Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment In Hyesan, Ko Sun Hee recalled a Christian adherent who was interrogated by Ministry of State Security interrogation officers. The Christian adherent was told that her husband had been arrested and she was forced to listen to a man screaming “Please forgive me” over a phone. A correctional officer entered the Christian adherent’s cell, which was shared with Ko, and jeered at the woman, asking her whose voice she thought it was and said that her husband had already confessed. Solitary confinement was also documented as being deployed for both Christian and Shamanic adherents. Solitary confinement cells differed by penal facility, but the existence of extreme violence and inhumane conditions was a constant. Nam Tae Hee, who was suspected of assisting a Shaman and was arrested by the Ministry of People’s Security, explained: “They threw me into a solitary cell and snapped my legs before they did anything else. I collapsed to the ground, and I knew that they hurt my legs first so that I could not run.” Ko Sun Hee said, “They did not even let the prisoners locked in solitary confinement go to the toilet. Correctional officers and interrogators do not think of those inmates as fellow humans.” Nam Jin Kyu, a former detainee, explained how a prisoner who had been arrested for smuggling a small copy of the Bible from China to North Korea was locked in solitary confinement. “I think they were going to be executed. I did not get to see their face. The solitary confinement cell is the scariest room in the facility, and it does not even have electric lights […] Correctional officers would torment those prisoners especially horribly during the patrol which took place every two hours […] The correctional officers would take the metal cleaning rod for a rifle and have the prisoner stick out their hands and strike them with the metal rod mercilessly. The correctional officers screamed that ‘how dare the prisoner sneak a Bible into North Korea and harm comrade Kim Il Sung’s ideology’ […] The person in solitary confinement would only get one meal a day whereas others got three. They only got one serving of the bloated corn kernels boiled into a muck.” Figure 6. Depiction of hands of a prisoner accused of smuggling a Bible into North Korea being beaten with a metal cleaning rod for a rifle by a correctional officer. Source: Kim Haeun, Korea Future, 2021, www.koreafuture.org While the occurrence and intensity of physical torture experienced by religious crime suspects varied with the disposition of the officers in charge, the incarceration environment of Ministry of State Security detainees stood out for the mental torture brought on by the uncertainty of release, the oppressive environment, and acts of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Former detainees spoke of the mental fear instilled by public officials that oftenpreceded physical violence and torture. Ko Sun Hee experienced incarceration in various penal facilities. She observed how Ministry of State Security interrogators and correctional officers often encouraged prisoners to persecute other prisoners who refused to cooperate with their investigations. Encouragement took various forms, such as the application of subtle threats, sleep deprivation, and food deprivation. Deprivation of both food and water was documented during the detention of suspected religious and belief adherents. In many cases it was unclear whether this was intentional or as a result of poor resources. In other cases, the character of the denial of food was unmistakably intentional. Jeon Mi Jin, a former detainee in Chongjin, explained, “You are always hungry in the cells, so they would tempt me by placing a packed lunchbox on the table and asking me to talk […] When I kept on refusing, they got angry and beat me as well […] They would dash my head against the wall and people downstairs would hear the sound.” Organized Persecution: Documenting Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea 25