{"id":47776,"date":"2021-02-19T14:48:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T05:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=47776"},"modified":"2021-02-19T14:50:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T05:50:17","slug":"north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea orders expansion of political prison camp system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The North Korean authorities have reportedly ordered the expansion of political prison camps in the country. A source told Daily NK that North Korea, having declared war on the so-called \u201canti-socialist and non-socialist phenomenon\u201d during the recent Eighth Party Congress, intends to overhaul its incarceration facilities ahead of a major crackdown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a phone conversation with Daily NK on Feb. 12, the source, who is based in North Korea, said \u201cthe authorities ordered the labor camps to increase capacity at the end of last month,\u201d adding that \u201cthis order was handed to the headquarters of all camps managed by the Ministry of Social Security and the Ministry of State Security.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The source said that the authorities \u201care currently analyzing the prisoners in detail according to their ideological tendencies, past criminal records and current condition, in order to sort them by type of facility and labor intensity.&#8221; The source further said that \u201cafter this, there are comprehensive plans to proceed with land clearing for new coal and mining projects.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korea has been reducing the number of existing camps due to strong criticism and monitoring by the international community. There are currently four known political prison camps run by the Ministry of State Security, while one camp is known to be run by the Ministry of Social Security. It is unusual for North Korea to push for expanding its facilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily NK has previously reported that the North Korean authorities have sent violators of COVID-19 quarantine rules to political prison camps on charges of harming the national economy and violating party policy. As a result, the number of prisoners have increased significantly, and in some areas, political prison camps have either been newly established or expanded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, as they are now planning to expand the total number of political prison camps, the move seems to aim at preparing a large-scale incarceration of lawbreakers who are not violators of quarantine rules.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_42178\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-42178\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-42178\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1-300x155.jpg\" alt=\"MSS Office\" width=\"300\" height=\"155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1-300x155.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1-768x396.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1-1024x527.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1-696x358.jpg 696w, https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1-1068x550.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1-816x420.jpg 816w, https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/\ubcf4\uc704\ubd80-1024x683-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-42178\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">North Koreans waiting to meet with family members in front of a Ministry of State Security (MSS) office in the Sino-North Korean border region. \/ Image: Daily NK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korea has recently enacted the \u201canti-reactionary thought law,\u201d and is punishing violators with heavy sentences such as hard labor and the death penalty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is also noteworthy that Kim Jong Un put strong education and discipline at the forefront of both the Eighth Party Congress and the second plenary meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers\u2019 Party. Kim emphasized the need to get rid of \u201cevery form of anti-socialism, non-socialism, sectarianism, bureaucracy, corruption, tax evasion and all kinds of criminal acts.\u201d Censorship and crackdowns are expected to be further strengthened throughout North Korean society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korea may be attempting to send violators of the new law to political prison camps by conducting a large-scale crackdown on anti-socialism and non-socialism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe newly established Party censorship divisions will undertake a massive project to turn the entire country red [socialist]\u201d and that \u201cthose who oppose the declaration of war against anti-socialism and non-socialism will be punished regardless of their position, merits or <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">songbun <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">status,&#8221; the source said, using a term to describe social status in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The source explained that \u201cthe party and the judicial, counterintelligence and security agencies have decided to punish anti-socialist and non-socialist actors by treating them as anti-party and counter-revolutionary elements.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The move can be interpreted as North Korea aiming to promote internal unity through a powerful crackdown on matters that could lead to people breaking away from the regime ideologically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe likelihood is high that anti-socialists and non-socialists will be detained without mercy in the political prison camps,\u201d the source said, adding, \u201cThere is a considerable chance that people will be imprisoned just to set an example because the authorities need to produce results from the newly established institutions [camps].\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>*Translated by Vilde Olaussen\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"td-post-header\"><em>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"td-post-header\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/%ec%a0%95%ec%b9%98%eb%b2%94%ec%88%98%ec%9a%a9%ec%86%8c-%ec%88%98%ec%9a%a9%eb%8a%a5%eb%a0%a5-%ed%99%95%ec%b6%a9-%ec%a7%80%ec%8b%9c-%eb%b9%84%ec%82%ac%ed%9a%8c%ec%a3%bc%ec%9d%98-%eb%8c%80%eb%8c%80\/\">Read in Korean<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The North Korean authorities have reportedly ordered the expansion of political prison camps in the country. A source told Daily NK that North Korea, having declared war on the so-called \u201canti-socialist and non-socialist phenomenon\u201d during the recent Eighth Party Congress, intends to overhaul its incarceration facilities ahead of a major crackdown.\u00a0 In a phone conversation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":40204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v27.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Korea orders expansion of political prison camp system - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Korea orders expansion of political prison camp system\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The North Korean authorities have reportedly ordered the expansion of political prison camps in the country. A source told Daily NK that North Korea, having declared war on the so-called \u201canti-socialist and non-socialist phenomenon\u201d during the recent Eighth Party Congress, intends to overhaul its incarceration facilities ahead of a major crackdown.\u00a0 In a phone conversation [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-19T05:48:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-19T05:50:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/04\/kllk.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"575\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mun Dong Hui\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mun Dong Hui\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mun Dong Hui\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f849d1af9f17b1e55ff69fe16696b107\"},\"headline\":\"North Korea orders expansion of political prison camp system\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-19T05:48:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-19T05:50:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":667,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2019\\\/04\\\/kllk.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dailynk.com\\\/english\\\/north-korea-orders-expansion-political-prison-camp-system\\\/\",\"name\":\"North Korea orders expansion of political prison camp system - 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