
Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves - kkleiner
http://singularityhub.com/2011/05/12/satellite-images-of-north-korea-prison-camps-find-200000-living-as-slaves/
======
jacoblyles
It's interesting to see reddit's America-hatred spread here. We can't condemn
atrocities anywhere in the world without first holding America up as a paragon
of all that is evil. The failure to recognize the good in America, indeed the
many ways in which it still leads the world, and see the difference between a
free country with perhaps too-strict sentencing guidelines and one which
enslaves and kills its people for purely political transgressions, is
indicative of the erosion of one axis of our moral compass and the early sign
of a culture and a nation turning in on itself and destroying itself.

~~~
zedshaw
Having actually worked for the penal system collecting and analyzing
statistics on prisoner abuses and policy enforcement, I can easily tell you
that you are wrong (assuming your confusing deconstructionist prose means what
I think it means).

In general, Europe has some of the best prisons, and some of the worst
prisons. France, Italy, Turkey, and Russia have horrendous prisons where in
many cases prisoners don't survive their sentences. France's prisons are so
historically bad that they've spawned whole revolutions numerous times, and
are a common factor in their history. The EU was supposed to improve these
conditions but it remains to be seen given they have very little data on how
they're run, let alone anything publicly accessible.

In Asia only Japan has decent well run prisons, but their prisons are harsh
while still having a high success rate. In the rest of Asia prisons are
typically horrible, and even S.Korea has some awful conditions. Last thing I
read said they don't feed prisoners and keep them in tiny huts, requiring
their relatives to come and feed them. Burma is a massive police state with
actual slaves by law.

In Africa, if you remove countries that just don't even have working
governments, you find the prisons are also horrible, with the exception of
_maybe_ South Africa, but even they've had a history of nasty evil and torture
(read about Steve Biko). It's improved a lot, but not nearly as much as it
should.

The US is similar to Europe, with some of the worst and some of the best
prisons in the world. Now, we're not talking about American legal policy on
things like wrongful imprisonment by the LA Crash unit, idiotic "3-strikes
your out" laws, or minimum sentencing laws. I'm talking the actual conditions
of the prisons in the US as labeled by organizations like Amnesty
International. In our case, prisons are generally alright, with a few standout
offenses like Sheriff Joe Arpaio in AZ, and most prisons in the south and
California. The worst state is definitely California, which makes sense given
they've had more complete city wide riots than any other state in the nation
and their huge gap between rich and poor.

But, a significant difference between our prison system and many others around
the world (even those in Europe) are our laws about open records on how
they're run and our recent trend of civilian oversight groups and recitivism
prevention. Starting in about 2004 there's been a huge push to increase
monitoring of prisons, offenses, guard abuses, and to help parolees stay out
of jail. I personally worked on systems that tracked guard abuses at Riker's
Island and the NYC DOC, as well as finger print systems for prisons that do
early release programs and job release programs.

The _biggest_ problem in American prisons is the advocacy by law enforcement
of inmate-on-inmate rape as a sanctioned form of punishment. There's been
numerous cases of countries refusing to extradite criminals based purely on
our joke that a man will get ass raped in prison. If you wanted to focus your
activism and hatred on any one thing to improve our system, it would
definitely be eliminating rape.

In general, through my research and my own need to improve prisons, I found
that prisons are horrible poorly managed hell holes everywhere. They generally
reflect the cultural fear of the dominant members of a region against the
"unclean" citizens, outsiders, and the low class. The difference between
American prisons and this one in N.Korea is the size of it and the blatant
attempt to keep it secret from the rest of the world. _Very_ few countries in
the world try to hide prisons, and when they do it's considered horrible, but
none of them are hiding a prison that's the size of Manhattan:

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=90km+square>

~~~
pragmatic
What society/nation has the best prisons overall?

Is there a country/region that does it "right"?

~~~
michael_dorfman
My money's on Scandinavia.

