Torture in the Hermit Kingdom

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Torture in the Hermit Kingdom

A s t u d y o f t o r t u r e p r a c t i c e s i n N o r t h K o r e a n d e t e n t i o n f a c i l i t i e s

b y E r w i n N u i j t e n

Master Thesis Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Graduate School of Humanities, Department of History, University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Dr. Kjell Anderson (NIOD)

Second reader: Dr. Martijn Eickhoff (NIOD) Submission date: June 2015

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Erwin Nuijten: Dear Shin, I do not know if you ever read these messages. I just wanted to thank you for inspiring me. I am a master student from the Netherlands and have been inspired by your stories. I have decided to write my master thesis on torture in the DPRK Gulag facilities and have been working on this for the last few months. Please keep doing what you are doing. It is important work indeed. Kind regards, Erwin.

Shin Dong-hyuk: I sincerely thank you. I try to read as many messages as possible. But let me tell you how important your master thesis means to me. Individuals like you bring me strength and give me the willpower to continue on in my fight.

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Acknowledgements

The establishment of this study has not always been an easy process, and I would like

to briefly share some words of thanks. First of all, to my supervisor Dr. Kjell Anderson,

who was of great help and provided some invaluable insights and knowledge that

improved the contents of this thesis significantly, especially after reading the first

draft. Then, I would like to thank my girlfriend Astrid Parys for her inexhaustible

moral support and the faith in me and this project, even if I was on the verge of losing

this faith myself. I would also like to thank my friends Hugo Sommer, Tim Ligtvoet,

Lothar van Riel, Nick Romeijn, and Joeri Treep for giving me some well-deserved and

much needed distraction from time to time. Being able to share my frustrations and

happiness regarding the thesis with my friend Senne Verholle at almost every hour of

the day was also a great way to blow off some steam. I am also grateful to my former

fellow student Rhiannon Parkinson for proofreading the entire thesis and providing

helpful comments. Then, I would like to thank my parents and their partners, Sjef and

Diane Nuijten, and Wilma de Ruijter and Danny Jagtenberg, for their continuous

moral and financial support that enabled me to take my time for this thesis and finish

it to the best of my capabilities.

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Abbreviations

Abbreviation Meaning

CAT Committee Against Torture

CIA (US) Central Intelligence Agency (United States) CIDT Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment

COI Commission of Inquiry

DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

EAHRNK European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea

GULAG Glavnoye upravleniye lagerey (“Main Camp Administration”) HRNK The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

KINU Korea Institute for National Unification

KWP Korean Workers Party

LFNKR Life Funds for North Korean Refugees

MPS Ministry of People’s Defense ((In-min-bo-an-seong)) NHRCK National Human Rights Commission of Korea

NIOD Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (“Netherlands Institute for War Documentation”)

NK North Korea

NKDB Database Center for North Korean Human Rights

NKVD Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (“People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs”)

NSA National Security Agency (Bo-wi-bu) NSP National Security Police (Bo-wi-bu)

PSA People’s Safety Agency (In-min-bo-an-seong) SSA Social Safety Agency (In-min-bo-an-seong) SSA State Security Agency (Bo-wi-bu)

SPPA State Political Protection Agency (Bo-wi-bu) SSD State Security Department (Bo-wi-bu)

UN United Nations

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Preface

Before beginning the actual thesis, I would like to share some personal words about the process of its creation. Already while studying cultural anthropology, I was fascinated with phenomena such as violence, war and genocide. The origin of these interests is not particularly clear to me, but I have always had an urge to learn more about these things. The master Holocaust and genocide studies provided me with an excellent opportunity to learn how to do so. Even though I had enjoyed my previous years of studying at the University of Amsterdam, I was absolutely enthralled by all the new things that I was learning. I read all mandatory texts (which in all honesty was somewhat new to me as well), and I read more. My bookcase quickly became filled with books related to the various topics of the courses, I watched some great documentaries, and learning for the exams or writing the essays was actually enjoyable rather than a necessary evil.

The course “Topics in Comparative Genocide” I found particularly interesting. It was given by Dr. Ugur Ümit Üngör, who was able to engage the entire class and prepared some truly fascinating lessons. This course began in early 2014, around the same time the UN Commission of Inquiry released its report on the human rights violations inside North Korea. It was baffling to me how a country where these things happened could exist in this day and age. As I saw many parallels with some of the things that I learned in the previous months and during the course, I decided to write my essay for the comparative genocide course about torture in North Korean prison camps. This essay was largely based on the UN report and a few memoirs that I had read, and it was supervised by Dr. Üngör. For me, the essay was a great success. Dr. Üngör liked it as well, as he rewarded me with the highest mark of my college career, of which I was quite proud.

Obviously, I was happy to learn that Dr. Üngör would also be supervising my master thesis. The initial idea for the thesis was to combine my knowledge of anthropology and the social sciences in general with all the knowledge I had gained over the last year. So it happened that I decided to study the role of class differences and relations within the Jewish community during the early years of persecution (1933-1938) in Nazi Germany. It was not an easy topic, and it was clear that it would take a lot of time and patience to study this. Therefore, I opted

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vi to really take my time for the thesis and ignore the official deadline in June. Unfortunately for me, Dr. Üngör had received a grant to do research of his own, and in the middle of the summer I suddenly no longer had a supervisor. A couple of weeks later, I and my thesis were transferred to Dr. Houwink ten Cate. While his great knowledge of the Holocaust and the Jewish persecution was very useful, I soon felt that we were not a great match, which had to do with my personal preference for a supervisor with a background in the social sciences.

When I made this known, I was again transferred, this time to Dr. Üngör’s successor Dr. Kjell Anderson. In the following months I continued to work in good spirits, until I realised it was not going all that well. Even though I had already read a lot of literature, I was unable to find enough relevant primary sources, and some of the class groups I had distinguished were much better researchable than others. I strongly felt that I had reached an impasse. I continued to struggle for a while, until one day I came to the conclusion that I had to take an entirely different approach, which basically sent me back to square one. I was disappointed with the state of affairs, and became rather depressed with my situation.

