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Yahoo! News - South Korean Lawmakers See North ‘Execution’ Tapes

By Jon Herskovitz

SEOUL (Reuters) - Grainy video purporting to show public executions in North Korea captures the depravity of the communist state, South Korea’s opposition leader said on Friday, urging Seoul to press Pyongyang on human rights.

Members of parliament from the main opposition Grand National Party and human rights activists screened two tapes at the South’s National Assembly library that they say were smuggled from the North.

Activists say the tapes were made with a hidden camera and show thousands gathering at two separate events to watch public executions in and near Hoeryong, south of North Korea’s border with China.

"Among all the horrendous things that have happened in the North, this is the most egregious," said Park Geun-hye, Grand National Party leader and daughter of assassinated president Park Chung-hee.

"The government of South Korea should investigate this and stop this," she said. Her party takes a harder line on North Korea than the ruling Uri Party, which has not publicly pressed the North on its suspected human rights abuses.

The videotapes were broadcast over three nights from last week on Japanese national network NTV.

In the first video, which activists said was taped on March 1, a propaganda van travels near a public market in Hoeryong as people in the crowd speak in North Korean accents about getting a good view.

Eleven people are shown. They are charged with being human trafficking brokers who smuggled North Korean women across the border for arranged marriages with Chinese men.

LIFELESS

In an outdoor trial that takes less than 20 minutes — where no defense is presented — two of the 11 are sentenced to death. The Japanese broadcaster magnified the executions, which take place in the distance, so that they can be seen more clearly.

In the distance, one man is tied to a post by his head, torso and legs. Three soldiers fire one round each at the head, breaking the ropes as the man slumps forward, then the chest as the ropes break again and the man slumps forward more, and finally the legs, as the lifeless body falls to the ground.

The other person is executed in the same manner. The bodies are then stuffed into burlap bags and tossed into the back of a van as children run to the scene to get a glimpse of the action.

There is also a second video activists say was taken on the following day in the same general area that shows an execution of one other person in the same manner.

The total running time for the videos is 105 minutes and the Japanese broadcaster used satellite imaging and videotape taken from the Chinese side of the border to match features from Hoeryong with those shown in the video

"The North Korean authorities start to publicise executions by going to factories and other places about a week before they take place in order to build up crowds," said Park Kwang-il, a North Korean refugee, who said executions are a regular part of the system.

The North is one of the world’s most tightly controlled societies, but reports have filtered out of persistent rights abuses that include networks of prison camps, public executions and guilt through association where relatives of criminals are also punished.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has adopted resolutions expressing serious concern over human rights conditions in North Korea. Pyongyang denies human rights abuses and criticizes the United States and other countries for taking it to task.