By Nothing really groundbreaking here other than the fact the Korean government is publicly commenting on the number of people imprisoned in North Korean concentration camps:
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea announced on Wednesday the results of its survey on human rights violations in concentration camps for political prisoners in North Korea.
The commission said there are six such detainment facilities in the North, down from 13 in the 1970s, and the number of detainees is estimated to be about 200-thousand.
It said beatings and torture are widespread in the concentration camps and that punishment was strengthened in 2006 for those who had been repatriated from China after attempting to flee the Stalinist country.
The commission says it obtained the information from the Seoul-based Database Center for North Korean Human Rights which conducted a survey on some 370 North Korean defectors from April to December 2009.
This is the first time a state agency has conducted a comprehensive investigation and analysis on the human rights of political prisoners and concentration camps in North Korea. [KBS Global]
For those wondering what life is like in these hell holes I highly recommend checking out Kim Yong’s account of life in Camps 14 & 18.
6:13 pm on January 22nd, 2010 1
The report refers to “political prisoners”, not criminal prisons. How do they know the difference?
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January 22nd, 2010 at 6:40 pm
True. One governments criminal might be another governments dissident.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Whether they are political prisoners or not, fact remains that human rights abuses in North Korean gulags are well documented.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Our ex CEO’s, financial managers, politicians, and labor leaders, are very restricted on the hours allowed on the prison tennis courts. I was just wondering if they have the same problem?
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:30 pm
It’s no joking matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny