Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, and the Absence of Due Process and Fair Trial Rights
Although cases investigated by the Ministry of People’s
Security end up in the courts, cases involving sentences of
less than one year in a forced labor camp do not go to trial.
Interviewees who received longer sentences described a court
composed of a prosecutor, a judge, and three lay persons
selected by the People’s Committee for their Party loyalty. This
system predominantly concerns adherents of Shamanism.
As for legal representation, criminal defendants cannot
themselves engage an attorney, but they may be represented
by a state-assigned attorney. In practice, the role of a defense
attorney is perceived to be that of defending the state. Lee
Eun Mi told investigators, “I had one attorney consultation
before the trial […] The defense attorney did not argue in my
favor. He said that there was nothing to argue as I had already
confessed to the crime […] As he was a state-appointed
attorney, he was not on my side.”
Although we are not able to access a statistically random
sample of criminal cases in North Korea, there is sufficient
credible and structural evidence to suggest that these are
institutional realities in a criminal justice system subject
to Workers’ Party of Korea control, rather than a matter of
isolated failures.
For example, defense attorneys belong to the Central Defense
Attorney League, which is an organizational unit of the
Workers’ Party of Korea, and a defense attorney’s duty to
political reporting means there can be no expectation of
anything like client-attorney confidentiality. Kang Ga Mi, a
former detainee from North Hamgyong, said “[Attorneys]
come and ask you whether you were coerced into confession
or were beaten, but they tell the authorities about what you
said. […] They tell the officials everything because they are on
the same side.”
Especially for cases that are related to offenses against the
political system, it is not in the interest of the court or the
defense attorney to be seen to side with the defendant. As
Park Sung Hwa, a former judicial professional in North
Korea, explained, “I would not take the defense attorneys
seriously. […] They cannot voice opinions, and winning
against prosecutors does little good for them.”
Prosecution of Shamanic adherents falls primarily under
the purview of the Ministry of People’s Security, with the
Prosecutor’s Office handling some cases. However, we note
that the Ministry of State Security had also begun to handle
Shamanic cases between 2013 and 2014 following party
directives to crack down on ‘superstitious activities,’ and we
further note a significant increase in government directives
on the illegality of Shamanism since 2016.
Beyond the courtroom, public trials and public criticism
sessions serve as extrajudicial forms of justice and
punishment for religious and belief adherents. Public trials
may involve public criticism sessions where citizens are forced
to witness the punishment of a person for anti-socialist acts,
such as Shamanic practice. Public criticism sessions are
overseen by provincial level authorities and the individuals
who are the focus of these sessions will have been interrogated
prior to their public trials. The forced attendance and
participation of children in these sessions was documented as
common practice by our investigators, and we in turn sourced
imagery of this practice, which is displayed in Figure 4.
Figure 4. This image shows a public trial for individuals accused of anti-socialist behavior where students and local residents were required
to attend. Children of a young age, who are recognizable by the red scarves of the young pioneers, are seated at the front of the crowd.
Images of trials, such as this, are very rare and taken at great risk. It is illegal to capture and share such images with the outside world.
Source: Korea Future, 2021, www.koreafuture.org
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Organized Persecution: Documenting Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea