AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

Thirteen restaurant workers, sent by the
government to work in Ningbo, China, flew
directly from China to South Korea in April
(see Korea (Republic of) entry). On their
arrival in South Korea, the North Korean
authorities claimed that the 12 women in the
group were abducted from China and taken
to South Korea. According to a media
interview with their former colleagues
arranged in Pyongyang by the North Korean
government, the workers had their passports
taken away from them while in China, which
would have restricted their ability to travel
freely. 1
Interviews with North Koreans who left the
country as well as media reports said that the
government had increased its surveillance
efforts to prevent people from leaving via the
Chinese-Korean border. Those who
successfully left continued to be at risk of
detention, imprisonment, forced labour, and
torture and other ill-treatment if arrested and
returned from China.
MIGRANT WORKERS’ RIGHTS
The government continued to dispatch
through state-owned enterprises at least
50,000 people to work in some 40 countries
including Angola, China, Kuwait, Qatar and
Russia in various sectors including medicine,
construction, forestry and catering. Workers
did not receive wages directly from
employers, but through the North Korean
government after significant deductions. Most
workers were deprived of information about
international or domestic labour laws, and
often lacked access in the host countries to
any government agencies and other
organizations monitoring compliance with or
offering assistance in claiming labour rights.
These workers were frequently subjected
to excessive working hours and were
vulnerable to occupational accidents and
diseases. Poland announced in June that it
was no longer allowing workers from North
Korea to enter the country following media
reports of a fatal shipyard accident involving
a North Korean worker in 2014. Malta made
a similar announcement in July, and denied
visa extensions to existing North Korean
workers.
ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS
The authorities sentenced people, including
foreign nationals, to long prison terms after
unfair trials. Frederick Otto Warmbier, a US
student, was convicted of “subversion”; he
only admitted stealing a propaganda banner.
He was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour in
March; he was not given consular access for
at least six months. Kim Dong-chul, a 62-
year-old US citizen born in South Korea, was
sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour in April
for “spying”; the authorities failed to provide
details about the alleged spying activities.
The sentences were imposed as new UN
sanctions on North Korea were authorized
earlier in the year, and before the Korean
Workers’ Party Congress in May when there
was increased international attention on
North Korea. 2 Up to 120,000 people
remained in detention in the four known
political prison camps, where they were
subjected to systematic, widespread and
gross human rights violations such as forced
labour, and torture and other ill-treatment −
some amounting to crimes against humanity.
Many of those held in these camps had not
been convicted of any internationally
recognized criminal offence but were
detained for “guilt-by-association”, simply for
being related to individuals deemed
threatening to the state.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
The authorities continued to impose severe
restrictions on the right to freedom of
expression, including the right to seek,
receive and impart information regardless of
national borders. The government persisted
in restricting access to outside sources of
information; there were no national
independent newspapers, media or civil
society organizations.
The professional activities of the very few
international journalists allowed into the
country remained severely restricted. BBC
journalists visiting North Korea ahead of the
Korean Workers' Party Congress in May were
220 Amnesty International Report 2016/17