By Kim Young-jin

Up to 200,000 North Koreans are being held in its sprawling political prisoner system including hundreds of former officials, human rights group Amnesty International said Thursday.

In its annual report, the group said the prisoners “were held in horrific conditions in six sprawling political prison camps, including the notorious Yodok facility.”

“Thousands were imprisoned in at least 180 other detention facilities. Most were imprisoned without trial,” it said.

Pyongyang apparently detained some two hundred former officials last year in a bid to secure power for its inexperienced new leader Kim Jong-un, and some were executed, it added, citing unconfirmed reports.

Kim was handed power in December after the death of his father Kim Jong-il.

The death of the longtime despot raised cautious hope for improved conditions for the North Korean people. However, a prompt lockdown of its northern border to prevent defections suggested that any such development would take time under the twenty-something Kim Jong-un, who needs to consolidate power.

The group also said authorities had either executed by firing squad or killed in staged traffic accidents 30 officials who had participated in inter-Korean talks or supervised bilateral dialogue.

Experts say that central to the North’s ability to maintain a personality cult around the ruling Kim family is the gulag system where reports of torture and ill treatment are rife.

“The combination of hazardous forced labor, inadequate food, beatings, totally inadequate medical care and unhygienic living conditions, has resulted in prisoners falling ill, and a large number have died in custody or soon after release,” the report said. Pyongyang denies the existence of the camps.

It also raised concerns over North Koreans who cross into China to try and defect or search for food. Under a deal with ally Pyongyang, Beijing repatriates refugees.

Such people “were routinely beaten and detained upon return. Those suspected of being in touch with South Korean NGOs or attempting to escape (to the South) were more severely punished.”

The North is under increasing international scrutiny to improve its deplorable human rights situation. In the South particular attention has been paid to the issue of citizens abducted and detained across the border.

Seoul says the North has abducted 3,835 South Korean citizens since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, with over 500 of them believed to be still alive there.

The rights group also criticized the Lee Myung-bak administration for its enforcement of the National Security Law, which aims to protect the nation from the North.

“Authorities in the Republic of Korea increasingly invoked the National Security Law to harass those perceived as opposing the government’s policy on North Korea. At times, this resulted in absurd applications of the law,” it said.