Imagine that you are a Canadian citizen who
has spent the last 20 years doing charity work in North Korea. You’ve visited the “Hermit Kingdom”
more than 150 times without incident, which is why it’s such a shock when one night,
out of the blue, you’re kidnapped - er, we mean, arrested - from your hotel room and
accused of being an enemy of the state! Have you ever wondered - what are prisons
in North Korea like? Well, you’re about to find out… This might seem like a far-fetched tale, but
believe it or not, this is exactly what happened to a South Korean-Canadian pastor who spent
919 days imprisoned in North Korea. His story is terrifying and brutal, but remarkably,
he’s one of the lucky ones - many others who have experienced the horrors of North
Korean prison first-hand have much, much darker tales to tell...but we’ll get to that. First, let’s find out how a Canadian pastor
found himself on the wrong side of a tyrannical regime, and ended up on the wrong side of
a North Korean prison fence. Hyeon Soo Lim was born in South Korea and
moved to Canada as a young man, where he became a Christian pastor, married and raised a family. Pastor Lim travelled back to South Korea often
to visit his mother, and while there, began doing charity work with the poor just over
the border in North Korea. Over the next 20 years, Pastor Lim would travel
into North Korea more than 150 times - he was one of the few people in the world who
had a special green Nexus-like ID card that allowed him to cross the notoriously difficult
border dozens of times without incident. In January 2015, while Pastor Lim was visiting
his mother in South Korea, he was contacted by a North Korean tourism official who requested
an urgent meeting with him. Pastor Lim was surprised, but not concerned
- and he knew that when dealing with North Korean government officials, the safest option
was to just go along with whatever they said. When Pastor Lim arrived at the border, a government
official informed him that his meeting had been moved to a city 17 hours away by car. Pastor Lim knew better than to argue, so he
threw his plans for a quick day trip out the window and got into the waiting car, a decision
that would come back to haunt him. Shortly after Pastor Lim checked into the
hotel room that had been so graciously arranged for him, 6 men armed with handguns rushed
into his room, blindfolded him and hustled him out of the hotel and into the back of
a waiting vehicle. Pastor Lim begged the officers to tell him
what was happening, where they were taking him, and if he was under arrest, but they
ignored his desperate pleas. He was taken to a detention center near Pyongyang
and deposited in a prison cell with no explanation. The dark, dank cell had no windows or furniture,
just a concrete floor and a moldy toilet and sink. After weeks of interrogation, Pastor Lim finally
learned what it was that had landed him in this hell...er, cell - apparently someone
in power had caught wind of one of his sermons on YouTube, in which he tells his flock not
to treat the ruling Kim family as gods. Apparently, this was enough to have him labelled
an enemy of the state, and he was charged with “harming the dignity of the supreme
leadership of the country, and trying to use religion to destroy the government”. As relieved as Pastor Kim was to finally understand
why he was here, he knew this was not good news - if found guilty - which, let’s face
it, he knew he would be - he could face life in a North Korean prison...or worse. After more than a year imprisoned in the small,
dank cell at the detention center, Pastor Lim realized that his only hope was to confess
and pray for mercy, otherwise he would die in this cell. In true North Korean form, Pastor Lim’s
trial was swift and his sentence was brutal. He was quickly proclaimed guilty and initially
sentenced to death. Before Pastor Lim could wrap his mind around
his impending fate, the judges conferred and, likely swayed by the presence of some Canadian
diplomats, they downgraded his sentence to life in a labour prison. Unbelievably, relief washed over Pastor Lim
as he realized his life had been spared, but that feeling wouldn’t last long. He was about to find out what prison in North
Korea is like. Life in North Korea is a bit of a prison sentence
in and of itself - the country is so isolated and cut-off from the outside world that it
has earned the nickname of “The Hermit Kingdom”. While elite members of the authoritarian ruling
class live in outrageous luxury, 40% of the North Korean population is malnourished. Tens of millions of North Korean citizens
are trapped in a life of hard labour and extreme poverty, and under the tyrannical rule of
Kim Jong Un and his cronies, they have little chance of improving their situation - they
can only hope not to get on the wrong side of any power-hungry government officials,
lest they find themselves in a true North Korean prison. Kim Jong Un is the all-powerful Supreme Leader
of the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and he has unlimited control over
all aspects of the lives of his citizens. As dictator of the Hermit Kingdom of North
Korea, Kim Jon Un also presides over its appalling prison system. While North Korea officially denies the existence
of these gulag-like prison camps, numerous reports from North Korean defectors, as well
as covert investigations into conditions in the country have revealed that not only do
these atrocious camps exist, but they might be worse than anyone thought. Pastor Lim’s experience in one of these
prisons would expose some of the horrifying conditions faced by North Korean prisoners. After his trial, Pastor Lim was immediately
whisked from the courtroom and into yet another waiting vehicle. He was forced to keep his head between his
knees during the drive so he couldn’t see where he was, until they arrived at an imposing
concrete and barbed-wire building in the middle of nowhere - Pastor Lim’s new home, possibly
for the rest of his life. Pastor Lim’s new cell was hardly an improvement
over his last one, but at least he now had a bed with a thin mattress - although he soon
found that it was infested with cockroaches. The building’s tap water was undrinkable,
and the food was terrible - rice full of dirt and thin white bread, day after day after
day, with a weekly boiled egg as a prized treat. The meager rations were not nearly enough
to sustain him through the days of hard labour - Pastor Lim spent hours each day digging
holes for apple trees in an orchard. Pastor Lim quickly began to fade away, losing
50 pounds, or more than a third of his body weight and developing painful arthritis in
his hands from digging in the sometimes frozen dirt. At one point, Pastor Lim was even hospitalized
for 2 months, before being shipped directly back to prison as soon as he recovered the
tiniest bit of strength. Still, Pastor Lim focused on his faith and
kept his spirits up as best as he could. Over time, he was allowed more privileges,
including a Bible and his much-needed blood pressure medication. He was allowed some limited contact with his
wife, connected with some Canadian officials and even gave a carefully-controlled and government-approved
TV interview. Pastor Lim even developed relationships with
some of the guards, even helping one of them learn to connect with his teenage son. August 9th, 2017 began like any other day. Pastor Lim was digging holes in the orchard
when a guard came and told him to return to his cells and pack his things. He hardly dared to believe his dreams were
coming true as he was ushered to a hotel conference room full of Canadian and North Korean officials,
signed his release papers, and boarded a plane headed for home. After 919 days in a North Korean prison, Pastor
Lim was free. As horrifying as his ordeal was, Pastor Lim
knows that he was one of the lucky ones. He didn’t see a single other prisoner during
his time in North Korean prison, and he suspects that his Canadian citizenship spared him the
worst of the harsh treatment experienced by North Korean prisoners. He even says he would consider going back
to North Korea if allowed. That seems insane to us, but to each his own,
we guess. Even foregin citizenship isn’t always enough
to protect someone who finds themselves in a North Korean prison. In June 2017, an American student named Otto
Warmbier died after he was found unresponsive in his cell in a North Korean prison. He had been serving a 15 year hard-labour
sentence for allegedly attempting to leave the country with a propaganda poster. Many others who’ve witnessed the horrors
of a North Korean prison first-hand have much darker stories to tell. A former guard at one of these infamous prisons
who defected to South Korea has exposed some of the most horrifying details of what goes
on behind the barbed wire gates of a North Korean prison. She explains how the guards were manipulated
and brainwashed to look at the prisoners as less than human. They were told that the prisoners were horrible
monsters who had committed terrible crimes - though she was later devastated to learn
that in many cases, their “crimes” were no worse than foraging for food to feed their
starving family or simply just being a Christian. In many cases, multiple generations of entire
families were imprisoned together for the crimes of one family member, in an effort
to weed out the “bad seeds”. Once the guards could dehumanize the prisoners,
they were able to treat them with a new level of brutality. On top of severe starvation and extreme physical
labour to the point of collapse, guards would often brutally beat prisoners for the slightest
indiscretion. Once, the former guard recalled an entire
family, including children, being brutally beaten in retaliation for 2 of their family
members escaping. The escapees were later caught, and paraded
through a crowd of prisoners who were forced to throw stones at the pair, before they were
publicly executed by beheading. In case you’re trying to convince yourself
that North Korean prisons couldn’t possibly be as bad as the rumours and stories make
them sound, you can rest assured that the reality is actually much worse than we could
have imagined. In 2017, the International Bar Association
- that’s the global professional association of the world’s lawyers, so, pretty legit
- released the findings of their extensive investigation into the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea’s kwanliso prison system, and the report is sickening. Seriously...if you’re squeamish, you might
want to skip ahead about a minute or so. We’re not kidding. Okay, here goes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. According to the IAB’s report, these are
just a few of the worst atrocities committed at North Korean prisons: The report cites numerous incidents of prisoners
being beaten and even executed for hiding food or digging for edible roots in the forests
near the camp. There were countless reports of routine public
executions of prisoners by hanging, beheading or firing squad, designed to subdue and demoralize
the prison population. In one camp alone, a reported 1,500 to 2,000
prisoners - many just children - are starved and overworked to death each and every year. The report goes on to list many, many more
accounts of similar atrocities at North Korean prisons. If you skipped that last bit, we don’t blame
you. The truth about what prison is like in North
Korea is not for the faint of heart. Thomas Burgenthal, one of three judges on
the IBA’s panel, has a half a century of experience working on human rights cases,
and he himself is a childhood survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He has witnessed first-hand some of the worst
human rights violations in recent history, and even he was shocked by the brutality of
North Korea’s prisons. He said, “Conditions in the [North] Korean
prison camps are as terrible, or even worse, than those I saw and experienced in my youth
in these Nazi camps and in my long professional career in the human rights field.” That’s pretty damning, to say the least. As long as Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un maintains
absolute control over North Korea and the lives of its people and prisoners, daily life
in North Korea will continue to resemble a prison sentence, and those unlucky enough
to find themselves behind bars in North Korea will likely face the most inhumane conditions
imaginable. Now that you know what prison in North Korea
is like, perhaps you’ll rethink that summer vacation to Pyongyang. If you thought this video was chilling, then
you have to check out “How Cruel is North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un?”, or maybe you’ll
like this other video instead. As always, thanks for watching, and don’t
forget to like, share and subscribe! See you next time!
