http://www.freenk.net/board/bbs/board_read.jsp?addr=gallery_news&num=122

[my translation]

What happened in Hoeryong on the route to defect?

(ChosunIlbo report)
It has been known that a wholesale crackdown on and public executions of human traffickers and cellphone holders took place in the border city of Hoeryong in North HamKyong Province near China.

Word that the scenes of the public execution was filmed on the sly and went to the outside of the North. Hoeryong is one of major defect routes out of the country. And it also has been said that the political prison camp in Hoeryong was dismantled late last year.

The crackdown frenzy named 'anti-socialist group' inspection swept three times in total, from late last year to Jan-Feb this year, in and around the city of Hoeryong according to a newly escaped North Korean official. It's said this inspection team was composed of National security agency and Security Department and Prosecutors' office.

This defector said "this time of inspection was done following KimJOngIl's special instruction to crack down on anti-socialist phenomena related to China.
As the results of it three were shot dead by a firing squad on the charges of trying to sell identification tags of US Army and human trafficking, on the 28th of last month and the first of March.
The judge of the central court read out the ruling on the spot at the Feb. 28-public execution "in this time of ferocious anti-republic unrest by the US and South Korean puppets, (we) sentence to death anti-party/anti-revolution elements who infringed the authority of the party and the nation, in the name of the nation" and ordered the execution. 9 women involved in the human trafficking were given a jail sentence.


Other defectors said 63 households of 300 people were forced to move to remote mountain areas such as ChangJin and Bujon counties in South Hanmkyong Province. Particularly it's notable that one of them said the scene of the Feb 28 execution was secretly filmed and went to outside."

Meanwhile, it's said a North Korean official who had visited earlier this year China said "the work of dismantling the 22th Kwanleeso (a political prison camp) which was started since 2003 was completed late last year."

It's said he/she noted " a large scale riot occurred in the camp in Oct. 2003 and as the Hoeryong camp became the object of international attention through satellite pictures, the authorities started to dismantle it."

Defector LeeMyoungChul (pseudonym), who is from Hoeryong, said "political prisoners in the Hoeryong camp appear to be transferred to the Yoduk camp".
The Hoeryong camp was the largest with about 50,000 detainees.

Asked about the word of the dismantlement of the Hoeryong camp, a NIS official said "We've got such intelligence but it needs confirmation".
KangChulWhan nkch@chosun.com
2005-03-11