There may be clandestine video footage of North
Korea's public executions of human traffickers and cellphone users.
Seoul's
Chosun Ilbo
reports in
Crackdowns, Public Executions on Sino-Korean Border, that
according to a North Korean administrative official who defected,
'there were three rounds of arrests aimed at "anti-socialist
groups" in the Hoeryeong [a town on the border between the DPRK and
China] area between January and February this year by squads made
up of agents of the State Safety and Security Agency, the Ministry
of Public Security and police.'
Three individuals were executed for human trafficking
and trying to sell U.S. military dog tags on Feb. 28 and March
1.
The defector said a judge on Feb. 28 read the sentence aloud. "In
times made difficult by the vile anti-DPRK schemes of the U.S. and
their South Korean puppets, anti-party counterrevolutionaries who
damaged the authority of the party and Fatherland will be
executed," he quoted the judge as saying. Nine women implicated in
human trafficking were given prison sentences.
Other defectors said 63 households -- about 300 people -- were sent
into forced exile in remote mountainous regions in South Hamgyeong
Province such as Jangjin and Bujeon counties. One said that
secretly filmed footage of the Feb. 28 executions was smuggled
abroad.