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North Korea’s Concentration Camps Are Growing
Does Dennis Rodman even have a clue?
A new publication by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea shows the growth of concentration camps inside the country. Anything between 150,000 and 200,000 citizens (that last figure comes courtesy of Amnesty, via are thought to be detained in one of at least six of the DPRK’s internment facilities. In all but one, inhabitants are there for life.
The report contains recent satellite images of one such institution in the North-East of the country, known as Camp 25. The pictures show that the area of the internment center, which increased in size by 72% between 2009 and 2010, is still growing. Guards, sentry posts and what are thought to be a crematory and gallows are all visible, helpfully pointed out here by the Washington Post.
Find out more here.
[Image via The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea]
Seemed relevant to highlight, as we touched on this earlier this morning in the context of “The Worm’s” trip to North Korea. That the government operates full-scale concentration camps is an aspect of the state that sometimes seems downplayed or overlooked, somehow; you can watch an escapee of one such camp, Shin Dong-hyuk, describe his experiences here. But be warned — his story is extremely horrible, and somewhat graphic.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/d7ff0f04a11a5a6e72dbe73c594518f1/tumblr_mizo59ACQo1qzt7h7o1_500.png)
North Korea’s Concentration Camps Are Growing
Does Dennis Rodman even have a clue?
A new publication by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea shows the growth of concentration camps inside the country. Anything between 150,000 and 200,000 citizens (that last figure comes courtesy of Amnesty, via are thought to be detained in one of at least six of the DPRK’s internment facilities. In all but one, inhabitants are there for life.
The report contains recent satellite images of one such institution in the North-East of the country, known as Camp 25. The pictures show that the area of the internment center, which increased in size by 72% between 2009 and 2010, is still growing. Guards, sentry posts and what are thought to be a crematory and gallows are all visible, helpfully pointed out here by the Washington Post.
Find out more here.
[Image via The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea]
Seemed relevant to highlight, as we touched on this earlier this morning in the context of “The Worm’s” trip to North Korea. That the government operates full-scale concentration camps is an aspect of the state that sometimes seems downplayed or overlooked, somehow; you can watch an escapee of one such camp, Shin Dong-hyuk, describe his experiences here. But be warned — his story is extremely horrible, and somewhat graphic.
And for the “unlucky” North Koreans: This is an interview with Dong Hyuk Shin, a 26-year-old North Korean who was born in—and escaped—one of the country’s concentration camps. In North Korea, if you’re accused of political dissent (which includes, for example, sitting on a picture of Kim Jong-Il), you and three generations of your family are thrown into a gulag. So if, like Shin, your mother is accused of opposing the regime, and she gets pregnant in the camp, you’ll be born there, and that’s where you’ll stay for your entire existence. Unless, like Shin, you manage to escape. This is a long video (Shin himself starts at about 21:00), but we guarantee your eyes will not be dry by the end. Oh, and here’s a New York Times article with more information on the DPRK’s prison camps, if you care to read more.
kohenari asks: Just curious: in your Demjanjuk post, why did you say he's 91 over and over? What conclusion are your readers supposed to draw from the repetition?
» We say: We were trying to underline that, even though the sentence is so short, it’s effectively a death sentence for the man, who has had numerous health problems. He’s also in the awkward position of being a “free man” without a country to call his own during his appeal, and his advanced age only makes that issue worse for him (for example, he probably doesn’t have much in the way of family nearby). As a symbolic act, this case is important, but it’s not very practical because of his age. To put it simply, the act is so unspeakable that they’ve chosen to follow though with trying him, despite the fact that it’s impractical.
» The South says no dice: And for a very good reason, to boot. North Korea, for all the jokes westerners crack about its diminutive, insane leader, is no laughing matter for those who want out. Right now around 200,000 North Koreans are believed to be in concentration camps (testimony from a rare escapee here, it’s long and brutal but worth watching) worthy of the legacy of the term – medical experimentation, gas chambers, death by starvation, the whole lot. The threat of having one’s family sent to the camps (children born in the camps are forced to live their entire lives, however short, never knowing of the world outside) is the state’s major deterrent to defection. As such, dragging these four defectors in to confirm their defection to their families is essentially an elaborate, unspoken threat, along the lines of “come back, or they and their young will rot in prison for as long as they’re able to.” This is the sort of terrible dilemma that a nation is forced to make when up against a state under such villainous command.
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