Mick Hartley

More on North Korean labourers abroad, and the brutal punishments dished out to those attempting to escape. From the Daily NK:

Last month, Daily NK dispatched a special coverage team overseas to investigate reports of human rights abuses involving North Korean laborers in China, Russia, and Mongolia. Daily NK’s special coverage team learned that some laborers dispatched to Russia to work were allegedly caught after an escape attempt and severely punished. The State Security Department [SSD] officials charged with monitoring the site responded to the incident by torturing the escapees, before forcibly repatriating them to North Korea. 

According to testimony given to Daily NK at the end of the month by a North Korean laborer in Russia, escapees who are apprehended face extremely ruthless punishment in order to deter future attempts by others. In one such example, a laborer had his Achilles tendon severed by the authorities. In another case, the laborers were forced to lie down and had their legs broken with a construction excavator. Upon their return to North Korea, these handicapped laborers and their families are sent to political prison camps.

Another laborer sent to the coastal province of Khabarovsk, Russia, at the beginning of the year testified to Daily NK that, “Previously, a worker fled from the worksite and hid out in a nearby church, where he was later discovered and caught. The SSD agents used a huge excavator to crush him. He was denied proper medical attention thereafter and became disabled. It’s impossible for these SSD agents to forgive an escape attempt and so they made an example out of him.” 

He continued, “The last time we saw our colleague in question, he was skin and bones, injured, and had nothing but a simple bandage on his leg. He was forcibly repatriated in that condition. This is not an unusual or rare occurrence. Some laborers who try to escape have their Achilles tendon cut, and others are beaten with pieces of lumber. These kinds of escape attempts happen from time to time, but even if the laborers manage to flee, it is very difficult for them to survive. They have no choice but to wander about.”

“However, since this is Russian soil [and not North Korea], North Korean State Security Department agents shouldn’t even have the authority to detain people, let alone break people’s legs,” the source added.

A source from a separate worksite in Russia corroborated these allegations, stating that while North Korean workers sent to Russian construction sites are permitted relative freedom of movement in order to complete their tasks, the authorities create an atmosphere of terror by using extreme punishments, including the breaking of bones, to discourage all escape attempts. This additional source confirmed that upon their return to North Korea, transgressors’ families are rounded up with them and sent to political prison camps.

“Besides escape attempts, there are other infractions that can earn laborers a return trip to North Korea and a prison term. They can suffer this fate, for example, if they complain about back pay being withheld. Individuals who complain about unfair conditions are quietly called in and told that they will be put on ‘leave.’ In reality, they are repatriated and imprisoned,” the source explained. …

Detention centers have been set up in isolated areas near worksites to inflict punishment on laborers who express dissent. A missionary in Russia who has had contact with numerous North Korean laborers reported that strict surveillance and beatings are used to threaten the workers, discouraging them from escaping or dissenting, saying, “Those who dissent are thrown in these detention centers, where they endure particularly cruel punishment.”        

“The workers who are sent abroad do not even have the slightest understanding of the concept of human rights. They simply try to live on the money they are given for their work. They risk their lives and endure conditions we would consider unfit for animals,” he added.