Chongori concentration camp

Chongori concentration camp (also spelled Jungeori, Jongori or Jeonger-ri) is a reeducation camp in North Korea. The official name of the camp is Kyo-hwa-so No. 12 (Reeducation camp no. 12).

Chongori concentration camp
Chosŏn'gŭl	전거리 제12호 교화소
Hancha	轉車里第十二號敎化所
Revised Romanization	Jeon'geori Je12ho Gyohwaso
McCune–Reischauer	Chŏn'gŏri Che12ho Kyohwaso
Chosŏn'gŭl	전거리 정치범 수용소
Hancha	轉車里政治犯收容所
Revised Romanization	Jeon'geori Jeongchibeom Suyongso
McCune–Reischauer	Chŏn'gŏri Chŏngch'ibŏm Suyongso

Location

The camp is located near Chongori, a little village in Musan-ri (Korean: 무산리; RR: Musanri; MR: Musanri), Hoeryong county, at the road and railroad almost halfway between Hoeryong and Chongjin, North Hamgyong province in North Korea.[1] Chongori camp is situated at the end of a small valley 2.5 km (1.6 mi) southeast from the main valley in Pungsan-ri (Korean: 풍산리; RR: Pungsanri; MR: P'ungsanri) and Chongori.[2]

Chongori

Pyongyang

Location of Chongori camp in North Korea

Description

Chongori concentration camp is a large prison compound, around 350 m (1,150 ft) long and 150 m (490 ft) wide. The main section is surrounded by a 8 m (26 ft) high wall, while the branch offices are surrounded with barbed wire and an electrified fence. In 2005 there used to be around 2000 prisoners, mostly non-political criminals, but often sentenced there for desperate offences such as stealing food. They are guarded by around 300 prison guards with machine guns.[3] From 2006 on the number of prisoners increased significantly,[4] as many defectors deported from China were arrested in Chongori camp.[5] Theoretically, prisoners should be released after reeducation through labour and serving their sentence, but since the prison sentences are very long and the conditions are very harsh, many do not survive their prison sentences. A former prisoner estimates, that during his eight months of detention, around 800 prisoners died from hard labour and sub-subsistence level food rations.[6]

Purpose

The main purpose of Chongori camp is to punish people for usual crimes or political crimes such as illegal border crossing. The prisoners are also used as slave workers, who have to do hard and dangerous work 14 hours a day.[5] There is a copper ore mine, a logging section,[3] a furniture factory and a farming section in the camp.[7]

Human rights situation

The prisoners in Chongori concentration camp live in crowded, dirty, insect-infested rooms without heating, while there is just one washing room for 1000 prisoners.[8] Because of these bad hygienic conditions, in the summer of 2003 around 190 prisoners died from an infectious disease according to Lee Jun Ha.[9] 70 prisoners sleep in a room made for 20, lying on the floor without pillows or blankets.[10]

Prisoners get only 140 grams of rice three times a day, while being forced to do hard labour such as logging with iron chains.[11] Often prisoners are killed [12] or crippled in work accidents, as they have to do dangerous work with primitive means.[13] A former prisoner reported of accidental deaths every few days in the furniture factory due to antiquated machines and prisoners seldom getting more than five hours of sleep per night.[14] Virtually every day after work and before getting dinner, prisoners have to engage in mutual criticism sessions[14] and get less food in case of flaws or shortcomings.[15] Prisoners are so hungry, that they eat even grass and corn in cow feces.[16] Lee Jun Ha estimates that around 30 to 40 people died from malnutrition, work accidents or torture each month and were burnt on a nearby mountain.[17]

Prisoners are regularly subject to beatings,[18] torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrarily at the guards' mercy.[19] In case a prisoner breaks a rule, he is tortured and confined many days or weeks in a solitary cell, only 1 square metre (11 sq ft) in area, where he could not stretch his legs.[20] As additional punishment, they get only ​¹⁄₃ of the usual food rations.[21] Summary executions were carried out several times per year in case of escape attempts.[22]

Kwon Hyo-jin has painted the various forms of torture he witnessed, such as “pigeon torture”, “crane torture”, “aeroplane torture”, and “knee joint torture”, in a series of drawings.[23] Other human rights violations and forced labour in Chongori camp are featured in further drawings for an exhibition on political prison camps in North Korea.

