Description
Yodok camp has two parts:
- The total control zone (Chosŏn'gŭl: 특별독재대상구역), with the prison labor colonies Pyongchang-ri and Yongpyong-ri, is for people who authorities believe have committed crimes against the regime or who have been denounced as politically unreliable (e.g. returnees from Japan or Christians). These prisoners are never released.
- The revolutionary zone (Chosŏn'gŭl: 혁명화대상구역), with reeducation camps Ipsok-ri, Kuup-ri and Daesuk-ri, is to punish people for less serious political crimes (e.g. illegally leaving the country, listening to South Korean broadcasts, or criticizing government policy). These prisoners are eventually released after serving their sentences.
In the 1990s, the total control zone had an estimated 30,000 prisoners while the smaller revolutionary zone had about 16,500 prisoners; recent satellite images, however, indicate a significant increase in the camp's scale. Most prisoners are deported to Yodok without trial, or following grossly unfair trials, on the basis of confessions obtained through torture. People are often imprisoned together with family members and close relatives, including small children and the elderly, based on guilt by association (Sippenhaft).
The camp is around 378 km2 (146 sq mi) in area. It is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence 3–4 m (9.8–13 ft) tall and walls with electric wire and watchtowers at regular intervals. The camp is patrolled by 1,000 guards with automatic rifles and guard dogs.
In 2004, a Japanese television station aired what it said was footage showing scenes from the camp.
Read more about this topic: Yodok Concentration Camp
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“He hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)