Political Prisoner: Soon Ok Lee, ex-Prisoner of North Korea

I wanted to highlight a political prisoner from North Korea this week, but my (admittedly cursory) researches were unable to find any specific ones, although there are plenty of sites dedicated to the plight of prisoners in that country in general. I did find this very good web site: The Soon Ok Lee Project. It is the site of an ex-Political prisoner of North Korea who is currently living in South Korea and works to shed light on the horrible conditions of the political prisoners held by North Korea. Here is an excerpt from her book:

My misery began after I returned from a business trip to China. I had gone there to buy fabric for officers of the government department and the Communist Party. One officer of North Korea’s Public Security Bureau (much like Russia’s KGB) asked me for more fabric for a suit than was his share. I could not do what he asked because my supplies were limited. Because I refused to satisfy his greed, I was thrown into the dark world of the prison system. I was cruelly and terribly punished. During fourteen months of interrogation, I endured tremendous physical and mental pain. As a frail woman, I could hardly bear it. After experiencing all kinds of threats, torture, appeasement, and deceptions, I was sentenced to thirteen years of imprisonment in a resocialization center. People who do not obey the rules of the government are sent there. All my life I had been told that North Korea’s communism values every human being. Yet I could not believe what I saw in that horrible place in my country. None of the prisoners were allowed to talk, laugh, sing, or look in a mirror. They had to sit on their knees with their heads bowed and answer questions when an interrogator spoke. Prisoners had to work eighteen hours a day at hard labor. If they did not complete their work for that day, they were thrown into solitary confinement. The prison was a place where the “animals that do not have tails” lived. That is what the prisoners were. It is beyond human comprehension how the Communist Party could treat people this way. How can the Communist system, in the time of no war, contradict its teachings by torturing people who share the same bloodline?

Take a moment to look through her site, read her story, and realize that she is one of the very lucky few to escape.