Ch'ŏngjin Detention Center

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Korean spelling
Korean alphabet : 청진 제 25 호 관리소
Hanja : 淸 津 第二十 五號 管理所
Revised Romanization : Cheongjin Je25ho Gwalliso
McCune-Reischauer : Ch'ŏngjin Che25ho Kwalliso

The Chongjin concentration camp (also Chongjin ) is a labor camp in North Korea for political prisoners . The official name is Kwan-li-so (prison camp) No. 25 .

location

The camp is located in the urban area of Ch'ŏngjin , Hamgyŏng-pukto Province in North Korea . It is located in a restricted area of ​​the Suseong (Susŏng-dong) district on the northern outskirts of Ch'ŏngjin, about 500 meters west of the Suseong River between two small hills.

description

The prisoners in Ch'ŏngjin Camp are being detained for life with no hope of release. Like the other internment camps for political prisoners , the Ch'ŏngjin camp is under the Ministry of State Security. But while the other camps include numerous penal colonies in far, remote mountain valleys, the camp in Ch'ŏngjin consists of only one large prison complex, similar to the re-education camps . The camp is about 500 meters long and 500 meters wide, surrounded by high walls with some watchtowers. The number of prisoners is estimated to be at least 3,000.

function

The camp serves to exclude political prisoners from society. The prisoners are also exploited with the hard work they have to do in the camp's factories. Well-known North Korean consumer goods, such as Kalmaegi bicycles, are handcrafted.

Human rights situation

No prisoner in Ch'ŏngjin camp has yet escaped abroad, so there are no eyewitness accounts of the human rights situation. Ahn Myung-chul (former guard at Haengyong Detention Center ) describes the camp as a prison for high-ranking political prisoners, so the conditions can be expected to be very harsh.

Prisoners (eyewitnesses)

  • There are no eyewitness accounts of the camp because none of the inmates have managed to escape from North Korea. There are some reports from North Korean refugees of prisoners in Ch'ŏngjin camp.
  • Kim Kook-jae, kidnapped in 1987 on board the fishing boat Dong Jin 27 to North Korea (one of thousands of kidnapped South Koreans), died in Ch'ŏngjin camp, according to a human rights organization.
  • According to the 9th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees, many pastors , returnees from Japan and exiles from Pyongyang with their families are being held in the Ch'ŏngjin camp.
  • According to Amnesty International, in 2005 Jin Gyeong-suk died from torture in the labor camp.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Hidden Gulag - Satellite imagery: Kwan-li-so No. 25 Chongjin (pp. 223-224). (PDF; 5.5 MB) The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, accessed on September 21, 2012 .
  2. ↑ KINU White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (Chapter G. Human Rights Violations Inside Political Concentration Camps (Kwanliso), page 131) (PDF file; 6.02 MB)
  3. ↑ One Free Korea: Camp 25 in Ch'ŏngjin (satellite images with annotations)
  4. ^ "Political Prison Colonies in North Korea: System and Repercussions", 9th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees, Melbourne, March 20, 2009 (page 27)
  5. ↑ KINU White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (Chapter G. Human Rights Violations Inside Political Concentration Camps (Kwanliso), page 125, page 127) (PDF file; 6.02 MB)
  6. ↑ Exiled to Hell . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1995 ( online ).
  7. ↑ Andrei Lankov: North of the DMZ, essays on daily life in North Korea (McFarland Publishers, 2007), p 144 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  8. ↑ KINU White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (Chapter G. Human Rights Violations Inside Political Concentration Camps (Kwanliso), page 125) (PDF file; 6.02 MB)
  9. ↑ KINU White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (Chapter G. Human Rights Violations Inside Political Concentration Camps (Kwanliso), page 127) (PDF file; 6.02 MB)
  10. ↑ KINU White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (Chapter G. Human Rights Violations Inside Political Concentration Camps (Kwanliso), page 118, page 136) (PDF file; 6.02 MB)
  11. ↑ Amnesty International 2004: Starved of rights, section 6.5 The impact of famine and the food crisis on woman (PDF; 323 kB)
  12. ↑ engl. Wikipedia: North Korean abductions of South Koreans
  13. ↑ "Abducted South Korean This in a North Korean Political Prison Camp" , Daily NK , October 14 of 2008.
  14. ^ "Political Prison Colonies in North Korea: System and Repercussions", 9th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees, Melbourne, March 20, 2009 (page 27)

Coordinates: 41 ° 50 ′ 1 ″  N , 129 ° 43 ′ 32 ″  E