Concentration camp

A concentration camp is a large detention center created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. The term refers to situations where the internees are persons selected for their conformance to broad criteria without judicial process, rather than having been judged as individuals. Camps for prisoners of war are usually considered separately from this category, although informally (and in some other languages) they may also be called concentration camps. The word "concentration" indicates a regional concentration, but it also implies the crowded, and often unhealthy, state of the facilities.

North Korea

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Location of Concentration Camps

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North Province of Hamkyong-Life Imprisonment Zone

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1. Onsong Changpyong Family Camp No. 12 (relocated in May 1987)

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2. Chongsong Family Camp No. 13 (relocated in December 1990)

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3. Hoeryong Family Camp No. 22

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4. Chongjin Singles' Prison No. 25

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5. Kyongsong Family Camp No. 11 (relocated in October 1989)

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6. Hwasong Family Camp No. 16

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South Province of Hamkyong

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7. Yodok Offenders and Family Camp No. 15

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 (sectors for re-education and life imprisonment)

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North Province of Pyong'an

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8. Chonma Family Camp No. 27 (relocated in November 1990)

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South Province of Pyong'an

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9. Kaechon Family Camp No. 14

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10. Pyongyang Seungho Area Hwachon dong Offender's Camp No. 26 (relocated in January 1990)

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North Korea is known to operate five concentration camps, currently accommodating a total of over 200,000 prisoners, though the only one that has allowed outside access is Camp #15 in Yodok, South Hamgyong Province. Once condemned as political criminals in North Korea, the defendant and his or her family are incarcerated in one of the camps without trial and cut off from all outside contact. Prisoners reportedly work 14 hour days at hard labor and/or ideological re-education. Starvation and disease are commonplace. Political criminals invariably receive life sentences, however their families are usually released after 3 year sentences, if they pass political examinations after extensive study.

Related Topics:
North Korea - Yodok - South Hamgyong Province

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Concentration camps came into being in North Korea in the wake of the country's liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. Those persons considered "adversary class forces", such as landholders, Japanese collaborators, religious devotees and families of those who migrated to the South, were rounded up and detained in a large facility. Additional camps were established later in earnest to incarcerate political victims in power struggles in the late 1950s and 60s and their families and overseas Koreans who migrated to the North. The number of camps saw a marked increase later in the course of cementing the Kim Il Sung dictatorship and the Kim Jong-il succession. About a dozen concentration camps were in operation until the early 1990s, the figure of which has been curtailed to five today due to increasing criticism of the North's perceived human rights abuses from the international community and the North's internal situation.

Related Topics:
Kim Il Sung - Kim Jong-il

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