In July, North Korea shot a total of 30 people at a...

In July, North Korea shot a total of 30 people at a hop farm next to Yonbong airport in Hyesan city, North Hamgyong Province. They included 18 defectors who had been arrested, and high-ranking officials presumably involved in business-related corruption, including Sim Hong-taek, head of the North Hamgyong Provincial Public Procurator's Office; Kim Hyok-chol, 52, head of the Yanggang Provincial Industrial Management Bureau; and the chief-secretary of the party committee of a shoe factory in Hyesan. It has also been learned that the executed defectors included a Christian, Kim Hak-ki, 39, who stayed at a "mission home" run by a South Korean religious group, and those who had met members of their families living in the United States. Reports state that prior to this North Korea had publicly executed 5 people around mid-June, and 12 people on July 1 in Hyesan, not to mention other cities, and sent 40 households to political prisoners' camps at the end of July.