North Korean prisoners publicly executed for trying to escape or steal, UN says
UN interviewed more than 330 people, mostly women, who left the country, with some subject to sexual violence and beatings
North Korean prisoners who tried to escape or steal have reportedly been publicly executed, and detainees have been subject to sexual violence and severely beaten with clubs and metal rods, according to a United Nations report.
Guards make detainees undress and repeatedly subject them to body searches for money and concealed items, the report by secretary-general António Guterres says. They are interrogated, sometimes for up to a month or longer, and their cells are so overcrowded they can’t lie down, it says.
Guterres says in the report to the general assembly that the UN human rights office received and analysed accounts of North Koreans who had experienced detention, the vast majority of them women who escaped initially to China. Between September and May, he said, the office interviewed more than 330 individuals who left the country.
The former detainees alleged “gross violations of the rights to life, liberty and security of the person” perpetrated by security officers, Guterres said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/03/north-korean-prisoners-publicly-executed-for-trying-to-escape-or-steal-un-says
