"My mother was arrested at home in 2014 by a security guard. The reason for his arrest was that he had spoken to a South Korean man on a mobile phone and had transferred money. From then on, the news stopped. I didn't know which security department I went to or what happened. Later, my maternal grandmother found out through a person and only heard that my mother had gone to Yoduk Kwanji (a political prison camp)."

This is the testimony of a North Korean defector in the <2023 Report on Human Rights in North Korea> published by the Ministry of Unification. There are only one or two examples of human rights abuses in North Korea, but the political prison camps mentioned here are among the most egregious examples of human rights abuses.

However, few people are familiar with how North Korea's political prison camps operate. There are no similar examples in South Korea. In this article, we will briefly review North Korea<s political prison camps using the >2023 North Korean Human Rights Report" as a basis.


What is a political prison camp?

When we think of detention facilities in South Korea, we think of prisons, detention centers, and police detention centers. While there are such facilities in North Korea, political prison camps are a very different concept.

Political prison camps are not made up of a few buildings like prisons. It varies from camp to camp, but it's a vast area that requires a tens of minutes of driving, or two or three hours on foot. Basically, it is a village where the inhabitants live, and there are living areas inside the political prison camps, workshops, and farming areas. There are also schools and hospitals.

This does not mean that political prison camps should be thought of as normal villages. It is said that the residences were "harmonica houses" where about 2-3 households lived in single-story buildings, or houses that were roughly built of wood and soil and collapsed when it rained. It is said that the workshop was usually a coal mine, and once inside the mine, it was impossible to get out for close to 2 hours. There is a school, but work takes precedence over study, and there is a hospital, but there is always a shortage of medicine. There are also testimonies that there was almost no supply of anesthetic, so there were cases of knife slitting and treatment without anesthesia.

There is no point in discussing human rights in political prison camps. It doesn't matter if a prisoner dies on the job or is beaten to death by the crew. Even if a child in school is beaten by a teacher, and children die on the job, that's it. Public executions are said to be common, and detainees suffer from various diseases due to malnutrition.

The entire area of the political prison camp is surrounded by electric barbed wire fences to isolate it from the outside world, and it is said that the camp itself is located in a rugged mountainous area, making it difficult for the general public to access it. According to the testimonies of North Koreans who later visited the former political prison camp area, they were told that they had to go into a mountain valley about 4 kilometers deep and that they thought it was scary because the mountains were so high.


Fully controlled and revolutionized zones


Political prison camps are divided into fully controlled zones and revolutionary zones. The zone of total control is a place that is inaccessible to only the members of the organization, and the revolutionization zone is a place where hard labor is carried out and the so-called revolutionary punishment is carried out.

The <Report on Human Rights in North Korea> states that amnesty has been granted to detainees in fully controlled areas, but according to human rights groups that have consistently covered North Korean human rights issues, fully controlled zones are detention zones from which one cannot escape until death.

There are many cases of people being taken to political prison camps. These include the issue of the composition of parents or grandparents, the issue of undermining the authority of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il through the so-called "horse reaction", espionage, religious activities, irregularities, and cases of people being caught trying to travel to South Korea or family members defecting to North Korea and living in South Korea.

In particular, there were cases of people being imprisoned for undermining the authority of the Kim Il Sung family, such as criticizing the Kim Il Sung regime at a drinking party, failing to properly manage the portraits of the Kim Il Sung family, being singled out as a criminal for scribbling on Kim Il Sung's portraits, and criticizing the three generations of hereditary rule and saying that the leader should keep changing.

They are taken to political prison camps so mercilessly. Alleged political prisoners disappear after being arrested by the security forces, and their families simply assume that they have been imprisoned in political prison camps. When family members were imprisoned, security guards would go to their homes, workplaces, or schools, arrest them, and transport them to detention centers.

According to the accounts of North Korean defectors, they thought that if their friends from school suddenly disappeared, they would be sent to political prison camps, but they would go to school without anyone mentioning it.


What are the positions of liberals and conservatives on human rights issues in North Korea?


While political prison camps are emblematic of human rights abuses in North Korea, human rights abuses are not the only ones in political prison camps. Human rights abuses in North Korea outside of political prison camps are common. Public executions, torture, beatings, arrests without warrants, forced labor, and violations of women's human rights by institutions of power are incalculable. So, is there a way to solve this problem of North Korean human rights?

The position of liberals and conservatives on the issue of North Korean human rights is broadly as follows.

Progressives believe that in order to improve human rights in North Korea, we need to bring the North Korean regime to the international community through dialogue and negotiation rather than pressuring it to change itself. This is because the Kim Jong-un regime is the one that exercises actual control in North Korea, and unless the Kim Jong-un regime changes itself, there is a limit to improving human rights in North Korea.

Therefore, the progressive camp believes that the ultimate solution to North Korea's human rights problem is to ease military tensions on the Korean peninsula and bring the North Korean regime to the international community by dismantling the Cold War structure through the signing of a peace treaty and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States.

However, it is also true that the progressive camp has focused on political-military structures, such as the dismantling of the Cold War structure on the Korean peninsula, while leaving aside the human rights issues that North Korea does not like. The focus on negotiations with North Korea has left the issue of human rights, to which North Korea is allergic, out of the main discussion. Progressives are not immune from criticism for being passive on North Korean human rights issues.


(The rest of the story is from the soup)