socialmedian: North Korean defectors tell of torture and beatings

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North Korean defectors tell of torture and beatings

Source: The Guardian

Nov 04, 2009

Summary

Former prisoners describe harrowing ordeals as UN prepares to scrutinise North Korea's human rights record

In the nine months after his arrest on espionage charges, Guang-il Jung was beaten by North Korean security guards with a thick wooden club. He still bears the scars on the back of his head.

In the course of beatings, the guards broke all his teeth, leaving him toothless for four years. To deprive him of sleep, the guards at the underground prison at Hoeryong city near the Chinese border used "pigeon torture". Jung was handcuffed and tied by his arms to an object behind him so he could not stand or sit. He felt as though his bones were breaking through his chest while the rest of his body was paralysed.

Jung recounted the harrowing tale of his detention, before he escaped to South Korea in 2003, during a tour of European capitals this week to shine a personal light on what a UN report recently described as North Korea's "abysmal" human rights record.

The appearance of Jung and another defector, a 54-year-old woman named only as L, before MPs and European of

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