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Category: The Camps

June 3, 2010

The Telegraph Credits OFK

Thanks to commenter Ut videam, who notes that the Daily Telegraph is now crediting OFK for the four images in question, and even added some nice links. I want to publicly thank the Telegraph for doing the right thing, crediting this site, and for taking the extra step of inserting the links and the complimentary words. To all of the readers who wrote to the Telegraph, or who put up supportive blog posts or comments, thank you from the bottom...

Categories Media Criticism/The Camps
June 1, 2010

Blatant Plagiarism in the London Daily Telegraph (Update: The Telegraph Credits, Links OFK)

pla ·gia ·rism /ˈpleɪdÊ’əˌrɪzÉ™m, -dÊ’iəˌrɪz-/ [pley-juh-riz-uhm, -jee-uh-riz-] ““noun 1. the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. You know, I write this with some ambivalence, because I’m always glad to see that the result of many, many hours of scouring North Korea on Google Earth, of poring through scholarly reports, and of cross-checking clues has brought much-needed attention to the horrors of North Korea’s...

Categories Google Earth/Media Criticism/The Camps
April 19, 2010

Professor Alleges North Korean Plan to Destroy Gulags With Dams

Yonsei University Professor Hong Seong-Phil, quoted in The Korea Times, alleges that “dams are under construction near six gulags in North Korea to destroy evidence of possible genocide there.” I’ve heard this theory repeated for a number of years, but I don’t happen to believe it. Maybe there’s new imagery that Google Earth does has not yet published to support this theory, but I sure don’t see the evidence for it yet. Furthermore, the theory doesn’t sound plausible to me....

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
March 23, 2010

More on the Jeung-San Prison Camp

You may recall that at the end of this October 2009 post, I called for your assistance in locating an alleged North Korean political prison camp near the coast, due west of Pyongyang, known as Jeung-San. The tip was provided by Kim Sang-Hun, co-founder of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights. North Korea’s worst concentration camp is a reeducation center where women who escaped to China are subjected to the most brutal treatment, NGO Good Friends said Monday....

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
March 6, 2010

Food Riot Reported Near Camp 12, North Korea

North Koreans, it seems, didn’t really feel much like celebrating on February 16th: One person was killed by armed guards on Feb. 16 when a group of people attempted to rob a food train at Komusan Railway Station in Puryong-gun, North Hamgyong Province, defector group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said. The attack came on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday after a disastrous currency reform sent food prices skyrocketing. The train was loaded with rice imported from China, the group...

Categories Resistance/The Camps
February 24, 2010

The History of North Korea’s Political Prison Camps

Open News has an interesting history of the camps that, among other interesting educated guesses, suggests that 50% of the largest camps’ (kwan-li-so) population is composed of people who are merely family members of those accused of disloyalty to the state: The North Korean regime, as it consolidated its power, killed religious leaders, the pro-Japanese, and landowners, while imprisoning their family members in the so called “forced labor camps. In 1947, there were 17 of these forced labor camps. Between...

Categories History/Human Rights/The Camps
February 22, 2010

South Korean Leftists Should Take a Tip from Oh Kil-Nam

To Oh, a left-leaning South Korean economist, defecting to North Korea with his entire family seemed like a peachy idea at the time (1985). Today, Oh is one of a very few people who has a souvenir photograph of his family standing in the snow at Camp 15, the infamous Yodok Camp described by Kang Chol-Hwan in “The Aquariums of Pyongyang.” As it turns out, “the relevant organ” means the large intestine. His activism attracted the attention of North Korean...

Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Propaganda/The Camps
February 8, 2010

North Korean Gulag Survivors Tell Their Survival Stories to Bored South Korean Soldiers

As it turns out, inviting a North Korean gulag survivor to speak to South Korean troops is a lot like inviting Elie Wiesel to speak at a Pat Buchanan rally: After speaking recently to a group of young South Korean soldiers about North Korea’s harsh labor camps, former prisoner Jung Gyoung Il — himself once a soldier in North Korea’s massive army — was stunned by the questions from the audience. One soldier asked how many days of leave North...

Categories Human Rights/Korean Society/ROK Military/The Camps
January 25, 2010

New Camp 25, Camp 12 Pages

Although I don’t claim that my preliminary identification of the site of Camp 25, Chongjin is yet confirmed by witnesses, two of the former Chongjin residents whose stories are told in Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy” provide a degree of circumstantial corroboration. Judge the evidence for yourself here; however, I can’t say for certain that the site is a prison at all until a credible witness confirms it. I’ve also put up a new page on Camp 12, Chongo-ri. Most...

Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/The Camps
December 18, 2009

New Imagery of North Korea’s Yodok Concentration Camp Shows Northern, Western Boundaries

Since I had first begun to map North Korea’s concentration camp system on Google Earth, it had been a source of frustration to me that the imagery of Camp 15, the infamous Yodok Camp documented in Kang Chol Hwan’s memoir, was of such poor quality and resolution. The other day, my friend Curtis notified me that Google Earth had released much new imagery of North Korea, and with that new imagery, we now have a much better outline of Camp...

Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/The Camps
December 8, 2009

In Geneva, North Korea Answers Atrocity Accusations with Bluster, Denials, and a Concession

For the most part, it’s what you’d have expected: Lies, all lies! A U.S. plot (with the EU) to overthrow us! The POW issue is resolved. There are no more Japanese abductees in North Korea, and there is no need for a U.N. Special Envoy to visit. Some of the denials almost must be seen to be believed. On the starvation of the North Korean people, particularly those in the lower political castes: According to The Independent, North Korean ambassador...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/The Camps
November 15, 2009

The Wall Street Journal on Obama, China, and Chongo-Ri (Bumped)

So, if you’re coming here from the Wall Street Journal editorial to see the satellite images of Chongo-ri, you’ll find them here. You might also want to read more about North Korea’s labor camp system and what happens to people who enter those camps. We’re about to find out whether President Obama is prepared to pay the debt that his Nobel Peace Prize represents. Thanks to DanB, a/k/a Dan Bielefeld for getting the word out. If you want to help...

Categories Human Rights/Refugees/The Camps
October 29, 2009

Survivor Confirms Location of Camp 12

As I have noted before, I recently began working closely with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) on the identification of North Korea’s concentration and labor camps through satellite imagery. That work has now expanded beyond its beginnings on Google Earth to other sources of imagery, including Digital Globe. This has become a close collaboration and friendship with Chuck Downs, HRNK’s Executive Director, and researcher David Hawk, the author of The Hidden Gulag and a former Executive...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/The Camps
October 26, 2009

Interview with the Producer of “Kimjongilia”

The Voice of America interviews Nancy Heiken, producer of the documentary Kimjongilia, about North Korea’s concentration camps. You can see a short video clip here. Personally, however, I’d say the film’s own site does a better job of conveying its artistic theme — contrasting the eerily beautiful illusions of the state against the terrible realities beyond the gauzy backdrops. I’m looking forward to having a chance to see this.

Categories Books & Films/The Camps
October 19, 2009

North Korean official media denies that the camps exist and claims that all of its people lead “the most dignified and happy life.”

Yoon Sang-Hyun, from the ruling Grand National Party, said the North had 10 camps holding about 200,000 prisoners until the late 1990s when it closed down four of them amid mounting international criticism. “Currently, it holds 154,000 prisoners in six places,” he was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency. [AFP] I don’t know what a South Korean lawmaker is going on when he suggests that North Korea’s gulag inmate population might actually have fallen to 154,000, but when I...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
October 8, 2009

Your Money or Your Life: WaPo on North Korea’s Gulag Shake Down

The Washington Post’s terrific Blaine Harden has written a must-read story, based in large part on the research of Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard, about an ugly new turn of events in North Korea’s gulag system. North Korea’s infamous penal system, which for decades has silenced political dissent with slave labor camps, has evolved into a mechanism for extorting money from citizens trading in private markets, according to surveys of more than 1,600 North Korean refugees. Reacting to an explosive...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
September 29, 2009

Kang Chol Hwan on the Concentration Camps

Kang makes a compelling argument for understanding the “root cause” of all of our problems with North Korea: The silence of the international community on the barbaric massacres in the concentration camps committed by Kim Jong-il borders on the criminal. Some 17,000 North Korean defectors in the South are complaining about the atrocity, but no country pays any attention. Even the South Korean government and people do not realize how serious the problem is. As a surgeon may kill a...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
September 6, 2009

Revealed: The First Published Images of Camp 12, Chongo-Ri, North Korea

Recently, Chosun Ilbo reporter and North Korean gulag survivor Kang Chol Hwan published this story about a remote labor camp in North Korea, its recent expansion to support a crackdown on defectors, and the horrific conditions there: The Chongori reeducation center in North Hamgyong Province that went through the greatest change. The center has been reorganized as a concentration camp exclusively for arrested defectors. It has reportedly turned into a living hell, where labor is much heavier than at ordinary...

Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/Inside NK/The Camps