The camp has reportedly publicly executed inmates, without due process.[24]

Prisoners (Witnesses)

• Lee Jun Ha (2000–2005 in Chongori) was imprisoned because he accidentally killed his uncle.[25]
• Kwon Hyo-jin (~2001–2008 in Chongori) was imprisoned because he helped defectors to get to China. He is an artist in ceramics, painting and calligraphy and painted drawings of his experience in Chongori camp.[23]

See also

• Human rights in North Korea
• Kaechon concentration camp

External links

• Committee for Human Rights in North Korea: The Hidden Gulag - Overview of North Korean prison camps with testimonies and satellite photographs
• Database Center for North Korean Human Rights: Prisoners in North Korea Today - Comprehensive explanation of detention facilities in North Korea based on numerous defector testimonies
• Daily NK: Prison Tales – Prison memoir series by Lee Jun Ha
• One Free Korea: Camp 12 - Chongori camp with satellite photographs
• Korea Institute for National Unification - White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (page 179 and 443)
• Chosun Ilbo: N. Korea in brutal crackdown on defectors – Many defectors arrested and deported to Chongori camp

References

1. "The Hidden Gulag – Satellite imagery (p. 227)" (PDF). The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
2. One Free Korea: Camp 12 – Chongori camp with satellite photographs
3. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 8 “What Does the No.12 Reeducation Camp Look Like?”
4. KINU White paper on human rights in North Korea 2009 (Chapter G. Human Rights Violations Inside Political Concentration Camps (Kwanliso), page 101)
5. Chosun Ilbo: “N. Korea in brutal crackdown on defectors”, Chosun Ilbo, September 1, 2009
6. "The Hidden Gulag – Exposing Crimes against Humanity in North Korea's Vast Prison System (p. 88)" (PDF). The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
7. "6.2.3 Working Facilities and Production", Prisoners in North Korea Today (PDF), Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, July 15, 2011, pp. 386–387, archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2014, retrieved May 30, 2012
8. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 9 “No. 12 Prison, My Home for a While”
9. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 31 “Infectious Disease Sweeps the Prison”
10. "6.3.3 Provision of Living Necessities", Prisoners in North Korea Today (PDF), Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, July 15, 2011, p. 402, archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2014, retrieved May 30, 2012
11. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 19 “Logging on the Mountain”
12. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 26 “Fighting Frozen Weather on the Mountain”
13. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 18 “The Wagon of Spite”
14. "The Hidden Gulag – Exposing Crimes against Humanity in North Korea's Vast Prison System (p. 86)" (PDF). The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
15. "6.3.5 Life in Prison", Prisoners in North Korea Today (PDF), Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, July 15, 2011, p. 426, archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2014, retrieved May 30, 2012
16. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 13 “A Cruel Realization about the Nature of Man”
17. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 25 “Mount Bulmang's Tragic Harvest”
18. "6.5.3 Torture and Violence", Prisoners in North Korea Today (PDF), Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, July 15, 2011, pp. 443–444, archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2014, retrieved May 30, 2012
19. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 6 “Beatings, Rape, Torture, Atrocities Every Day”
20. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 21 “Twenty Days in Solitary”
21. "6.2.4 Solitary Confinement", Prisoners in North Korea Today (PDF), Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, July 15, 2011, p. 393, archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2014, retrieved May 30, 2012
22. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 24 “Summary Execution of a Runaway from the Camp”
23. "Where love does not exist: Chongori prison changing into an exclusive camp for punishment of North Korean defectors". Sage Korea. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
24. Shalini, Shubhra (January 17, 2019). "North Korean Inmate Executed By Firing Squad For Killing Prison Guard". IB Times. Archived from the original on January 17, 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2019. Following international criticism, such executions were not being carried out publicly, by the North Korean regime. But in this case, to thwart others from committing such crimes, the camp authorities executed the prisoner in front of other inmates, Daily NK reported.
25. The Daily NK: Lee Jun Ha’s Prison Tales 2 “Seven Years for Murdering my Alcoholic Uncle”