[imText1]The National Intelligence Service of South Korea announced that it has discovered that North Korea has 6 political prisons in which 150,000 are imprisoned.
On the 5th, Assemblyperson Song Young Sun of the Grand National Party asked the National Intelligence Service to disclose the information on the North Korean prisons. The NIS stated, “We found that since the 90’s North Korean political prisons have usually held officials found guilty of corruption, families of defectors, repatriated defectors or religious defectors”.
According to the information disclosed by the National Intelligence Service, the North Korean political prisons were built to isolate anti-revolutionists and their families, such as those implicated in the 1958 August Jongpa-Sageon (August Accident against Kim Il Sung), from society. In 1966, by carrying out the Task Force on North Korean Classes, North Korean officials sorted out the hostile classes (pro-Japanese North Koreans, religious practitioners, and those living overseas) and in 1980 it committed all opponents of the Kim Jong Il regime to the prisons as antiparty traitors.
The National Intelligence Service revealed that the period of the confinement is generally life imprisonment, although the “revolutionary zone” of Yoduk Prison (Camp No. 15) allows for the “rehabilitation” of prisoners, with the possibility of release.
Political prisons of North Korea are divided into two zones: one is a completely controlled zone where prisoners are confined without a defined imprisonment period, and the other is a “revolutionary zone” which allows prisoners the possibility of release, based on their attitudes.
The National Intelligence Service commented that, “In the case of the political prisons, prisoners are deprived of their citizenship and other basic rights. Furthermore, they are mobilized to forced labor, and are not allowed to marry or have children. Defectors or adulterous criminals are openly executed”.
The National Intelligence Service also stated that the population of North Korea in 2003 was 2,346,000. Recently, North Korea asserted that the rise in population has been a sustained 0.85% a year for 10 years, yet the National Intelligence Service estimates the rate is closer to 0.62%.
