A/HRC/4/33/Add.1 Page 79 Para Country Date Type Mandate Allegations transmitted Government Response results in high illness rates. Detainees who become seriously ill are often released since there is no medical care available in these institutions and the authorities do not want to be burdened with a dying inmate. Citizens of the DPRK, who the authorities believe to have made contact with churches, citizens of the Republic of Korea or journalists or to have engaged in any other conduct officials consider to be political betrayal, are usually sent to a political labour camp (kwanliso) or a re-education labour camp (kyohwaso) without trial or any form of judicial process, and detained for periods ranging between several years and a lifetime. Detainees have to perform hard labour while being perpetually kept on the verge of starvation. Many detainees are subjected to various forms of torture. Summary executions have also been reported to occur in detention facilities. In 1999, for instance, two women were executed in Onsong Detention Centre after they confessed to having converted to Christianity. The cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment of DPRK citizens who clandestinely crossed the border into the PRC and were then deported also exacerbates the human trafficking of women from the DPRK, who make up about half of all those who cross the border. Upon arrival in PRC, many of these women are trafficked and forced to marry or become the concubines of Chinese men. Human traffickers systematically target the women, who are usually hungry and desperate, by approaching them in the border region and the Government and suspended the dialogue and cooperation with it. Consequently, it will not deal with them any longer. The Government deserves the right to take necessary corresponding countermeasures against their infringement of its dignity and sovereignty. In the event of any negative effect arising therefrom, they should be held responsible as offenders. In relation to the communication, which is in pursuit of the political aim, having no relevance with human rights, the Government is left with no alternative but to question the impartiality of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in its capacity not only as a transmitter of the letter but also as an entity assisting the work of the Special Rapporteur on a daily basis. If the principle of impartiality always advocated by OHCHR had been supported by deeds, such unfortunate things as the case of the transmitted letter, could have been prevented beforehand. For the above reasons, the Government returns the letter of the Special Rapporteurs.

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