “They ask the prisoners whether
they will be able to handle it. The prisoners I saw in the
waiting room who were transferred from Ministry of State
Security had bruises all over their backs from the beatings.”
Kim further explained that “interrogators already want a
specific kind of confession, and they will beat you until they
get it. Everyone confesses because they are so scared of the
beatings. They do not even let the fortune tellers sleep until
they get the confession they want. Tough ones usually hold
out, but the interrogators seldom give up. They beat you like
an animal.”
Coercion and forced confessions for suspected religious and
belief adherence were documented and did not necessarily
lead to a reduction in physical forms of torture. Coercion,
often in the form of false promises of forgiveness upon a
confession, were documented in Ministry of State Security
penal facilities. Son Jun Ho, a former detainee in North
Pyongan Province, said “[the] Ministry of State Security
tells you that you will be forgiven if you confess. In reality,
anything related to religion or South Korea, even by the
smallest margin, or taking money from religious institutions,
will land you in prison for life.”
Organized Persecution: Documenting Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea