The Hidden Gulag - US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

The Hidden Gulag Second Editionthe prison guards to avoid beatings for not working.A year later, on October 10, the anniversaryof the founding of the Workers’ Party, shewas told that because she had observed prisonrules and because of the Great General’s grace(eunhye), she was granted amnesty.Upon release, she went back to Musan to recoverat the home of her deceased husband’s parents.In March, a Korean-Chinese man came to thehouse looking for her. During the time of herpost-repatriation imprisonment, her son hadmade it from Yanbian China to South Korea.Using his government resettlement grant andemployment income, he hired a Korean-Chineseagent to search for his mother, and bring her toSeoul. Mrs. Bang could not yet walk, but withher son’s money she bought food and medicineto restore her health. By October, she was ableto travel. On October 27, she bribed a borderguard and crossed again into China. In November2003, she sought refuge in the South KoreanEmbassy in Beijing. On January 8, 2004 shecame to Seoul. At the Hanawon orientationcenter for North Korean refugees newly resettledin South Korea, she met another defectorwhom she married. Reunited with her children,she now lives just outside Seoul with her newhusband. She is hoping to form an NGO toassist North Korean women trafficked in China.WITNESS: Yoo Chun-shikKyo-hwa-so No. “Two-Two,” SouthHamgyong ProvinceMr. Yoo Chun-shik was born in November 1963in Onsong, North Hamgyong Province. Followingcompletion of his military service, in which heheld the rank of platoon commander, he workedfor a construction company in Onsong. His longstring of encounters with the North Korean prisonand detention system began in 1996.After food distribution ceased at his place ofemployment, Yoo went to Kangwon Provinceto buy fish to sell to Koreans in China. He made“good money” and also began buying personaleffects and selling them in China. Caught bythe North Korean police, he was sentencedin January 1996 to six months’ hard labor atthe Onsong An-jeon-bu People’s Safety Agencyro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae labor training camp. Hissentence was for not working at his designatedworkplace, for unauthorized buying and selling,and for an old assault they dredged up from hismilitary record. (Mr. Yoo thinks he would havebeen given a longer sentence if not for his militaryservice record.)In May 1995, with one month left to go in hissix-month sentence, Yoo was given a temporaryholiday release. But he became inebriated duringthe holiday festivities and was late returningto the labor-training camp. For this infraction,98