By then it was late 2014, and it hit me that I would much rather change the entire topic of my thesis than to struggle any longer. It was a difficult decision, and difficult to understand for the people around me as well, but I felt I needed a fresh start. I began to think about a new topic, and I soon figured out that I wanted to write my thesis about torture in North Korea. I had already written about this and never stopped monitoring new developments, even after handing in the essay. It was simply perfect. I began to read more, and immersed myself in all the data that I could get my hands on. I was off to a good start, and in March I decided to send a message the “famous defector” Shin Dong-hyuk to thank him for inspiring me. His brief but (for me) very satisfying answer can be found on the opening page of the thesis. I realised that I had embarked on a quest that I found extremely fascinating and troubling at the same time, which resulted in the renewed pleasure that I was looking for in writing my master thesis. I hope that anyone who reads this study finds a similar pleasure in doing so, despite the contents that are sometimes unpleasant and often outright disturbing.

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A note on the text

Many of the names and terminology in this thesis may appear unfamiliar. One of the reasons for this is that translating text from one alphabet to another is complicated, so some clarification may be necessary. Similar to Western names, Korean names have two parts: a given name and a family name. In Korean names however, the family name comes first. The family name usually consists of one syllable, whereas the given name consists of two syllables.1

The two syllables of the given name are often linked with a hyphen in South Korea, whereas North Koreans write the two syllables separately and capitalize both names, so Ahn Myong-chul as opposed to Ahn Myong Chul.2_{Romanization of Korean names also results in}

inconsistencies and confusion. The name of this particular man, famous defector and former prison guard Ahn Myong-chul, appears in a lot of different sources. It has been written as Ahn Myong-chol, Ahn Myung-chul, Ahn Myong-chul, Ahn Myong Chol, Myung-chul Ahn – and probably a few more variants. To avoid confusion, this study uses the South Korean form with the hyphen, and choses the most common variant of a name and sticks with it throughout the text. In citations, the names of authors will not be adjusted.

It should also be understood that some of the quotes in this work are not translated flawlessly from Korean to English, but the meaning should always be clear. The translations and quotes are never edited and their grammar is not corrected unless the quote is incomprehensible. The names of defectors and witnesses are always copied from the original source. Sometimes the names are aliases or pseudonyms, or the defector wishes to be completely anonymous and is referred to for instance as “Ms. P” or just “the witness.” Many defectors still have family and friends in North Korea that they have to look out for, and cannot risk being exposed.

1_{Sunghee Han, “Formats of Korean Author’s Names,” Science Editor 28, no. 6 (November – December 2005), 189.} 2_{John Sweeney, North Korea Undercover: Inside the World’s Most Secret State (London: Corgi Books, 2014), 11.}

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Introduction

North Korea is known to be one of the most isolated countries in the world, which is why news media often refer to it as “the Hermit Kingdom.” Its secrecy and mysteriousness makes you wonder what goes on behind the borders that serve as nearly impenetrable walls, denying access to curious outsiders. This study will attempt to unravel some of this mystery, by focussing on the torture practices used inside the detention facilities throughout North Korea.

Torture and the North Korean Gulag

On February 2014, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI), headed by Michael Kirby, published a report that addressed numerous human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).3_{Based on the testimonies of hundreds of}

defectors and several experts and advocates of international human rights, the commission was able to denounce many of the atrocities taking place inside the country. David Hawk, one of the leading researchers of North Korean detention facilities, said that it was already established that crimes against humanity were being committed in North Korea, but the COI report marked the first time that experts authorised by UN member states came to this conclusion.4_{The impact of the report in the Western media was significant, as it was also the}

first time for many people to learn more about North Korea. Every single violation of human rights that is discussed in the UN report is in itself worthy of further investigation, but one of the most striking features of the country is the elaborate system of detention facilities where atrocities take place on a daily basis.

From witness testimonies it becomes clear that the conditions in these facilities are similar to the conditions in Hitler’s concentration camps or Stalin’s Gulag camps. Prisoners are often imprisoned for life without due process, while they are being deprived of food, forced to conduct extremely hard labour, arbitrarily punished, tortured, and sometimes executed. The North Korean system of detention facilities is often referred to as the North Korean Gulag,

3_{Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea, and DPRK is the commonly used abbreviation for}

the country.

4_{“Michael Kirby’s UN Panel Accuses North Korea of Crimes against Humanity,” The Sidney Morning Herald, February 15, 2014,}

accessed February 20, 2015, http://www.smh.com.au/world/michael-kirbys-un-panel-accuses-north-korea-of-crimes-against-humanity-20140214-hvcjc.html.

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2 because the model is based on the Soviet prison camp system invented by Stalin. The resemblance can be found in the purpose of both camp systems, which is to remove political opponents of the regime and common criminals from society.5_{It is important here to notice}

that in the case of North Korea, the word “Gulag” is sometimes used to refer to just the political prison camps, and sometimes to refer to the entire system of detention facilities. Because the first definition excludes multiple facilities where human rights violations and torture take place, this study will use the second definition.

From testimonies, memoirs and human rights reports it becomes evident that the use of torture practices is widespread in the Gulag. Most North Korean defectors have either been subjected to torture, or know someone who has. Victims have been tortured in different facilities, with different techniques, and for different reasons. Quite often the victims have their own idea of why they were tortured, while sometimes they have no idea at all. The question of why the victims have been tortured is particularly interesting. Typically, the use of torture practices is defended by governments and the agencies that work for them as a vital part of getting crucial information to keep “the people” safe. As recently as December 2014, the United States CIA director John Brennan defended the use of torture by the CIA, which came to light in elaborate fashion in a report released the same month.6_{According to Brennan, torture was}

used “to obtain necessary counterterrorism intelligence” and “produced useful intelligence that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives.”7_While

this in itself may be true to some extent in specific cases, it is almost never the only motive for torture. At the same time, the usefulness of torture is always debated, and many studies claim that torturing people does not yield truthful or useful information.8

Academics have also addressed the issue how torture is justified. In his review of Michelle Farrell’s work The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances, legal scholar Malcolm Evans concludes that the problem with this particular book is that there is an underlying assumption that “the practice of torture still is to be understood in terms of exceptional situations which raise profound questions at the interface of law and politics.”

