Human experimentation in North Korea

The reports of North Korean human experimentation Pyongyang, organized by North Korean authorities, de-
describe suffocation of prisoners in gas chambers, testing nounced this.[9][10]
deadly chemical weapons, and surgery without anesthesia.

1 Sources
Human experimentation was described by several North
Korean defectors, including former prisoner Lee Soon
Ok, former prison guards Kwon Hyok and Ahn Myung
Chul, and others.[1] This testimony was corroborated by
documents brought from Camp 22 in North Korea. In
Lee’s testimony to the US Senate[2] and in her prison
memoir Eyes of the Tailless Animals (published in 1999)
she recounted witnessing two instances of lethal hu-
man experimentation. An episode of the BBC televi-
sion programme This World[3][4] detailed some of the
allegations.[5] The claims have been described as “plau-
sible” by a senior US official.[6]
2 Testing deadly poisons
Lee described an experiment in which 50 healthy women
prisoners were selected and given poisoned cabbage
leaves. All of the women were required to eat the cab-
bage, despite cries of distress from those who had already
eaten. All 50 died after 20 minutes of vomiting blood
and anal bleeding. Refusing to eat the cabbage would al-
legedly have meant reprisals against them and their fam-
ilies.
Kwon Hyok, a former head of security at Camp 22,
described laboratories equipped with gas chambers for
suffocation gas experiments, in which three or four peo- 4.1 General
ple, normally a family, are the experimental subjects.[7][8]
After undergoing medical checks, the chambers are
sealed and poison is injected through a tube, while scien-
tists observe from above through glass. In a report remi-
niscent of an earlier account of a family of seven, Kwon 4.2 International
claims to have watched one family of two parents, a son
and a daughter die from suffocating gas, with the parents
trying to save the children using mouth-to-mouth resus-
citation for as long as they had the strength.[3]
Kwon’s testimony was supported by documents from
Camp 22 describing the transfer of prisoners designated
for the experiments. The documents were identified as
genuine by Kim Sang Hun, a London-based expert on
Korea and human rights activist.[3] A press conference in
3 Other experiments
Former prison guard Ahn Myung Chul has reported that
prisoners were used for “medical operation practice” for
young doctors. According to him, these doctors would
practice surgery on prisoners without anesthesia.[11] He
also described deliberate efforts to study physical resis-
tance by starving prisoners to death. According to him,
The people who carry out these executions
and these experiments all drink before they do
it. But they are real experts now; sometimes
they hit prisoners with a hammer, on the back
of the head. The poor prisoners then lose their
memory, and they use them as zombies for tar-
get practice. When the Third Bureau is run-
ning out of subjects, a black van known as “the
crow” turns up and picks out a few more pris-
oners, sowing panic among the rest. The crow
comes about once a month and takes forty or
fifty people off to an unknown destination.
4 See also
• Camp 22, North Korea
• North Korea’s illicit activities
• Human rights in North Korea
• Unit 731, Japan
• Project MKUltra
• Nazi human experimentation
• Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
• Human experimentation in the United States

1
2 6 EXTERNAL LINKS

5 References
[1] U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea - The
Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps
(includes satellite photos of the known camps)

[2] “Testimony of Ms. Soon Ok Lee”. United States Senate.

June 21, 2002. Retrieved 2009-12-15.

[3] Olenka Frenkiel (January 30, 2004). “Within prison

walls”. BBC News. Retrieved 2009-12-15.

[4] Human guinea pigs BBC News

[5] Auschwitz Under Our Noses, by Anne Applebaum,

February 4, 2004, The Washington Post

[6] “Death, terror in N. Korea gulag NBC News investigation

uncovers horrific, extensive atrocities.” by MSNBC

[7] Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea’s gulag

by Antony Barnett, February 1, 2004 Guardian Unlimited

[8] Video testimonials by former guards and prisoners at

Camp 22, where the experiments are said to have oc-
curred, with Google Earth images Camp 22 and other
camps

[9] DPRK civilians admit faking papers on chemical weapons

testing on humans at a press conference in Pyongyang,
publication of People’s Daily, an official organ of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

[10] Truth behind False Report about “Experiment of Chem.

Weapons on Human Bodies” in DPRK Disclosed (North
Korean Central News Agency)

[11] Ahn Myung Chul (January 18, 2006). “Prisoners Used for
Medical Operation Practice”. DailyNK. Retrieved 2009-
12-15.

6 External links
• “Former guard: Ahn Myong Chol North Korean
prison guard remembers atrocities.”

• “A survivor: Soon Ok Lee 7 years of torture in N.

Korean prison camp.”
 3

7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1 Text
• Human experimentation in North Korea Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_North_Korea?oldid=
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7.2 Images
• File:Flag_of_North_Korea.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Flag_of_North_Korea.svg License:
Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Zscout370
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