New report sheds light on North Korea’s prison camps

A new report released today based on satellite images sheds light on an extensive network of “re-education” camps for less severe violations of Pyongyang’s penal code.

These camps are situated throughout the country, both on the outskirts of cities and in huge compounds in the mountains. Conditions are severe but come with the possibility of release.

The camps are run not by the secret police, who operate a separate system for political prisoners, but by the Ministry of Public Security. They are an important pillar of the regime of Kim Jong Un, a means by which the North Korean population is kept permanently cowed.

The world is transfixed with the nuclear threat from Kim’s regime, but it is ordinary North Koreans who suffer every day, said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, which compiled the report.

“It is more important than ever to ensure that the fate of everyday North Koreans trapped in the unyielding gulag systems remains at the forefront of our efforts and the efforts of the international community,” he said.

“A lot of the people in these prisons are there for crimes that would not be crimes in another country,” said David Hawk, an expert on the North Korean gulag and the author of the new report.

Hawk married the satellite photos to testimony he has been collecting for years from prison camp survivors who have escaped from North Korea.

Prisoners in the “re-education” camps are forced to do hard labour like mining in near-starvation conditions.

People deemed to have committed serious economic crimes — making too much money in the markets, for instance — can end up in them, as can those who have tried to escape from North Korea.

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded in 2014 that the prison system amounted to a crime against humanity. About 120,000 North Koreans are thought to be held in the camps.