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Camps

Special Custody Areas, Political Prisoners Custody Zones, or Political Prisoners Concentration camps are some of the synonyms for approximately ten detention camps for political prisoners located in Yodock, Hoeryong, or other mountainous areas in North Korea. The total estimated number of prisoners, most of whom are interned without due process of law, stands at 200000, representing 0.8% of the population, or one prisoner for every 115 North Koreans. Internees include anyone declared "threats to the regime," usually a wide array of people designated "enemies of the state" such as purged "sectarians", counterrevolutionaries and anti-party elements; former landlords, Japanese collaborators, religious clergy, and families of defectors to the south. Residents repatriated from Japan accused of criticizing the system constituted the greater percentage of the internees in the past. They are being replaced by cadres who have been defeated in frequent political struggles and their families, whose numbers have been on the rise since the establishment of the North's cult of personality, for obvious reasons.

Tight security measures check all escape attempts and possible disturbances. At the perimeter of the camps are four to six fences, each ten to thirteen feet high. Points along the perimeter deemed easy escape routes are fortified by electrical fences, minefields, and booby traps, in addition to guards posted in 20-feet-high guard posts located every two kilometers. Anyone attempting escape is shot dead immediately upon discovery, and those lucky enough to survive become living targets in training exercises for the special forces.

Neither political nor human rights exist in the camps, and prisoners exist as instruments of labor and production. Registration cards are confiscated upon arrival, and internees cannot vote. Rations are kept to a minimum, and marriage and childbirth are banned, as well as letters, visits, and other means of contact with the outside world. The daily schedule of the prisoners depends on the season and the type of work assignment. Teams assigned to farm work usually rise at five or six AM, with their work ending at eight. They go to bed at ten PM following two hours of roll-call and re-education. Prisoners in the mines work in three shifts, regardless of seasons.

The diet consist of corn, potatoes, wheat, and barley supplied once every harvest season. Up to 600 grams were alloted per mineworker per day, with 500 grams for other prisoners. The rations have been reduced to 100 to 200 grams following the food crisis. No condiments, side dishes, or vegetables are provided, and garlic and pepper for seasoning have to be grown within the premises. The prisoners are collecting anything from wild herbs, plant roots, even frog eggs, or undigested beans in the cow dung, out of sheer desperation for anything with nutritional value. Living quarters are usually fashioned from plyboards or straw mats, and diseases like pellagra, tuberculosis, and hepatitis are endemic due to poor living conditions and malnutrition.