~~~
chillax
This is one started up last year in Norway:

 _Ten years and 1.5 billion Norwegian kroner ($252 million) in the making,
Halden is spread over 75 acres (30 hectares) of gently sloping forest in
southeastern Norway. The facility boasts amenities like a sound studio,
jogging trails and a freestanding two-bedroom house where inmates can host
their families during overnight visits._

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html)
/ [http://www.good.is/post/halden-prison-who-cares-if-it-
coddle...](http://www.good.is/post/halden-prison-who-cares-if-it-coddles-
criminals/)

~~~
ars
How is that a good thing? They've basically made a prison city, I thought we
don't do things like that anymore (i.e. Australia).

------
tptacek
157 votes so we can have an amateur North Korea/US comparative studies class.
Respite from 3-year-old LKML security flame war, also on the front page?
Maybe. Still sad. See you in a week or so.

My "minaway" is 10,000 again. Old timer? Have you tried this yet? It's a
revelation. You will thank for me this advice. Noprocrast=yes, minaway 10000+.
You might code instead, or drink whiskey and read a good book, or find some
less exasperating place to rant at like-minded people online. Anything else
you do will be better than HN on May 12, 2011.

~~~
elliottcarlson
I respect most of what you post on HN - you have great insights and offer a
lot of knowledgeable information to most of the threads you participate in -
but I can't say this post was one of them. Wouldn't it be far more productive
to skip threads that might not interest you? Otherwise you are, IMHO, adding a
rant just like everyone you are criticizing.

~~~
kwis
HN Guidelines:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon... If they'd cover it on TV
> news, it's probably off-topic.

This is off-topic. There is essentially no chance that anything useful will
shake out from the ensuing discussion. It's noise, and it crowds out the
signal.

I'm glad that tptacek's post is currently the #1 post.

~~~
bloggergirl
The article actually speaks to the fact that you can use tech to view
atrocities like these that are otherwise kept hidden. No one would have
evidence of North Korean concentration camps --- not with only 2 survivors in
some 60 years (according to the article, if I'm remembering right) --- without
satellites and, in particular, Google Earth.

The conversation may have gone off-topic, but it didn't start that way.

------
ck2
If they still made the sears catalog I'd suggest the key to starting a
peoples' revolt in North Korea would be to airdrop hundreds of thousands of
catalogs across the country.

Even without understanding the language, just looking at all the goods would
make people start wondering why they are being made to suffer so.

~~~
amackera
How about just dropping food?

~~~
ksolanki
How about just not interfering?

Edit: To all downvoters: Perhaps this statement is at a wrong place, but yes,
these countries (in the Middle East or Africa) might be much better off if the
developed countries and China would not be after their natural resources.

~~~
gscott
It is just hard to not watch the abuse of the population, mass rapes, mass
killings, starvation, and so forth and not wish that things could be different
then donating $10 via text message to some organization who offers to do
something about it. If we could just build a giant wall around North Korea and
all of Africa then spend that money on cars, hot wings, and hookers.

------
yequalsx
What I can't understand is how people can visit North Korea and not feel
disgusted by giving support for that regime.

I believe North Korea is facing another famine this year. Given the conditions
in North Korea and the apparent iron grip its regime has on power is it better
not to provide food aid? I can't decide for myself if it's better, for the
long term, to let the nation starve and not help the people out or to feed
them. I don't see a clear cut right or wrong way to view aid to North Korea.
It's a disturbing case.

~~~
elliottcarlson
The problem is that visitors require a guide - someone who will hide the true
nature of NK to them and ensuring they only see what they are allowed to see.
Even though there has been a good amount of hidden camera footage exposed, or
articles such as this one - there are plenty of people who may not really be
aware of what is really going on there behind the scenes.

~~~
MichaelApproved
That reminds me of Nazi Germany when they went so far as to create a fake
concentration camp for the Red Cross to visit.

~~~
dantheman
If you're interested in Theresienstadt (the concentration camp) there's a
great documentary called Prisoner of Paradise. It tells the story a Jewish
filmmaker forced to make a propaganda film about the camp.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_Paradise>

------
abrown28
I believe this is a satellite view of the Yodok concentration camp based on an
image in the article.