5_{David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps (Washington: HRNK, 2003), 10.}

6_{The full report “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program” can be accessed}

online at http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf.

7_{Spencer Ackerman, “CIA Director John Brennan Defends Agency in Wake of Torture Report,” The Guardian, December 11,}

2014, accessed January 19, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/11/john-brennan-defends-cia-torture-report.

8_{Scott Shane, “Interrogations’ Effectiveness May Prove Elusive,” The New York Times, April 22, 2009, accessed January 9, 2015,}

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3 Evans also finds that “most torture is the result of routine barbarity in systems which just cannot be bothered to address it.”9_{This seems to be the case in North Korea. The regime does}

not address problems such as torture and denies the existence of the Gulag facilities besides the regular prisons. This denial is completely unbelievable, as hundreds of defectors have testified that they have been in one of the facilities. Everyone with a computer and internet access can download Google Earth and see the prison camps for themselves. A search for “North Korean concentration camp” will open a dropdown list of the different camps and their locations. Analysts compare the Google Earth satellite photos regularly and from recent reports it becomes clear that several camps are still active and developing.10

Research questions

Despite the denial by the North Korean authorities, there should be no doubt that the Gulag facilities and the torture practices that take place inside of them are very real. This is at the core of this study, which intends to research the torture practices in the North Korean Gulag as thoroughly as possible. In order to do this, this study poses the following research question: why are torture practices systematically used inside the North Korean Gulag? Answering this question is difficult, because there is not a lot of related research that covers this specific topic. In other words, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. Therefore, this study finds that a broad approach is necessary. It poses three separate questions that need to be answered in order to gain an understanding of torture in the Gulag:

1. How does the North Korean Gulag operate as a system?

2. What underlying mechanisms facilitate the torture practices in the Gulag? 3. What is the purpose of the torture practices in the Gulag?

These questions will be answered in corresponding chapters, which will be elaborated on in the outline of the structure of this thesis.

9_{Malcolm Evans, “The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances by Michelle Farrell,” International and Comparative}

Law Quarterly 62, no. 2 (April 2014), 508.

10_{Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., Imagery Analysis: North Korea’s Camp No. 25, Update (Washington: HRNK, June 2014) and Joseph S.}

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4 The relevance of this study

One of the key issues of doing research on human rights violations in North Korea is that most of the testimonies and evidence are collected by human rights organizations or by journalists who want to make a report or write a book. The academic world has not taken a similar interest in North Korea, and a search for scholarly work on torture in the Gulag will not yield as many results as one might hope. One explanation for this is that good sources have only become available quite recently. At the same time, researchers do not have access to North Korea and cannot get near the prison camps. Luckily, the human rights organizations and journalists have done a lot of important work. Their goals, however, differ quite significantly from the goals of academics. Human rights organizations are mainly concerned with collecting testimonies and stories from defectors and victims and aim to use this information as evidence of human rights violations and crimes against humanity. They are not very interested in analysing their data from an academic point of view, nor do they apply the knowledge that can be derived from academic literature that touches on relevant topics. It can be argued – as this study does – that this results in a gap in the knowledge of this topic, a gap that this study may help to bridge.

There are three additional factors that contribute to the relevance of this study. First of all, this study can provide insights in the use of torture practices that are part of a regime that is still intact. This is unusual, as insights that are equally profound as in this case can typically only be gained when a regime is overthrown or when it is being severely challenged. A recent example of the latter is the report on torture in Syria, Torture Archipelago, published by Human Rights Watch in July 2012. Torture practices were taking place in Syria when the report was released, and still are in 2015. Because of this, this report is also interesting for international policymakers.11

Second, North Korea is interesting because the regime has been in place for so long. The

torture practices in North Korea are not a reaction to a rebellion or an isolated event, but are being used structurally. The use of torture has been widespread in North Korea since the Kim dynasty began about 70 years ago with the emergence of Kim Il-sung as leader of North Korea.

11_{Human Rights Watch, Torture Archipelago: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons}

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5 It will be very difficult if not impossible to find a state that has tortured people for this long with victims still alive to talk about it as extensively as the North Korean defectors have done.

Finally, this study can possibly yield general insights in how the Gulag system operates

and how torture works by studying the specific case of North Korea. The same issues have been studied for other cases, but the data used here is unique.

Sources and research methods

This study uses a combination of both secondary and primary sources. The most important secondary sources are the reports and studies from human rights organizations. As argued above, these organizations collect as much relevant data for their research as possible, and use this data to report human rights violations. As the organizations interpret and analyse the data to some extent, the reports have to be regarded as secondary sources. The most notable organizations are Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), and the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI). These organizations have published studies on the general human rights situation in North Korea but also more specific subjects, such as the

songbun class system and the Gulag.

This study will also use insights from literature on relevant topics that do not necessarily focus on North Korea. As stated above, there has not been a lot of research on the torture practices in North Korea specifically. For this reason, it should be understood that for instance Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps on the Soviet Gulag system and Darius Rejali’s Torture and Democracy on torture practices are both useful works for this study, even though neither of them focuses on North Korea. Finally, articles from reputable websites and media are also important, especially the ones that carefully monitor the current situation in North Korea.

The primary sources that are used for this study are invaluable. The aforementioned human rights reports and studies use hundreds of witness testimonies that will be analysed and used here as well. The reports typically contain summaries or excerpts of the testimonies instead of full accounts, but in some cases the testimonies are available online. The COI for instance provides full videos of the testimonies online with an English voiceover, as well as

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6 the complete transcripts in English.12_{Besides the testimonies, there are also a handful of}

memoirs available. Even though they are few, the memoirs are important because they are more detailed and descriptive than most testimonies. There are also several sources that should be regarded as primary sources, such as leaked video footage of actual torture practices carried out by North Korean security agents. The authenticity of such sources will be accounted for if necessary.

