North Korea to amnesty prisoners

Wednesday, 11 January 2012 13:24

Written by Editor

North Korea has said it will grant an amnesty for an unspecified number of prisoners to mark the birthdays of two late leaders. State news agency KCNA said that the amnesty would begin from February 1st, in honour of Kim Jong-il, who died last month, and his father Kim Il-sung. KCNA said that the amnesty embodied the "noble, benevolent and all-embracing politics of President Kim Il-sung and leader Kim Jong-il". This year is being presented as the 70th anniversary of Kim Jong-il's birth and the centenary of his father. Amnesty International has estimated that as many as 200,000 people are being held in political prison camps around the country. North Korea last conducted a prisoner amnesty in August 2005, to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule, and the one before that was in 2002. It is not clear how many prisoners were freed on either occasion. Last year Amnesty International said satellite imagery showed that the size of the camps inside North Korea were expanding. The group cited testimony from former prisoners describing a regime of torture, hunger and forced labour inside the camps.