North Korea: Prisoners of conscience: the Shibata family

Shibata Kozo, a Japanese national, who is now 62-years-old if he is still alive, has been imprisoned as a prisoner of conscience since October 1964. He was reportedly still held in a “re-education” camp in late 1990, but there has been no news of him since then. In 1990 his health was said to have deteriorated. His wife, Shin Sung Suk, and their three children, may also have been imprisoned, but there is no information about their fate. He was formally arrested on 7 October 1964, and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for “spying”. At the time of his arrest, he worked as a Japanese-language editor in Pyongyang.

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