Recent developments concerning defectors

There are also some recent developments that must be addressed. One of the few relevant memoirs comes from prison camp survivor Shin Dong-hyuk. His life story is as fascinating as it is disturbing. One of the shocking anecdotes in the book is about how Shin betrayed his own family. When his mother and brother plotted the brother’s escape and excluded Shin from these plans, he and a friend sold them out to a camp guard. Unfortunately for Shin, he was subsequently tortured himself for his alleged involvement because the guard claimed credit for discovering the escape attempt himself. Only months later the authorities questioned Shin’s friend, who acknowledged that he and Shin had indeed informed the guard. The guard disappeared and the torture stopped, but before being released back into the camp, Shin was forced to watch how guards executed his mother and brother.13

Because of his story, which is quite unique even within the context of North Korea, Shin became famous. He spent several years in South Korea and the United States advocating North Korean human rights concerns. However, on January 17, 2015, Shin posted the following on his personal Facebook page:

Every one of us have stories, or things we’d like to hide. We all have something in the past that we never want brought to light. I too, forever wanted to conceal and hide part of my past. We tell ourselves that it’s okay to not reveal every little detail, and that it might not matter if certain parts aren’t clarified.14

12_{The videos and transcripts of the testimonies can be accessed online via}

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/PublicHearings.aspx.

13_{Blaine Harden, Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West (New York: Penguin}

Books, 2012), 66-68.

14_{Post on the Facebook page of Shin Dong-hyuk, January 17, 2015, accessed January 18, 2015,}

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7 At the end of the post, Shin linked a Washington Post article, in which he admitted that some parts of his story were inaccurate.15_{The most significant adjustment to his story is that Shin}

was actually transferred at the age of six, together with his mother and brother, from Camp No. 14 to Camp No. 18. He also claims that he was tortured when he was twenty years old instead of thirteen. None of this should come as a surprise to people who have read Shin’s memoir. Blaine Harden, journalist and writer of the book, explains in the early pages that Shin already changed some parts of his story during the writing process.16_{It seems evident that}

Shin is haunted by traumatic events, which is logical considering what he went through. Fabricating, omitting or changing details about traumatizing events is not uncommon, which should always be taken into account when dealing with witness testimonies from victims.

In this specific case, the North Korean authorities were quick to claim that the doubts over the credibility of a prominent witness such as Shin made the findings of the UN panel invalid.17_{However, Michael Kirby was not impressed by the claims. He said that “the partial}

retraction of Shin Dong-hyuk of the testimony he gave to the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea is not significant for the report, conclusions or recommendations of the commission.”18

But what does it mean for this study? It should be clear that, since North Korea denies the existence of most of the Gulag facilities, they also do not allow researchers to go anywhere near them. The consequence is that defectors and witnesses are the only available resources, and researches are forced to rely on them and trust them. During a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), someone asked Michael Kirby if he had ever been to North Korea or spoken with any officials personally. Kirby answered:

North Korea refused to permit the COI to enter its territory. This was despite the fact that the United Nations HRC expressly urged North Korea to cooperate fully with the COI and its investigation. We gave them notice and requested access. They refused. But this did not stop our Inquiry. There are 26,000 refugees from North Korea in South Korea. We had no difficulty in securing testimony. In the end, we had to cut off the gathering of testimony so as to get our report concluded in time by March 2014.19

15_{Anna Fifield, “Prominent N. Korean Defector Shin Dong-hyuk Admits Parts of Story Are Inaccurate,” The Washington Post,}

January 17, 2015, accessed January 18, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/prominent-n-korean-defector-shin-dong-hyuk-admits-parts-of-story-are-inaccurate/2015/01/17/fc69278c-9dd5-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html.

16_{Harden, Escape from Camp 14, 10.}

17_{Giles Hewitt, “North Korea Says Defector Retractions Make UN Rights Votes ‘Invalid’,” Rappler, January 21, 2015, accessed}

February 20, 2015, http://www.rappler.com/world/regions/asia-pacific/81536-north-korea-defector-retractions-un-rights-votes.

18_{“UN Dismisses North Korea’s Claim That Damning Human Right’s Report Is Invalid,” The Guardian, 21 January, 2015,}

accessed 21 January, 2015.

19_{Michael Kirby, “I Am Michael Kirby, Chair of the UN Inquiry on North Korea, the Commission Recommends that Kim}

Jong-Un Be Held Accountable for Human Rights Abuses – AMA,” Reddit Ask Me Anything, May 15, 2014, accessed 21 January, 2015, http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/25nlt5/i_am_michael_kirby_chair_of_the_un_inquiry_on.

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8 Following this statement, it can be argued that even though some witness accounts may not be completely accurate, this does not change much. The thousands of defectors form a sample size so large that it is almost impossible that the findings of the human rights commissions are false or inaccurate.

The credibility of witness testimonies

The credibility and usefulness of survivor testimonies in general has been debated by scholars for decades. Historian Omer Bartov for instance argues that the integration of survivor testimonies is necessary for the historical reconstruction of the Holocaust. He states that “testimonies can save events from oblivion, but they can also provide very different perspectives of events. They bring into history events that would otherwise remain completely unknown, since they are missing from conventional documentation (most of which was written by perpetrators and organizers of genocide).”20_{Historian Tony Kushner discusses how}

only decades after 1945 the testimonies of Holocaust victims were taken seriously. However, he argues that witness testimonies have to be analysed with the same level of care that is used for other sources and uses the case of Binjamin Wilkomirski as a case in point. Wilkomirski, whose real name is Bruno Dössekker, won awards and received international acclaim for his memoir Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood, which covered his experiences as a child Holocaust survivor. However, after careful analysis of his stories it became clear that he was a fraud. As Kushner argues, examples like this can be used by deniers, and it is the duty of the historian to make sure these fictitious accounts do not make it into the public realm.21

There are some other problems that have to be considered here as well. Besides witnesses making up false stories on purpose for their own gain, witnesses who mean well may not remember everything correctly, even if they are convinced that they do. Third parties, such as interviewers, are also able to introduce false memories into the memory of the witness, for instance by asking leading questions that contain knowledge that the witness did not have before.22_{Research has also shown how people are susceptible to combining bits and pieces of}

20_{Omer Bartov, “Setting the Record Straight,” Past Forward: The Digest of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute For Visual History and}

Education (Los Angeles, Spring 2011), 24-26.

