New Information about Political Prisoners

Introduction

The present document contains information compiled by Amnesty International in recent months, concerning 58 people reported to be detained for political offenses in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). Many are believed by Amnesty International to be prisoners of conscience. Some of those named may have died in prison. Others may still be detained, after 30 years or more. Some of the prisoners were last seen alive in 1990, others have not been heard of for decades.

According to information received by Amnesty International, the Government of the DPRK has failed to account for the whereabouts of the prisoners when questioned by relatives and others. Amnesty International is renewing its call on the government to account for the fate of all political prisoners, including those whose cases are described in this document.

The DPRK remains a secretive country. Its Criminal Law has broadly-worded provisions punishing disclosure of information which the authorities deem to constitute secrets. Some Koreans living in foreign countries who visited the DPRK have reported that they were warned not to disclose information about the situation of their relatives in the DPRK. Amnesty International's proposals to visit the DPRK to investigate its human rights concerns have so far remained unanswered. The DPRK government has also failed to respond fully to Amnesty International's requests for information on individual cases and general human rights concerns.

In October 1993 Amnesty International published a report about human rights concerns in North Korea (North Korea: Summary of Amnesty International's Concerns, AI Index ASA 24/03/93). The report included information about political prisoners, conditions of detention, ill-treatment, the death penalty and constitutional and legal safeguards.

In a four-page reply, also published by Amnesty International in October 1993 (AI Index ASA 24/04/93), the DPRK Government acknowledged the accuracy of Amnesty International's information about the death penalty and queried the organization's findings on legal and other issues. However it failed to address Amnesty International's concerns about the unacknowledged detention of political prisoners and conditions of detention. In letters to Amnesty International in the first half of 1994, the DPRK government denied that two of the people named by Amnesty International in October were prisoners but there was no independent confirmation of the authorities' statements and no information about other reported prisoners. The silence from the authorities on most other individual cases heightens Amnesty International's fears that many political prisoners may be detained in extremely harsh conditions.

Amnesty International has received reports that the relatives of political prisoners are sometimes detained as well, or put under some form of house arrest or assigned to internal exile. Amnesty International has not been able so far to confirm these reports. The organization is calling on the DPRK Government to publicly account for the whereabouts and legal status of all those named in the present report, and for the situation of their relatives.

The Case of Cho Ho Pyong and Koide Hideko

Cho Ho Pyong was born in 1936 in Japan, of Korean parents. In 1954, after graduating from Tohoku University in Japan, he married Koide Hideko. On 11 February 1962, Cho Ho Pyong and Koide Hideko travelled to North Korea, wishing to settle there. According to letters he wrote from North Korea to his relatives in Japan, Cho became a lecturer in physiology at the Medical University in Hamhung City, a major city on the East coast of the Korean Peninsula.

For an unknown reason, Cho came under official suspicion in the mid-1960s. In 1967, in the last letter his relatives in Japan received from him, he said that he was on his way to a place of "re-education". According to his relatives in Japan, he was sent to work in an orchard in Hamgyong South Province, which surrounds Hamhung City. There were no news about Koide Hideko. In 1973, she sent a letter to her relatives in Japan, the first after a five-year gap. She said that she was living alone with her three children, a son born in 1963 and two daughters, born in 1965 and 1966. Her relatives apparently never heard from her again.

The family of Cho Ho Pyong in Japan made several attempts to visit North Korea to meet with Cho Ho Pyong and Koide Hideko, but permission for them to visit North Korea was never granted. On one occasion in 1983, permission was granted, then withdrawn.

It is not known whether Cho Ho Pyong and Koide Hideko are alive or dead. North Korean officials have never given information about their whereabouts to their relatives in Japan, despite numerous requests. Amnesty International is concerned that Cho Ho Pyong may have been taken in detention, or "disappeared".

Amnesty International is calling on the North Korean authorities immediately to publish information about the whereabouts of Cho Ho Pyong, Koide Hideko and their children.

The Case of Kim Duk Hwan

Kim Duk Hwan, a North Korean engineer, has not been heard of since he stopped writing letters to his Russian wife in 1966. He "disappeared" after being taken into custody, apparently because the authorities saw him as a threat. It is not known whether he is still alive. Almost thirty years of attempts to trace him by his Russian wife have remained fruitless because of the silence maintained by the North Korean authorities.

Kim Duk Hwan was born in 1935 in South Hamgyong Province (then a Japanese colony, now North Korea. In 1953, he was sent to the Pskov, in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), to study engineering. While there, he married a Russian woman, Valentina Dimitrievna Kurashova. After graduating from Pskov Construction Technical School in 1957, Kim returned to North Korea. He became an engineer at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Construction in Pyongyang. Valentina Kurashova joined him there in May 1958. They had a son, born in 1959.

Starting in 1960, relations between North Korea and the USSR deteriorated, as a result of ideological conflicts between the USSR and the People's Republic of China. According to Valentina Kurashova, the tension generated by the ideological rift led to an atmosphere of suspicion and harassment against USSR nationals in North Korea. Valentina Kurashova therefore returned to Pskov in June 1961, with her son. Kim Duk Hwan was not permitted to follow her.

According to Valentina Kurashova, the North Korean authorities requested Kim Duk Hwan to divorce her (many North Koreans with East European or Soviet spouses were asked to do the same, and many apparently did). She believes that it is his refusal to divorce her that led to his internment in a "re-education" camp in late 1961 or early 1962. The legal basis for Kim Duk Hwan's internment is unclear, he does not appear to have been formally charged with any offence, or tried.

