Lee Soon Ok

Lee Soon Ok is a prominent defector from North Korea, now living in South Korea.

After escaping with her son via China to South Korea, she dedicated her life to exposing the numerous atrocities of the government of North Korea. She has written a memoir of her life in North Korea and subsequent 7-year imprisonment in the Kaechon concentration camp on false charges. The name of her autobiographical memoir is "The Eyes of the Tailless Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman". She has testified before the US Congress and at churches worldwide, estimating that in her camp alone there were at least 6,000 political prisoners. Ms. Lee has been partially disabled due to the physical torture she was subjected to for well over a year, including but not limited to water torture.

While in the camp, she claims to have witnessed forced abortions, several instances of rape, infanticide, public executions, testing of biological weapons on prisoners, extreme malnutrition (although this was reported in virtually all parts of North Korea) and various other forms of inhuman conditions and depravity. It is not clear exactly why she was released, although Ms. Lee personally suspects that the same officials responsible for jailing her were themselves the subject of investigations by higher ranking members of North Korea's government. She bravely wrote several letters of protest to then-North Korean President Kim Il Sung about her cruel treatment in the camp but never received a response and was eventually threatened with unspecified consequences if she wrote any more letters. She managed to reunite with her son and escape from North Korea soon afterward, converting to Christianity along the way. Her husband "disappeared" during her imprisonment and she has never heard from him since.