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=39.6119444444,+126.849166667&aq=&sll=39.402244,127.507324&sspn=2.911704,5.817261&ie=UTF8&ll=39.678754,126.862135&spn=0.022658,0.045447&t=h&z=15)

~~~
geuis
Yes, you're right. I just found the same place independently.
[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Kwan-
li-
so&aq=&sll=38.427236,125.954132&sspn=0.412044,0.827408&ie=UTF8&ll=39.68394,126.875782&spn=0.101194,0.206852&t=h&z=13)

------
maxwin
The real problem is Communist China. Without China's support, Countries like
North Korea and Burma would have changed a long time ago. If China catches up
in military power, it can be scary considering its relationship with
Japan,Taiwan etc and its support for dictatorship. (Disclaimer:there's a
difference between criticizing chinese communist regime and chinese people)

------
elliottcarlson
There was a very interesting discussion about North Korea a couple of months
back that had great links to undercover videos and photos from within Korea:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2152223>

The most notable video was Children of the Secret State
(<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1875007335054132657>) - I recommend
everyone watch this...

------
api
North Korea is effectively an abusive cult in the form of an entire nation.

It's amazing that such a thing can exist, and when I really think about it the
existence of something like North Korea raises disturbing questions about the
nature of human consciousness.

How can we claim to have free will or to even have consciousness _at all_ if
something like North Korea can actually exist?

------
mml
Nobody seems to be mentioning that in NK, you go to prison, and your entire
extended family, for 3 generations (yes, your great grandkids) will all die
there. Comparison to us prisons is laughably pathetic.

~~~
lwat
Source?

~~~
carussell
TFA

------
muhfuhkuh
"I can admire China’s growth in infrastructure and technology, it’s pursuit to
compete on a global scale, but what good is all that growth if it allows these
crimes to go on next door?"

 _I_ admire America's prominence in infrastructure and technology, it's
continuing domination on a global scale, but what good is all that power when
over 40,000 people and rising are murdered because of a drug war _for which
they are complicit_ next door?

It's great to try to solve problems that seem so fruitless and terrible, but
isn't it akin to pointing your finger at a mirror?

~~~
abbasmehdi
Come on muhfuhkuha, you're taking this out of context. The author is saying
that China is an accomplice in crimes committed by NK because it expels
refugees who face imminent threat in NK, thus making China an accomplice.
China cannot push escapees back into shark waters and say "I am not the
shark", I'd say "Yes China, but you kind of fed this person to the shark."

The US has a very generous amnesty and refugee program, and if you can prove
in court that you will be killed or prosecuted in your home country then
you're granted residency. I personally know 3 people who have undergone this
process. If they tried the same in China, they would have been swung right
back over the border.

~~~
muhfuhkuh
"The US has a very generous amnesty and refugee program"

... unless you're a little boy from communist Cuba who wanted to live free in
America but was repatriated at gunpoint in the middle of the night[1].

[1]<http://www.nndb.com/people/574/000025499/>

~~~
abbasmehdi
Muhfuhkah you have a knack for taking things out of context. You come up with
this as an example of someone facing the threat of being "killed or prosecuted
in [their] home country"?

Elian Gonzales faced no such risks.

You're easy ;)

------
totalforge
All North Koreans that are not in the elite inner circle are slaves. China,
though annoyed, cannot act, since NK is a fellow Communist nation, though they
are the goofy pseudo-Stalinist type.

Eventually the regime will collapse, and NK will become a humanitarian project
that will dwarf anything that has come before it.

------
Jun8
(This is a recurrent fantasy of mine) I think we should have an independent
armed forces with the power to intervene in gross violations of human rights,
something like the UN but with exponentially more authority (current UN peace
keeping forces are a joke, e.g. see Srebrenica massacre,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre>, for just one example of
many). This force would have the initiative to wage war on authoritative
regimes, like the Taliban, Kaddafi, and the one in North Korea.

Currently this is done in a haphazard way, through NATO (e.g. Libya) or
countries acting by themselves (e.g. France in Ivory Coast).

Thinking of the practical problems clearly shows that this is an impossible
idea. But on a _theoretical_ level, is it valid (e.g. where does this force
take its authority from)? I think so.

~~~
run4yourlives
The most powerful military the world has ever known already exists; and it
would not be capable of "fixing" North Korea or Libya without sustaining (and
more importantly, inflicting) significant casualties. The best course of
action, militarily speaking, would probably be to significantly nuke Pyongyang
quickly and have S. Korea take over administration of the country. This is not
politically or morally acceptable.

That's part of the problem: The moment you declare a regime as morally
bankrupt, you are stating your own goals are somehow more enlightened and
worthy. In some cases this works, like against the Nazis, but in most, like
the Yugoslav war you cite, it's only a matter of opinion - For every
Srebrenica there is a Krajina, unfortunately. The people involved in such
generational hatred do not escape their own guilt, regardless of which
particular side they may be on in any particular indecent. Getting involved in
these quagmires often only intensifies the conflicting hatred for a later
date. Even worse, who then protects us from the protectors?

Your desire is a noble one but unfortunately completely at odds with human
nature.

