A/HRC/25/CRP.1 issued a decree in 2010 making the crime of defection a “crime of treachery against the nation”479 This view is taken in particular where persons have been in contact with Christian churches or ROK and/or US nationals while in China or make attempts to travel on to the ROK or another third state. 384. The approach towards considering those who illegally travel to China and beyond as political criminals is fuelled by official state propaganda and pronouncements of the Supreme Leader and other senior officials. Those who fled the DPRK (i.e. “defectors”) and who speak out about their experience are regularly referred to as “human scum”.480 They are “branded as elements subject to legal punishment in the clean society in the DPRK for their crimes of murder, robbery, pilferage, embezzlement of state properties and corruptions [sic]”. They are said to have been manipulated by the ROK and the USA in the latter’s efforts to escalate confrontation with the DPRK and to topple the social system in the DPRK.481 Two former SSD agents who served at the Chinese border, indicated that “defectors” were always considered traitors and less than human.482 Another former security agent was told by his superiors that the Supreme Leader had ordered the “merciless” suppression of “defectors” and other anti-government dissidents. He has since heard from former colleagues in the security services, with whom he maintains contact, that Kim Jong-un issued a similar order upon personal visits to the headquarters of the SSD and the MPS.483 (b) Patterns of flight from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and underlying reasons 385. The Commission has observed that until the end of the 1980s, very few people appear to have fled the DPRK illegally and those who did often did so for political reasons. In the 1990s, as a result of the escalating hunger and starvation in the country, illegal crossing of the border into China to flee from economic despair and the underlying human rights violations has become a mass phenomenon notwithstanding its criminalization. Large numbers of desperate citizens illegally crossed the border in order to find food and work, to trade goods, or to obtain assistance from relatives living in the Chinese provinces bordering the DPRK. They took advantage of the general breakdown of state control during the period of the famine. • Mr Kim Kwang-il described how the only way people survived mass starvation in the 1990s was by illegally going in and out of China, and smuggling things in and out of China, in order to feed themselves. Even though he, like others, knew that it was illegal to do so and was at risk of being punished severely, Mr Kim stated that 479 480 481 482 483 108 The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), Written submission to the hearing before the Congressiona-Executive Commission on China, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, “China’s Repatriation of North Korean Refugees”, 5 March 2012, p. 50. Available from http://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/Congressional per cent20Hearings/China_Repatriation_March_5_2012.pdf. The Korean Central News Agency used this term inter alia to describe those persons who fled the DPRK who appeared before the Commission to testify in public hearings. See “N. Korea slams U.N. rights committee, calls defectors ‘human scum’”, Global Post, 27 August 2013. Available from http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/130827/n-korea-slams-un-rightscommittee-calls-defectors-huma. “Ministry of People’s Security Vows to Punish Defectors Keen on Escalating Confrontation”, KCNA, 19 June 2013. Available from http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2013/201306/news19/20130619-01ee.html. TJH015, TJH041. TCC014.