21_{Tony Kushner, “Holocaust Testimony, Ethics, and the Problem of Representation,” Poetics Today 27, no. 2 (2006), 283-285, 289.} 22_{Laura Engelhardt, “The Problem With Eyewitness Testimony,” Stanford Journal of Legal Studies 1, no. 2 (1999), 26.}

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9 information and adding these to their own memory.23_{It is also important to take into account}

that survivors of torture or genocide may alter their stories to make them less painful and easier to live with, as is probably the case with Shin.

Despite the pitfalls of using witness testimonies, the hand of the researcher is forced in the case of North Korea. This effectively means that this study is based largely on sources that are not the most reliable, which also means that studying torture in the North Korean Gulag is per definition difficult. However, this section has made clear that it is important and also the duty of scholars to take witness testimonies seriously, weigh them to the best of their abilities, and use them to gain knowledge and new insights.

Structure of the thesis

To answer the research question - why are torture practices systematically used inside the

North Korean Gulag? – this study attempts to answer three sub questions in three corresponding

chapters. However, the first chapter will provide the theoretical framework. This chapter discusses some of the more important academic theories and concepts that form the backbone of this study. It will discuss torture as a concept, various classifications of torture purposes, theories on the education of torturers, and moral neutralization techniques. The second chapter will discuss how the Gulag operates. The system is elaborate and complicated, and there is a lack of reliable overviews of the Gulag. The point of this chapter is mainly to display that torture is systematically used inside the many facilities. The third chapter will discuss the underlying mechanisms inside the Gulag facilities that facilitate the torture practices. To achieve this, the preparation of the guards, the presence of violence in the facilities, and the role of dehumanization will all be analysed. The fourth chapter will discuss the purposes of torture. After analysing some of the many different torture techniques that are used in the Gulag, two discussions follow that each focus on different purposes of torture. The conclusion will summarize the findings and discuss the theoretical implications and difficulties of this study, before the thesis is concluded.

23_{Stephania Pappas, “Eyewitness Testimony Can Be Tragically Mistaken,” LiveScience, September 22, 2011, accessed May 3,}

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10 Conclusion

This introduction has made the reader familiar with the research topic of this study and introduced several research questions. It has also placed this study in a broader perspective by discussing its relevance, stressing mainly the uniqueness of the North Korean regime and the sources that were used for this study. Subsequently, the sources and methods were introduced. In a discussion on recent developments regarding defectors, it has been pointed out that the area of research of this study is complicated, mainly because the witness testimonies are not always reliable. However, as explained here, researchers must take the testimonies seriously and consider and weigh them to the best of their abilities. Finally, the structure of this thesis was elaborated, briefly explaining what each chapter is about.

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1 – Theoretical Framework

1.1 – Introduction

The aim of this theoretical framework is to discuss and elaborate on some of the concepts and theories that are important for this study. In the introduction it is argued that there is a gap in the knowledge on the torture practices in North Korea. The reason that this gap exists is that almost everything that is known about this topic comes from reports of human rights organizations. These reports have a clear focus of collecting evidence of human rights violations. Analysing the nature of these problems is not typically one of their goals. For this sort of analysis, insights from academic theories and debates can be helpful. Some of these insights will be discussed here. Throughout the thesis, smaller theories will also be interwoven within the analysis, but it is a conscious choice to explain the larger theories in a separate chapter. By doing this, the other chapters can focus fully on the case of North Korea, rather than going away from the contents to explain complicated theories.

1.2 – Torture as a concept

The goal of this study is to address and analyse several issues that occur in the North Korean Gulag system and to broaden our understanding of this topic, with a clear focus on torture practices. This makes it interesting to look at the definition of torture, even more so because this definition is continuously debated. From the 1970s and onwards, there have been several institutions that defined torture. Examples are the definitions of Amnesty International (1973), the World Medical Association (1975) and the World Health Organization (1986).24_{It is}

not within the scope of this study nor relevant to go into all these definitions in detail, so instead the most commonly used definition will be introduced here. In 1984, the United Nations adopted this definition in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment:

0

For the purpose of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purpose as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed, or is suspected of having

24_{Jose Quiroga and James Jaranson, “Politically-motivated Torture and Its Survivors: A Desk Study Review of the Literature,”}

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12 committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by, or at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to lawful sanctions.25

As of January 2015, 157 countries have ratified the Convention against Torture and thus accepted this definition. North Korea is not one of them.26

Human rights lawyer Manfred Nowak argues that there are four distinct elements in this definition.27_{First of all, torture is described as the infliction of severe physical or mental}

pain. This is still rather vague, as it is not explained what is “severe” and what is not. The second part of the definition focuses on intent. Whether or not someone does something intentionally is always difficult to prove. However, in the case of torture, it is hard to imagine that someone tortures someone else unintentionally. Third, the UN definition focuses on the different purposes of torture. Possible purposes for torture listed are getting information or a confession, to punish someone, to intimidate or coerce someone, and discrimination. Finally, the definition states that the torture has to be inflicted by or with the consent of public officials. Political scientist Darius Rejali comments on the UN definition of torture in his work

Torture and Democracy. He argues that this definition may not be accurate because “states

parcel out the dirty work of violence, including torture, to nonstate actors.” Rejali uses the example of the death squads in Latin America and how state officials colluded with them to induce an atmosphere of terror and intimidation. Also, since the Bosnian War it has become clear how private and public agents can work together, producing systematic violence and working towards the same goals.28_{More recently the same could be witnessed in Syria where}

the regime used paramilitary organizations to carry out its dirty work in torture centres.29

Rejali also emphasizes how torture carried out by states is different from war or genocide. He argues that “torture is not genocide because it does not aim to kill victims; indeed, torture is judged to fail when prisoners die before informing or confessing. Likewise, the practice is not

25_{United Nations General Assembly, “Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or}

Punishing,” United Nations Treaty Series 1465 (10 December 1984), 113-114.

26_{The current number of states that have ratified the CAT can be found on the United Nations Treaty Collections website,}

accessed February 22, 2015, https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-9&chapter=4&lang=en.

