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week, and receive only enough food to be
kept on the verge of starvation. Id. ¶ 14.
Prisoners often endure ‘‘long-term solitary
confinement in punishment cells which do
not have enough space for a person to
completely lie down or stand up, causing
inmates to experience a loss of circulation
and atrophy of legs, and often leading to
death within several weeks.’’ Id. ¶ 15.
According to Hawk, ‘‘[a]ttempted escapees
are automatically executed and other ‘major’ rule-breakers are publicly executed by
hanging or firing squad in front of the
assembled prisoners of that section of the
camp.’’ Id. ‘‘Many inmates cannot withstand the harsh conditions of their imprisonment and a significant number die within a year of their arrival to the kwan-li-so.
A large number of those who survive develop permanent disabilities—signs of premature aging, hunchbacks and other physical deformities due to the brutal work
conditions and cell sizes.’’ Id. ¶ 16. Hawk
stated that a defining characteristic of
DPRK’s political penal-labor colonies is
that ‘‘prisoners are not formally arrested,
charged (or even told of their offense), or
tried in any sort of judicial procedure.’’
Id. ¶ 11.
Hawk said
[w]hile I do not have any firsthand
knowledge about Reverend Kim’s case
specifically, given my extensive experience with the DPRK and the manner in
which abductees repatriated from China
were usually treated, it is likely that
[Reverend Kim] would have been initially held in a ku-ryu-jang, or a DPRK
police detention and interrogation facility, before being transferred to a kwanli-so. It also seems likely to me that
Reverend Kim, at a minimum, would
have been subjected to the harsh treatment afforded to all of its prisoners.
But because Reverend Kim was such a
valuable target of the DPRK and so
much planning, effort and other resources had gone into his abduction, it is
clear to me that Reverend Kim was
subjected to additional brutality.
Id. ¶ 20. Reports and concerns about Reverend Kim’s treatment have circulated
widely enough that he would have been
more likely to be viewed by the DPRK as
a high-value target warranting harsh
treatment. Id. Hawk ‘‘believe[s] that the
various reports of [Reverend Kim’s] torture and eventual starvation, from the accounts of other prisoners, are likely to be
reliable and accurately describe how Reverend Kim was treated by his captors
from the time he was abducted and incarcerated until his untimely death.’’ Id.
Hawk does not detail from the reports the
nature or severity of the torture Reverend
Kim suffered, or the frequency or duration
of the acts of torture or the parts of the
body at which they were aimed or any
weapons used to carry them out.
Ernest C. Downs, a former senior official of the U.S. Department of Defense
who served from 2001 to 2008 on the board
of the United States Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, stated that it
is ‘‘clear TTT that [Reverend Kim] was
abducted by DPRK agents from China and
forcibly brought to North Korea[.]’’
Downs Decl. ¶ 33. According to Downs,
DPRK agents have specifically abducted
and imprisoned people who have assisted
North Korean defectors as well as Christian missionaries. Supplemental Declaration of Ernest C. Downs (‘‘Downs Supp.
Decl.’’) ¶ 6(b)-(d). Because Reverend Kim
assisted North Korean defectors and was a
Christian missionary, he was likely a ‘‘valuable and important target to the government and ruling party of the DPRK.’’ Id.
¶ 6(a)-(c). Based on the testimony of other
North Korean prisoners, Downs states
that prisoners are forced to labor for more
than twelve hours per day, sometimes sixteen hours, and the failure to meet production quotas leads to ‘‘additional hard labor,
less food, and exceptionally painful physi-