North Korean officials involved in murder, torture, and possible Christian genocide: Report

Officials in North Korea carried out murder, torture, and acts that could constitute genocide against certain groups of people, including Christians, a report released last week revealed.

Evidence has been found that suggests government brass killed residents of the country, tortured political prisoners, engaged in sex trafficking, and conducted forced abortions as well as infanticide from 2014 to 2021, the United Kingdom's All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea wrote in a 91-page document.

It was further found that rape, in addition to modern-day slavery, was commonplace, and much of the human rights abuses were focused on Christians and those whose descent was half Chinese.

North Korea assigns the death penalty to crimes of premeditated murder, drug trafficking, and terrorism, though respondents interviewed by U.K. authorities alleged that government authorities would carry out public executions for offenses most would consider far less severe. In 2014, a defector said he witnessed the public killing of a man who shared South Korean movies in the Hyesan, Ryanggang province. Others indicated that they witnessed a similar execution for the same charge in 2017.

Other former North Korean residents told U.K. investigators that "there were cases where the death penalty was carried out due to charges of carrying the Bible, distributing propaganda leaflets, and engaging in acts of superstition." In all, the report found 1,479 cases of public executions from 2000 to 2020, while 443 cases of secret executions, many of which took place at prison camps, took place in the same time frame.

Sexual violence was also commonplace in the regime, the report revealed.

"Some female detainees reported that they experienced or observed sexual violence, including rape in detention and interrogation facilities," the report said. "Interviewees said that agents from the police, secret police, and the prosecutor’s office, most in charge of their personal interrogation, touched their faces and their bodies, including their breasts and hips, either through their clothes or by putting their hands inside their clothes. They said they were powerless to resist because their fate was in the hands of these men."

The British government also found that North Korean women seeking to flee the regime are led away on false pretenses, including employment, to be sex trafficked to China. Experts have posited that the situation persists because of the "Chinese government’s intentional lack of legal options for North Korean escapees to apply for asylum."

"North Korean women and girls are uniquely vulnerable to sex trafficking and the sex trade," the report added. "Victims are usually trafficked from North Korea on false offers of employment, and later sold as brides or sex slaves into China and other south east Asian countries. Victims are trafficked to the border and then transported to safe houses, brothels, or buyers."

Source: Washington Examiner, Jake Dima, July 27, 2021

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