27_{Manfred Nowak, “What Practices Constitute Torture? US and UN Standards,” Human Rights Quarterly 28, no. 4 (November}

2006), 817-818.

28_{Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 37.}

29_{Radwan Ziadeh, “Revolution in Syria: The Struggle for Freedom in a Regional Battle,” in The Arab Spring and Arab Thaw:}

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13 war. In war, soldiers confront each other as free, equal agents on a battlefield, where they act, honorably or not as the case may be.”30

Jurist Michelle Farrell also discussed the debate on how torture should be defined. As she points out, the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) itself stated that the definitional threshold between torture and ill-treatment is often not clear. 31_{One of the main problems in}

the debate on how to define torture has been whether there should be a focus on the severity of the treatment, or on the purposive element. Farrell concludes that “the criterion of purpose provides the most appropriate avenue for distinguishing torture from inhuman treatment, for assessing a violation of the prohibition of torture and, more broadly, for understanding the paradigm of torture.”32_{Nowak has adopted the same approach, and adds that the}

powerlessness of the victim is also essential to understanding the difference between torture and ill-treatment. He concludes that “the decisive criteria for distinguishing torture from CIDT [cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment] is not, as argued by the European Court of Human Rights and many scholars, the intensity of the pain or suffering inflicted, but the purpose of the conduct and the powerlessness of the victim.”33

Defining torture turns out to be problematic. Several countries, such as the United States, have circumvented the UN definition in recent years to justify the use of several inhuman interrogation techniques.34_{Because of this, Farrell finds that “the definition of torture}

must be capable of coherently responding to those who attempt to evade it.”35_{The same idea}

is held by Nigel Rodley and Matt Pollard, who argue that the formula should be “elastic and capable of evolving interpretation.”36_{This study agrees with Farrell, Rodley and Pollard and}

therefore does not necessarily adopt one particular definition. Another reason not to do this is that most of these definitions are drafted in legal terms, which results in an almost complete lack of the victim perspective. As this study largely depends on witness testimonies, the victim perspective is obviously of key importance. In the testimonies it is principally the victim who tells his story and decides what he defines as torture. Whether or not this definition

30_{Rejali, Torture and Democracy, 37.}

31_{Michelle Farrell, The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 68.} 32_{Farrell, The Prohibition of Torture, 80.}

33_{Manfred Nowak and Elizabeth McArthur, “The Distinction Between Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment,”}

Torture: Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture 16, no. 3 (2006), 150.

34_{Nowak, “What Practices Constitute Torture,” 812-813.} 35_{Farrell, The Prohibition of Torture, 68.}

36_{Nigel S. Rodley and Matt Pollard, The Treatment of Prisoners Under International Law, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,}

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14 corresponds with legal definitions of torture should not be decisive and should not be a reason to exclude the testimony from this study.

1.3 – Classifying torture purposes

As one of the research questions addresses the different purpose of torture in the Gulag, it can be helpful to discuss how others have classified different torture purposes. Nowak discusses the different purposes that are mentioned in the UN definition of torture: extracting a confession; obtaining information from the victim or a third person; punishment; intimidation and coercion; and discrimination. Interestingly, several countries had different opinions on what the list of purposes should include or exclude. Switzerland wanted to add “non-therapeutic medical or scientific experiments,” Portugal wanted to add “the use of psychiatry for the purpose of prolonging the confinement of a person,” and the UK wanted to include “gratuitous torture” and remove “discrimination.” Most delegations however agreed that the list should be perceived as indicative and not as exhaustive. The US and various other countries have tried to broaden the definition to include basically any purpose, but the proposal to add this to the UN Convention was defeated. 37

There are different ways to approach this problem. Sociologist Lisa Hajjar discusses the reasons why modern states torture and argues that “in some countries, especially those in which post-revolutionary regimes strived to purge ideological and political enemies, tortured confessions were the prelude to stage show trials where ‘enemies of the state’ were trotted out to renounce their own errors in opposing the regime.”38_{Hajjar then discusses two additional}

reasons why modern states torture. First, there is “interrogational torture,” which is related to national security. The purpose of this is to extract “actionable intelligence,” information that is forward-looking and related to security. This type of torture has been a feature of conflicts between or among states, but is more common in conflicts between states and non-state groups and armed conflicts within a country. The other form is “terroristic torture,” a term originally coined by Henry Shue, which describes “rampant custodial violence in the context of state terror.” This form of torture is often coupled with extra-judicial executions. Shue argues that the purpose of terroristic torture is to intimidate persons other than the victim, for example to

37_{Nowak, “What Practices Constitute Torture,” 831.}

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15 deter political opponents of a regime.39_{Terroristic torture is also an “invisible spectacle”}

because it results in people becoming afraid of being tortured all the time. Even if they do not actually witness the torture, they know and fear that it can happen to them.40

Hajjar also elaborates on the different regime types and how they relate to torture. North Korea has an authoritarian regime, which means that repression is a tool that is frequently used by the leaders to maintain their power. As Hajjar also argues, government in authoritarian states commonly do not feel accountable to society. She also argues that “torture is a common means for authoritarians to sustain their power, intimidate or destroy opponents, and/or reinforce the ruling ideology.”41

Historian David Chandler also discusses the relationship between ideology and torture. He describes how during the final years of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, in 1977 and 1978, individual interrogators applied torture only selectively during some interrogations, especially when they encountered resistance and during “difficult” cases. It was not a standard procedure that was applied frequently and at random, but a means to an end, an integral part of what Foucault described as the “authoritarian search for truth.”42_It

was ideology that played a key role in these limitations on the torture practices. It did not happen out of respect for the victims or because it was considered unpleasant, but because it was linked to another aspect of the interrogations, “doing politics.” This ideally meant explaining the Party’s policies to the prisoners and extracting confessions. According to Chandler, “a calibrated mixture of torture, inspiration, and propaganda, it was thought, could illustrate the power relations in effect and could also produce the memories, accusations, and documents that the Party needed. Excessive torture would obstruct or delay the production of these necessary texts.”43

The discussion on torture purposes is of great importance for this study. To understand why torture is systematically used inside the Gulag, the purposes of torture must be analysed thoroughly. Despite the importance of understanding how torture can have different purposes, there does not seem to be a consensus among academics on how to study torture

39_{Henry Shue, “Torture,” in Torture: A Collection, ed. Sanford Levinson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 53.} 40_{Hajjar, Torture, 23.}

41_Ibid.

