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International Religious Freedom Report for 2011 
Date : August 1, 2012
Despite the regime's constitution guaranteeing religious freedom, this annual report for 2011 on the state of religious freedom around the world indicates that there has been a continuation of the complete restriction of religious freedom in North Korea. As accurate reports from within the country itself are all but impossible to come by, the report uses a variety of external sources for the basis of the report. The indication is that whilst the freedom of citizens to worship as they please has not deteriorated further, it has not improved at all meaning that North Koreans are still some of the most restricted when it comes to religious freedom. The US has continued to press for change in religious freedom in North Korea, but to no avail.    Source: US Department of State.
Marked for Life: Songbun, North Korea's Social Classification System 
Date : June 14, 2012
The Songbun system, which began under Kim Il Sung in the 1950s, divided the North Korean society into three classes; a loyal 'core' class, a wavering 'middle' class, and a mistrusted 'hostile' class. Marked for Life: Songbun, North Korea's Social Classification System is a new report by Human Rights Watch in North Korea and the American Enterprise Institute which details the Songbun system and how it affects life in North Korea. The report was launched on June 6th at an event in Washington D.C. where the author, Robert Collins, released his findings. In the introduction to the report Collins states, “Marked For Life” is not an exaggerated term for the socio-political classification conditions under which every North Korean citizen lives out his life; it is a cruel and persistent reality for the millions who must experience it on a daily basis."
Amnesty International 2012 Annual Reports 
Date : June 5, 2012
The year ended with Kim Jong-un succeeding his father as absolute ruler of the country on 17 December, but there were no indications of an improvement in the country’s dismal human rights record.  North Koreans continued to suffer violations of nearly the entire spectrum of their human rights. Six million North Koreans urgently needed food aid and a UN report found that the country could not feed its people in the immediate future.  There were reports of the existence of numerous prison camps where arbitrary detention, forced labour, and torture and other ill-treatment were rife. Executions, including public executions, persisted. Collective punishment was common.  Violations of freedom of expression and assembly were widespread.
Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment 
Date : May 14, 2012
North Koreans today are learning more about the outside world than at any time since the founding of the country. As the information environment opens, the North Korean government no longer maintains a total monopoly over the information available to the population and, as a result, North Koreans’ understanding of the world is changing. This report examines the changes occurring in the North Korean information environment today and the significant effects these changes are beginning to have on the North Korean people. This study systematically demonstrates the relationship between North Koreans’ outside media exposure and more positive perceptions of the outside world.Source: Intermedia
The Hidden Gulag- Second Edition 
Date : April 16, 2012
Based on extensive interviews with over 60 defectors and more than 40 satellite photos of North Korean political prisoner camps, the report calls for the dismantlement of the vast North Korean gulag system in which 150,000 to 200,000 are incarcerated.
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK 
Date : February 24, 2012
"The present report covers the period from September 2011 to January 2012. During that  period,  the human rights and humanitarian situation continued to deteriorate in the country, and Kim Jong-Un succeeded his father as the new leader of the country. The report includes information and findings from the two missions conducted by  the Special Rapporteur during the year, to the Republic of Korea and Japan. It concludes with recommendations for the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, neighbouring countries and the international community"Source: United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council
Life & Human Rights in North Korea Vol. 62 
Date : February 9, 2012
Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights' Winter 2011 Report on the current human rights situation in North Korea. It includes essays, testimonies and reports. Source: Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights
Escaping North Korea: The Plight of Defectors 
Date : February 7, 2012
A transcript of the hearing held before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the United States, presented by US Congressmen. Source: Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
Human Rights Watch World Report 2012: North Korea 
Date : January 25, 2012
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) systematically violates the basic rights of its population. Although it has signed four key international human rights treaties and includes rights protections in its constitution, it allows no organized political opposition, free media, functioning civil society, or religious freedom. Arbitrary arrest, detention, lack of due process, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees remain serious and endemic problems. North Korea also practices collective punishment for various anti-state offenses, for which it enslaves hundreds of thousands of citizens in prison camps, including children. The government periodically publicly executes citizens for stealing state property, hoarding food, and other “anti-socialist” crimes.During 2011 observers increasingly concluded that Kim Jong-Il, North Korean leader and chairman of the National Defense Commission (NDC), has selected his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, to continue the Kim family’s dynastic rule of the country. In February 2011 Jong-un was appointed vice-chairman of NDC, reinforcing his earlier appointments in September 2010 to the Central Committee of the Ruling Workers Party and t…
Yodok Prison Camp 
Date : November 24, 2011
A report on the nature of Yodok Prison Camp - discussing treatment, crimes involved, prisoner and guard conduct including testimonies.   Source: Amnesty International
World Report 2011: North Korea 
Date : November 11, 2011
HRW's 2011 report assessing the current Human Rights issues faced in North Korea.   Source: Human Rights Watch
The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps 
Date : November 11, 2011
By David Hawk.   This report describes a number of penal institutions in the DPRK administered by two different North Korean police agencies: the People’s Safety Agency and the more political National Security Agency. It outlines two distinct systems of repression: first, a North Korean gulag of forced-labor colonies, camps, and prisons where scores of thousands of prisoners — some political, some convicted felons — are worked, many to their deaths, in mining, logging, farming, and industrial enterprises, often in remote valleys located in the mountainous areas of North Korea; and second, a system of smaller, shorter-term detention facilities along the North Korea–China border used to brutally punish North Koreans who flee to China — usually in search of food during the North Korean famine crisis of the middle to late 1990s — but are arrested by Chinese police and forcibly repatriated to the DPRK.   Source: U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
Lives for Sale: Personal Accounts of Women Fleeing North Korea to China 
Date : November 11, 2011
This report calls the world’s attention to the suffering of North Korean women who have become the victims of trafficking and forced marriages when escaping their country for a new life in China. Not only are the political and economic rights of these women neglected by their own government, but also by the government of their country of asylum. Too often the failure of both North Korea and China to protect them has been overlooked by the international community.   Source: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
Failure to Protect: The Ongoing Challenge of North Korea 
Date : November 11, 2011
A follow up report to the previous "Failure to Protect". Two years later, the situation remains unchanged. Although there has been some halting progress in the Six-Party Talks over the nuclear issue, discussions about the human rights andhumanitarian challenges within North Korea remain largely an issue of secondary concern. As a result, this new report is commissioned to both elevate the importance of this discussion and to propose an additional set of recommendations to enhance the prospects of achieving some meaningful incremental progress.   Source: DLA Piper and U.S. Committee for North Korean Human Rights 
Failure to Protect: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in North Korea 
Date : November 11, 2011
The intent of this report is to apply a new doctrine of international law – the responsibility of all states to protect their own citizens from the most egregious of human rights abuses – to the situation in North Korea. Based on a comprehensive review of published information and first-hand interviews, this report concludes that North Korea has violated its responsibility to protect its own citizens from crimes against humanity being committed in the country, that North Korea has refused to accept prior recommendations from UN bodies to remedy the situation, and, therefore, UN Security Council action is warranted.   Source: DLA Piper and U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
 
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