Chungsan concentration camp (also spelled Jeungsan, Jungsan or Joongsan) is a

reeducation camp Re-education camp may refer to: * Re-education camps in the Cambodian Genocide * Re-education through labor (''laojiao''), a system of administrative detentions in the People's Republic of China * Xinjiang re-education camps, internment camps for ...

in North Korea. Its official name is Kyo-hwa-so No. 11 (Reeducation camp no. 11).

Location

The camp is in

Chungsan county Chŭngsan County is a '' kun'' (county) in South Pyongan Province, North Korea. Re-education Camp No. 11, a large prison mostly for repatriated refugees, is located in the northwestern part of Chŭngsan County. Administrative divisions Chŭngs ...

, in

South Pyongan South Pyongan Province (Phyŏngannamdo; ) is a province of North Korea. The province was formed in 1896 from the southern half of the former Pyongan Province, remained a province of Korea until 1945, then became a province of North Korea. Its ca ...

province of North Korea. It is in the Yellow Sea coast, around west of Pyongyang.

Description

Chungsan camp is a sprawling largely women's penitentiary with between 3,300 and 5,000 prisoners. Since 1999 the camp is used to detain female

defectors In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

, which account for 50–60% of the prisoners, while others are incarcerated for theft, prostitution, unauthorized trade, etc. The camp is surrounded by agricultural plots, where the prisoners have to grow rice and corn for delivery to the Ministry of Public Security.

Human rights situation

The food rations are very small. According to a former prisoner, one third of the prisoners died from combinations of malnutrition, disease, and forced labor within a year. Dead prisoners are buried in mass graves on a nearby hill. She reported that the prisoners were often beaten with iron bars, if they did not work hard enough. She got very ill, because her wounds from the beatings got infected. In interviews other former prisoners reported about * solitary confinement cells, * hard work in farming, from 4 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. in the farming season, * a strict system of control and surveillance, * public executions, * violent beatings in cases of rule violations.

Prisoners (witnesses)

* Kim Miran (around 2002–2004 in Chungsan) was repatriated from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

for illegal border-crossing. * An unidentified former prisoner (female, 2004–2005 in Chungsan) gave testimony to HRNK about the camp. She was repatriated from

and imprisoned without a trial for illegal border crossing. * Ten other unidentified former prisoners (all female) were interviewed by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights. Most of them do not want to be identified for fear that their relatives in North Korea are punished.

References

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 {{coord missing, North Korea Concentration camps in North Korea