42_{David Chandler, Voices From S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison (London: University of California Press, 1999),}

113-114.

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16 purposes in a specific case. The purposes listed in the UN definition are only useful to some extent, as they can be interpreted in multiple ways and are still rather ambiguous and vague. Hajjar on the other hand focuses mainly on why states or regimes torture on a more macro and general level. Along with the ideas of Chandler, it becomes clear that the idea of terroristic torture and the role of ideology must both be explored in the case of North Korea. These insights are a valuable point to start from when looking at the purposes of torture in the Gulag.

1.4 – The education of a torturer

To understand why torture practices are systematically used inside the Gulag, this study finds that it is necessary to look at the underlying mechanisms in the various facilities that facilitate these torture practices. Again, drawing insights from others can be helpful to do this. Jose Quiroga and James Jaranson argue that while torture has been practiced since ancient times, the interest in knowing more about torturers and their training is recent. They find that information and studies on torturers is rather scarce (something that others might disagree with), and manuals on interrogation techniques and the training of torturers are kept secret and classified.44_{An important and often quoted contribution about the training of torturers is}

provided by Mika Haritos-Fatouros and Janice Gibson. In 1986, they published their article

The Education of a Torturer.45

In this article, Haritos-Fatouros and Gibson argue that from several studies on Nazi perpetrators it becomes clear that “the horror that emerges is the likelihood that torturers are not freaks; they are ordinary people.” What plays an important role in pushing these ordinary people to commit cruel deeds is what Haritos-Fatouros and Gibson refer to as the “authority of violence.”46_{From this perspective, they continue to cite Stanley Milgram’s famous study}

(1963) that shows that “regular people” are capable of hurting someone when they are instructed by an authority.47_{While it is possible to explain what happens inside a laboratory}

with Milgram’s theory, Gibson and Haritos-Fatouros point out that the same theory cannot explain prolonged patterns of torture during wartime or regimes. It also does not address

44_{Quiroga and Jaranson, “Politically-motivated Torture,” 7.}

45_{Janice Gibson and Mika Haritos-Fatouros, “The Education of a Torturer,” in Reading in Social Psychology: General, Classic, and}

Contemporary Selections, 4th ed., ed. Wayne A. Lesko (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000), 246-251.

46_{Ibid., 247.}

47_{For Milgram’s study see Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, no. 4}

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17 undirected acts of cruelty and violence that occur even without authorities giving direct orders. Therefore, Gibson and Haritos-Fatouros created a guide that explains how people are taught to torture.48_{The study of Gibson and Haritos-Fatouros is based on their research of the}

procedures that were used to train the Greek military police as torturers during the Greek military junta regime (1967-1974). The training techniques are “designed to instil unquestioning obedience in people, but they can easily be a guide for an intensive course in torture.”49

The guide consists of three steps, which will be paraphrased here. Step one: screening to find the right prospects. These are normal, well-adjusted people with the physical, intellectual and in some cases political attributes necessary for the task. Step two: techniques to increase binding among the prospects. There are initiation rites that isolate the prospects from society and introduce them to a new social order, with different rules and values. Also important are elitist attitudes and “in-group” language, which highlights the differences between the group and the rest of society. Step three: techniques to “reduce the strain of obedience” (thus increasing obedience). These techniques include blaming and dehumanizing the victims, so it is less disturbing to harm them; harassment and the constant physical and psychological intimidation of the guards that prevents their logical thinking and promotes the instinctive responses needed for acts of inhuman cruelty; rewards for obedience and punishments for not cooperating; social modelling by watching other group members commit violent acts and then receive rewards; and systematic desensitization to repugnant acts by gradual exposure to them, so they appear routine and normal despite conflicts with previous moral standards.50

The question is how exactly the guide can be useful for this study. It is argued here that studying the training and education of torturers can reveal something about the underlying mechanisms that facilitate the use of torture practices. Several of the factors in the guide of Gibson and Haritos-Fatouros touch upon these underlying mechanisms, and will form the basis of the third chapter. It should be understood that the steps that are described in the guide are not always entirely clear, especially when it comes to the boundaries between the steps. Dehumanization for instance is seen as a technique to reduce the strain of obedience, which is

48_{Gibson and Haritos-Fatouros, “The Education of a Torturer,” 248.} 49_Ibid.

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18 the third step in the guide, but it can also be argued that dehumanization of the victims contributes to us-them thinking. According to Gibson and Haritos-Fatouros, us-them thinking increases the binding between the prospects, which is the second step in the guide. Because of these ambiguities, this study will interpret the insights of guide under its own conditions and use what is relevant for the specific case of torture in the Gulag.

1.5 – Moral neutralization

The final theories that will be covered in this theoretical framework discuss some concepts that are complementary and related to the “guide to become a torturer.” These concepts can help to further elaborate on how perpetrators deal with their situation and justify their acts, making them mostly relevant for the third chapter.

In an article for the International Journal of Conflict and Violence, Denis Ribeaud and Manuel Eisner study whether the three concepts of neutralization techniques, moral

disengagement, and secondary self-serving cognitive distortions, “can be conceived theoretically

and empirically as capturing the same cognitive processes and thus be measured with one single scale of moral neutralization.”51_{This article is mainly interesting because it deals with}

both neutralization techniques and moral disengagement. These two concepts can help to theoretically underlay the analysis of the behaviour of the Gulag guards, and can hereby deepen our understanding of torture practices in general. The third concept in the comparison, secondary self-serving cognitive distortions, is omitted from the discussion below. Besides that it is beyond the scope of this thesis to include it, it also does not add anything particularly relevant for this study.