For the following five years, Kim wrote to his wife in Pskov. He mentioned being ill and going hungry at times. His place of detention was in Sinyang District, in Pyongan South Province, about 100 kilometres northeast of Pyongyang. Valentina Kurashova was concerned that Kim's illness may have been related to his handling radio-active material, but this cannot be confirmed. He wrote to her that he had been interned because he had been educated in the USSR, and refused to divorce her. He last wrote to her in 1966.

Kim Duk Hwan, if still alive, is a prisoner of conscience. Amnesty International believes that he was detained solely because of his personal background and private life, and fell victim to arbitrary decisions taken by the North Korea's Government, led by the Korean Workers' Party.

Amnesty International is calling on the North Korean authorities to make public the whereabouts of Kim Duk Hwan, indicate the reasons for his detention in the 1960s, and explain the reasons why Valentina Kurashova's repeated requests for information have remained unanswered.

Political Prisoners Held in 1990 in Sungho Township

Amnesty International has received information concerning a place of detention in Sungho Township, about 70 kilometres East of Pyongyang, where at least 49 long-term political prisoners were reportedly held as at the end of 1990. Amnesty International believes that the detainees named below may still be held, although they may have been transferred elsewhere since 1990.

Conditions at the Sungho Township detention centre were reportedly harsh, with little light and no heating in cells. In at least one case a prisoner held in Sungho reportedly died of beatings inflicted by prison guards. The detention centre was reported in 1990 to hold several hundred (about 600) "ordinary"North Korean political prisoners – that is, prisoners with no distinctive personal background – as well as dozens of "special" political prisoners, such as former high-ranking officials, former Korean residents of Japan, etc. Drawings of the Sungho detention centre provided by North Korean sources are appended to this document.

At the end of 1990 the following political prisoners were reportedly held in a detention centre for political prisoners in Sungho Township. The date of their detention is not known. Some have reportedly been accused of espionage, others of crimes against the state. Many are former Korean residents in Japan. Since 1958, according to sources in Japan, about 93,000 ethnic Koreans who were born in Japan, or had been sent to Japan from Korea during Japan's colonization of the Peninsula, settled in the DPRK. Many of them have not been heard of since the mid-1960s and are believed by their relatives in Japan to have been imprisoned or assigned to remote places of residence in North Korea. Some may still be detained (or otherwise physically restricted) as prisoners of conscience.

The table below lists 49 political prisoners held in 1990 in Sungho. Amnesty International does not have information about their whereabouts since 1990. It believes most of them are still detained. The organization is calling on the Government of the DPRK to make public full details of their current whereabouts, the reason for their detention at Sungho, the circumstances of their trials and the whereabouts of their relatives.

No.NameRemarks

1An Am JunFormer Korean resident of Japan

2An Hung KapFormer Korean resident of Japan

3An I Jun Former Korean resident of Japan

4Cho Bok AeTook part in the Korean War

5Cho Byong UkSouth Korean

6Cho Jong KapFormer Korean resident in Japan

7Choi Kyong Sik

8Jong Jong DoSouth Korean

9Jong U TaekFormer Korean resident in Japan

10Kang Dae YongFormer Korean resident in Japan

11Kang Jung SokSouth Korean

12Kang Su HoFormer Korean resident in Japan

13Kang Yong SuFormer Korean resident in Japan

14Kim Bo KyomSouth Korean

15Kim Byong HunFormer Korean resident in Japan

16Kim Chon HaeFormer Korean resident in Japan

17Kim In BongFormer Supervisor at DPRK
Trade Ministry

18Kim Jin HoFormer Korean resident in Japan

19Kim Jong HoFormer Deputy Commander of
Eastern Coast Front Army

20Kim Sang IlFormer Councillor at DPRK
Trade Ministry

21Kim Yong KilFormer Korean resident in Japan

22Koh Dae KiFormer Korean resident in Japan

23Koh Sang MunSouth Korean

24Kwak Chol (Kwak Jong Ku)Former Korean resident in Japan

25Kwon Bong HakFormer Korean resident in Japan

26Lee Chi SuSouth Korean

27Lee Dae ChulFormer Korean resident in Japan

28Lee Dong HoFormer Deputy Chief of Third
Administrative Unit (counter-
intelligence department)

29Lee Jae YongPolitical supervisor during the
Korean War

30Lee Jae YongNorth Korean – occupation
unknown – unrelated to person
named above

31Lee Jang SuSouth Korean

32Lee Jun KwangSouth Korean

33Lee Ra YongDPRK Historian – wrote a book
on "Youth and the Revolution" –
unheard of since the 1960s

34Min Yong IlFormer Korean resident in Japan

35Mun Hoi JangFormer Deputy Chief of Third
Administrative Unit (counter-
intelligence department)

36Oh Hyon (Kim Si Taek)Former Korean resident in Japan

37Park Chang SopDPRK Korean War veteran

38Park Mu Former Korean resident in Japan

39Park Un CholFormer Korean resident in Japan

40Roh Jun WooSouth Korean

41Ryu Song KunSouth Korean

42Seo Yong ChilFormer Korean resident in Japan

43Shin Jae WhaFormer Korean resident in Japan

44Shin MukFormer Korean resident in Japan

45Son Jae SokFormer Korean resident in Japan

46Son Kwi IkFormer Korean resident in Japan

47Song Kwan HoFormer Korean resident in Japan

48Yom Kil SongFormer Supervisor at DPRK
Trade Ministry