Testimonies have emerged from North Korean defectors claiming that North Korea is sending political prisoners to nuclear facilities where the risk of radiation exposure is high to perform forced labor.
According to the Korea Institute for National Unification’s research series “The Lives of North Korean Residents: State Planning and Independence from the State,” on the 6th, a woman in her 40s who lived in Pyongyang and defected in 2019 made this claim in an in-depth interview.
The woman testified that North Korean authorities send political prisoners not to political prison camps but to political prisoner management offices near “nuclear bases” for labor.
She said, “Everyone knows that radiation is harmful to the human body, so no ordinary person would want to go to a nuclear base. The North Korean authorities send those among the prisoners who are to die there.”
She also revealed that the military manages the nuclear bases and offers various benefits to encourage those who are reluctant to enlist due to radiation exposure concerns. These benefits include reducing the term of service from 10 years to 5 years, sending them to college by recommendation after discharge, and even allowing them to join the Workers’ Party.
However, the woman added, “But those who served in the military there died within three years. It’s because of harmful radiation,” hinting at rumors related to deaths due to side effects of working at nuclear facilities.
The woman had a middle-class lifestyle as an oriental medicine doctor in Pyongyang but lived under strict surveillance by the authorities after her husband defected. Despite this, she had no plans to escape from North Korea. That was until she received a tip that she and her children would be sent to a nuclear base management office, so she finally decided to defect.
Previously, the U.S. non-governmental organization of Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) suggested in a report last October the completion of a 3.2-mile unpaved road connecting the Punggye-ri nuclear test site and the Hwasong political prison camp (No. 16 concentration camp). was followed by inmates of the concentration camp being mobilized for the construction and maintenance of the nuclear test site.
kukoo@news1.kr