The concept of neutralization techniques comes from the two American sociologists Gresham Sykes and David Matza (1957).52_{They presented a set of five different neutralization}

techniques, which will be summarized here. According to Sykes and Matza, denial of

responsibility is a technique by which a person defines himself as lacking responsibility for his

own actions. This means that a violent interaction can be framed as an accident, as provoked by the victim or as the product of peer pressure. Denial of injury is used by people to rationalize

51_{Denis Ribeaud and Manuel Eisner, “Are Moral Disengagement, Neutralization Techniques, and Self-Serving Cognitive}

Distortions the Same? Developing a Unified Scale of Moral Neutralization of Aggression,” International Journal of Conflict and

Violence 4, no. 2 (2010), 299.

52_{Gresham M. Sykes and David Matza, “Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency,” American Sociological Review}

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19 their own acts and its consequences as not really harmful for the victim. An example of this is the discounting of verbal bullying. Denial of the victim occurs when someone does accept responsibility for his harmful actions and is also willing to admit that these actions involve injury. The role of the victim is then redefined, for instance by portraying him as a wrongdoer who deserved a lesson. Condemnation of the condemners occurs when someone shifts the attention from his own delinquent act to the motives and the behaviour of the ones who disprove those acts, for instance by portraying the authorities as corrupt. Finally, appeal to

higher loyalties occurs when someone sacrifices the demands of the larger society for the smaller

group that he identifies himself with, such as the sibling pair, a gang, or a group of friends.53

Over three decades after Sykes and Matza presented their article, Canadian psychologist and founder of the social learning theory Albert Bandura, together with three colleagues, developed the cognitive theory of moral disengagement.54_{According to Ribeaud and}

Eisner, there is a high degree of overlap between the mechanisms of moral disengagement and the categories of Sykes and Matza. The first set of moral disengagement practices in Bandura’s theory is cognitive restructuring, which aims to reframe inappropriate behaviour as socially acceptable. Bandura defines three different mechanisms of restructuration. The first is moral

justification, by which harmful behaviour is made acceptable both personally and socially by

portraying it in the service of important social or moral purposes. The second mechanism is the use of euphemistic language, which provides a tool that can mask objectionable behaviour, or even bestow a respectable status upon it. The third mechanism is exploiting advantageous

comparisons, which occurs when people compare their own objectionable deeds to deeds that

seem even worse. By doing this, they make what they did themselves seem insignificant or even benevolent.55

The second set of disengagement practices consists of displacement or diffusion of

responsibility. Displacement of responsibility occurs when people believe that their own actions

are the results of social pressure or dictations from others, for which they are not themselves responsible. Diffusion of responsibility occurs when someone is part of a larger group, and views himself as playing an insignificant, harmless role in the bigger picture, which also

53_{Sykes and Matza, “Techniques of Neutralization,” 667-669 and Ribeaud and Eisner, “Are Moral Disengagement,” 300.} 54_{Albert Bandura, Claudio Barbaranelli, Gian Vittorio Caprara, and Concetta Pastorelli, “Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement}

in the Exercise of Moral Agency,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71, no. 2 (1996), 364-374.

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20 happens when group decisions are made. The well-known proverb “when everyone is responsible, no one is,” is a classic example of diffusing responsibility. The third set of disengagement techniques aims at disregarding or distorting the consequences of antisocial behaviour. This means that when people pursue certain activities for their personal gain that may be harmful to others, they avoid or minimize the harm that it causes. The final set of disengagement practices is related to a biased perception of the victim. Bandura mentions two mechanisms of victim-related disengagement. The first is dehumanization of the victim, which deprives people of human qualities or attributes bestial qualities to them. From the moment people are dehumanized, they are no longer seen as human beings with feelings, hopes, and concerns. The second mechanism is attribution of blame, which occurs when people render themselves faultless, because they view their own harmful acts as the result of provocations by the victim.56

Ribeaud and Eisner conclude that moral disengagement and neutralization techniques are very similar in most ways. They do find a few differences however, of which the most important are “the more elaborate concept of moral justification compared to the narrower concept of the appeal to higher loyalties, the lack of a counterpart to advantageous comparisons in neutralization theory, and condemnation of the condemners in the moral disengagement framework.”57_{Because these are a lot of terms to comprehend, the table below might provide}

some clarity. The table also shows which categories of both theories overlap. The left column lists the cognitive mechanisms as described by Ribeaud and Eisner, the middle column lists the neutralization techniques by Sykes and Matza, and the right column lists the matching moral disengagement concepts by Bandura and his colleagues.

56_{Bandura et al., “Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement,” 365-366.} 57_{Ribeaud and Eisner, “Are Moral Disengagement,” 302.}

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21 Table 1: Overview of moral neutralization theory concepts.58

Cognitive Mechanism Neutralization Techniques

(Sykes and Matza 1957)

Moral Disengagement (Bandura et al. 1966)

Cognitive restructuration  Appeal to higher loyalties  Euphemistic language

(implied)

 Moral justification  Euphemistic language  Advantageous comparison Minimizing own agency  Denial of responsibility  Displacement of

responsibility

 Diffusion of responsibility Disregarding/distorting

negative impact

 Denial of injury  Disregarding consequences  Distorting consequences Blaming/dehumanizing the

victim

 Denial of the victim  Dehumanization  Attribution of blame Condemnation of the condemner  Condemnation of the condemner 1.6 – Conclusion

The point of this chapter is to provide a theoretical framework that explains certain concepts and theories that are relevant for this thesis. As explained above, not every single theory that will be used in this study is elaborated here, but the contents of this chapter should be considered as foreknowledge without which the remaining chapters would make less sense. It has been explained that torture is difficult to conceptualise, and that there is not a single perfect definition. Different sciences might opt to use different definitions, but for this study it is essential to understand that the victim perspective must be taken into account, and a focus on the purposive element is key to learning more about torture practices and why they are used. It has also been explained that there are different ways to study torture purposes. Some examples that are provided in the UN definition of torture consider seemingly obvious purposes such as punishing and obtaining information. On the other hand, others have studied what the purposes of torture are on a more macro level, taking political, historical and ideological motives into account. Finally, it has been explained that by studying the training of torturers and several moral neutralization techniques it becomes possible to distinguish and study the underlying mechanisms that facilitate torture practices inside the Gulag.

Torture in the Hermit Kingdom