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| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| N. Korea 'Has Far More Prisons Than Previously Believed' | |
| 2011-04-28 | |
Based on testimony of about 13,000 North Korean defectors, North Korean Human Rights Archives said the regime operates 210 detention centers and 210 labor camps, 23 prisons, 5 indoctrination camps, 27 holding facilities, and 6 political prison camps including in Yodok, Pukchang and Hoeryong. Detention centers are similar to police holding cells, but holding facilities and indoctrination camps are clandestine operations that have been used to hold repatriated defectors without trial since the early years of the millennium. Prisons house convicts, who are subjected to forced labor, but the worst human rights abuses occur in political prison camps. A defector who was detained at a prison in Hamhung in the late 1990s said security forces "took about 500 people to a barren wilderness, where they threw shovels at them and told them to dig tunnels to live. Many died later." Almost no detention facilities provide inmates with foods, but they eke out a meager existence by tending vegetable gardens. In some facilities, guards turned livestock sheds into detention cells. "They built walls around pigsties and used them as holding pens," said another defector who was held in a camp in the late 2000s. "More than 100 inmates were put into a cell that can accommodate only about 30." The State Security Department routinely used violence in interrogations. A female defector testified, "I was raped by a guard at a holding center, and was forced to have an abortion later." The regime has either hidden the concentration camps from the outside world or given out false information about them, NKHRA said. It officially admitted the existence of only three of the 23 prisons, using Sariwon Prison in North Hwanghae Province and Chonnae Prison in Gangwon Province as display showcases. "The North is operating numerous detention facilities across the country," said Yoon Yeo-sang of NKHRA. "It seems the regime significantly increased the number of facilities to tighten controls on the people when the economic situation worsened after the 1990s." | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 Read the article - the inmates are not provided food but have to grow their own. Torture, rape, and other abuse are commonplace. It's almost as if the Norks are bucking for a spot on the U.N. Human Rights Comission or something. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-04-28 09:14 |
| #5 I wonder if the people inside eat any better than those on the outside? S'pose people are "dying" to get in? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2011-04-28 05:53 |
| #4 ION TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > A POSSIBLE US RETURN TO THE PHILIPPINES? Subic Bay. IMO Artic read, FUKUSHIMA = LOSS OF JAPAN DUE TO RADIATION-LED ENVIRO DESTRUCTION; + LOSS OF TAIWAN DUE TO RE-UNIFICATION WID MAINLAND CHINA. * OTOH TAIWAN BLOG = Any formal reunification of Taiwan + mainland China will not preclude or prevent China from politically, militarily defending its claims of sovereignty oer various Pacific islands + lands e.g. the SENKAKUS [China = Daoyus], OR OKINAWA [Ryukyu vassal kingdom], NOR EVEN AS PER GEOPOL DOMINATION OF JAPAN PROPER. FYI, the PHILIPPINES = NORTHERN HALF OF SAME was + remains well-known in the USDOD as a likely target for CPLA attack + conquest in case of US-China or other major Regional war [Manila Bay, Subic Bay, Airfields, large Chinese minority]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-04-28 02:03 |
| #3 YONHAP > NORTH KOREAN PATROL BOAT VIOLATES YELLOW SEA BORDER [aka NLL], RETREATS AFTER WARNING SHOTS FIRED, + a lotta Bullhorn rants. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-04-28 01:48 |
| #2 As per TOPIX + PEOPLE'S DAILY FORUM > EX-POTUS Jimbo Carter warns that NORTH KOREA will not give up its Nucprogs unless it gets some kind of SECURITY GUARANTEE from the US. Becuz aparently the US NOT attacking NOKOR after 58 years [end of 1950-53 Korean War]isn't enough for Kimmie + Boyz. Methinks Kimmie is after much more than meets the eye. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-04-28 01:19 |
| #1 The whole place is one big prison. Come June, the inmates outside of the "480 prisons" wont be eating any better than the inmates inside. |
| Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2011-04-28 00:42 |