North Koreans can be imprisoned for virtually any state-defined crime, such as being a Christian, making a negative comment about the regime, failing to have a picture of Kim II Sung in their house or failing to keep it clean enough, and travelling to China to look for food.

Punishment is not limited to the offender, but to three generations of the offender's family, and exposes them to severe violations of human rights that occur throughout the North Korean criminal system, such as systematic use of torture, executions, use of humans for weapons research and testing.

There are eight political prison camps which hold between half a million and a million people. Political prisoners are kept under constant threat of execution. There are 30 other camps which contain hundreds of thousands of North Koreans who are forced to work every day.

Two of the camps are together known to cover the same area as the Isle of Wight. In the last 30 years over 500,000 people are believed to have perished in North Korea's huge network of jails, prison camps and underground secret construction projects.

The food shortage combined with the hard labour required of prisoners means they die from starvation and from being overworked. Those who survive do so by eating any animal they can find, such as snakes and rats.

Source: Open Doors' website http://www.opendoorsuk.org/campaign/nkrefugees.php