~~~
Jun8
I totally agree with your points (i.e. "who watches the Watchmen" and
accumulative hatred) but I'm not happy to be so. Goethe said that "to be
pleased with one's limits is a wretched state". Even if we're not pleased with
the notion that no better solution exists (or can be found), still it makes
one sad about humanity.

~~~
run4yourlives
That is a totally valid feeling.

Of course these are just extensions of our own personal hatreds and
prejudices. The best way to change them is to change these feelings within
yourself.

~~~
Jun8
This I totally disagree with. Saying there's no evident solution for a problem
is one thing, stating that the problem is actually "imagined" or just has
something to do with our perception is a totally different thing.

I believe in cultural relativism only weakly, I firmly believe there are well-
defined wrongs: female circumcision is wrong
([http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/opinion/12kristof.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/opinion/12kristof.html?_r=1&hp)),
putting your own citizens in concentration camps is wrong, etc. To say that
these acts are unequivocally wrong has nothing to do with "our own personal
hatreds and prejudices".

~~~
run4yourlives
Um, I didn't say the problem was imagined. I said the problem on a macro scale
is just the extension of behaviours on a micro scale.

In other words: the best way to change the world is to change the person
looking back at you in the mirror. The extension of your hatred, your desire
for revenge, your jealousy, your moral outrage is all these things you are
complaining about.

------
InclinedPlane
It's interesting. Everyone seems to know how screwed up North Korea is, but
few people know all the details, and the media doesn't report on these things
much. Largely I think because it's so hard to gain access there.

------
tokenadult
Atlantic article, "North Korea's Digital Underground,"

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/04/north-
kore...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/04/north-
korea-8217-s-digital-underground/8414/)

makes for very interesting reading about attempts to help the common people of
North Korea know what is going on in their own country and in the outside
world.

------
cjoh
This stuff gets me really excited for private space technology. The future is
bleak for the anti-democratic states if there's eyes in the sky for everyone,
and global connectivity.

------
ungerik
Standard procedure in communism...
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAxKAzpGmVA>

------
TheloniusPhunk
Yeah, National Geographic mentioned this in a documentary a few years ago.
This is where you end up if you try to flee to China, which is, in and of
itself, indicative of the state of affairs in North Korea.

------
hartror
This is a highly important dreadful story but what is it doing on Hacker News,
let alone the front page?

------
bloggergirl
Thank you for posting this. A key takeaway from the article is in the final
paragraph: "if we allow it, we could live in a world that makes great strides
forward, but that can never rid itself of the abhorrent authoritarian tool
that is the concentration camp."

We allow these horrors to occur. That's not a judgment on anyone; I'm
definitely part of the problem because I'm not part of the solution (to borrow
a cliche).

But what can we do? That's a real question. I want to know what we can do.
Yes, we can sign Amnesty International petitions, which is a step, but what
else?

The HN community is a problem-solving community. Human rights violations of
all sizes and shapes (including and especially the North Korea concentration
camps) are a major problem to solve. What can technology do to help? Can we
solve fatigue re: "prolonged exposure to blaring 24 hour news streams that fry
sensibilities with their constant emotional appeals"? Can we mobilize people
and keep them engaged in helping people they don't know?

~~~
chopsueyar
We need to wait for large mineral or oil deposits to be found in North Korea,
and then the US can implement democracy.

~~~
pavlov
North Korea does have large mineral resources, but China already has the upper
hand in exploiting the political situation to gain access to them:

 _“There are growing concerns that North Korea could be selling the
development rights of mineral resources to China at a very cheap price as the
relationships between the two Koreas worsen and North Korea has no other
market to turn to,” said Yoon Hong-gi, an official with Korea Resources Corp._

<http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2931111>

------
bigwally
No way that camp could be holding 200,000 people.

Anyone who has studied any geography could see that would be near impossible.

~~~
ceejayoz
There's more that one camp.

~~~
bigwally
If you watched the video they said it was all in 2 valleys.

200,000 in those two valleys? Impossible.

~~~
jaekwon
I estimate roughly around 500 small housing units from what I've seen. The
smallest units are about 60*30feet in size.

For a slave labor camp, it would be easy to fit 100 people in each unit with
two story bunk beds. That's already 50,000 people. The units may be more
crammed than I imagine, and I may have missed miscounted these housing units.
200K sounds like an upper limit but it's not impossible.

~~~
jhamburger
And it's generous for you to assume that they even get to sleep alone in
'beds'

------
johnmossel
I'm sorry, but ... seriously, a nation that _still_ hasn't closed Guantanamo
Bay. Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.

~~~
johnmossel
Ohhh... someone gonna cry?

~~~
elliottcarlson
No - it's just a ridiculous statement. A governments action does not reflect
the opinion of the occupants of that country. Neither does it reflect that of
an independent organization even if it is based in a country who has a
different stance that may been seen as hypocritical.

Does your government and leadership reflect everything you stand for?

------
rorrr
US prison population: 2.2 million

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/US_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/US_incarceration_timeline-
clean.svg/250px-US_incarceration_timeline-clean.svg.png)

~~~
roel_v
What's your point? That US prisoners and their extended families are being
starved, raped and tortured for being critical of a government official, or
questioning the official propaganda? Look, you may not agree with US drug
policy, I know I don't (I'm not an American), but comparing what is happening
in North Korea to what happens in Western prisons (apart from an isolated
incident here or there) is, to put it mildly, disingenuous.

------
metatronscube
Well America, are you going to spread "Freedom and Democracy" there? It sure
needs it.

~~~
brandong
Not until there is the political will to accept millions of US losses. Our
current engagements are a walk in the park compared to what "bringing regime
change" to North Korea entail. I'd wager that there hasn't been another large
populace so thoroughly brainwashed in modern history- Nazi Germany isn't even
comparable to "the hermit kingdom."

~~~
jhamburger
I think you're totally wrong, there's no idealogical support for the regime
there. The military support him because he makes them 1st class citizens and
they know it's the only way they can eat. The civilians are just scared to
death and trying to survive.

And there wouldn't be millions of US losses, we would never put ourselves in
that situation. It would be relentless airstrikes aiming at disabling air
defenses/artillery positions and decapitation of the regime. The problem would
be mass civilian casualties in south korea.

------
kloncks
About 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States. Recent figures
say more than 12% are raped or endure sexual assault. Twelve-percent of 2.3m
is 276,000 and 276k > 200k.

Not defending North Korea. But I'm a strong proponent of "People who live in
glass houses shouldn't throw stones" mentality. Let's take a good hard look at
ourselves before deeming others violent, ignorant, dictatorial, or cruel.

------
fijall
2,292,133 were in prisons in the United States in 2009 [from wikipedia]. Even
though I guess conditions are better, 200 000 doesn't sound like that many
after all.

~~~
yequalsx
I fail to see your point. Does the number of U.S. prisoners diminish the
vileness of what goes on in North Korea? Are you saying/suggesting that the
numbers of prisoners in the U.S. are so great that other countries are beyond
criticism? That it's hypocritical for Americans or the American government to
be shocked by the situation in North Korea? Can you clarify?

~~~
josefresco
I'll answer for him, it's your last suggestion It's hypocritical for someone
in the US to criticize other nations about their prison systems when we're
leading the world in locking people up for crazy shit. That's not to say we
can't have an opinion, just not a holier-than-thou attitude about it.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Not arguing whether people should be locked up or not for certain crimes -
there is obviously an issue with that - but when it comes down to numbers -
are we really leading the world in that area:

    
    
        North Koran Population: 23,906,070
        Estimated "Prisoners":  200,000
        Percentage in Custody:  0.83%
    
        United States Population: 307,006,550
        Estimated Prisoners:      2,292,133
        Percentage in Custody:    0.74%
    

(Both numbers for US population and incarcerated people are from 2009)

~~~
bostonpete
My understanding is that North Koreans, by and large, have a very low quality
of life, have limited rights, and are not free to leave. By that description,
I'd have to say their percentage of prisoners is closer to 100%.

