North Korea's Gulag in the Age of Coronavirus

By Benjamin Fu, HRNK Research Intern
Edited by Rosa Park, HRNK Director of Programs and Editor

July 14, 2020

In the decades following the Korean War, the Kim regime and North Korea’s elite have maintained absolute control over the North Korean people through an extensive and covert system of prison camps.[1] These camps, which experts primarily split into two categories—the kwan-li-so and kyo-hwa-so—based on the type of offense committed, imprison tens-of-thousands of the country’s petty criminals, political dissidents, and up to three generations of their families, as dictated by North Korea’s guilt-by-association (yeon-jwa-je) policy, in conditions that the United Nations has come to condemn for violating human rights.[2]

​While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the global community, the relationship between the regime’s reliance on these prison camps and its response to the pandemic is cause for concern. Specifically, these political and re-education camps, plagued with crimes against humanity, have the potential to become much more egregious in the era of coronavirus. 

As former prisoners and other defectors familiar with the camp system describe, these camps serve host to grossly inhumane conditions, testifying that sexual assault, torture, and murder by prison guards supplement dangerous, forced labor on meager food rations in these camps.[3]

The regime’s outright denial of many of these camps’ existence to the international community matches its report of the state’s coronavirus situation.[4] As regional neighbors such as China and South Korea struggled to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in January and February 2020, North Korean leadership reported zero cases of the novel coronavirus and maintains that figure months now into the pandemic.[5]

Experts are skeptical, though, and rightly so. Daily NK, a news source that maintains sources inside the country, reported in early March 2020 that around 200 North Korean soldiers since January had displayed COVID-19 symptoms before dying, and that officials had quarantined approximately 3,700 military personnel at the time of the report.[6] Calling North Korea’s official figure a “lie,” defector and former North Korean doctor Choi Jung-hun affirms the report’s findings, saying, “year after year, and in every season, diverse infectious diseases repeatedly occur but North Korea says there isn’t any outbreak.”[7]

Tragically, the North Korean regime’s attitude of denial during this health crisis is reminiscent of its response to the  famine of the mid-1990s, when it refused to acknowledge the extent of the food shortages and the suffering before officially requesting international aid in 1995.[8] While estimates vary, it is quite plausible that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of North Koreans up to that point had starved to death while millions more became chronically malnourished, as exemplified by a pervasive stunting in childrens’ heights in the years after.[9] If the parallel is held, the virus could claim many lives before the country provides transparency in an already dire situation.

If an outbreak does overwhelm government controls, North Korea is also in danger of social instability that could catalyze an increased reliance on prison camps to further suppress the people. Despite a recent crackdown on those crossing the border into neighboring China, a widespread viral outbreak leading to significant food and medical supply shortages could re-elevate crossing rates, perhaps even further inducing viral outbreaks among Chinese populations.[10] As such, the Chinese government will continue its policy of repatriating North Koreans migrants and refugees, and North Korea will continue to send them to labor camps, perpetuating general suffering among ordinary civilians.[11] Additionally, the regime will almost certainly imprison anyone who expresses discontent of or criticism towards its handling of the virus. 

North Korea, however, appears to recognize the severity of the situation internally. The government has enforced a harsh crackdown on the virus’ spread, punishing those who deviate from disease control measures, regardless of songbun, or social class.[12] Dictator Kim Jong-un’s request for foreign medical equipment early on in the spread of the virus is also a positive sign; however, the regime will allocate any imported medical supplies to insulate the elites of Pyongyang from the virus first before considering other citizens and prisoners.[13]

Presently, North Korea’s healthcare system is under-resourced and incapable of adequately combatting a pandemic.[14] Should the virus spread through the country and into the enclosed and unsanitary conditions of the regime’s camps, malnourished and overworked prisoners would naturally contend as the most vulnerable demographic in the nation.

As even the most developed countries in the world continue to struggle to control the pandemic, North Korea appears committed to denying any notion of viral spread.[15] The reality is unfortunate; outsiders will continue to remain in the dark until the regime becomes transparent with its handling of this contemporary crisis. In the meantime, the virus just might be sweeping through North Korean cities and villages and decimating the country’s prison population.

Benjamin Fu is an undergraduate student at Harvard College studying Government and Economics.

[1] David Hawk and Amanda M. Oh, “The Parallel Gulag: North Korea’s An-jeon-bu Prison Camps,” Washington, D.C.: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2017. 
[2] UN Human Rights Council. “Report of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” UN Doc. A/HRC/25/63. Feb. 7, 2014.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Hawk and Oh, “The Parallel Gulag,” 10.
[5] Grace Moon, “North Korea Still Officially Claims Zero Coronavirus Cases,” The World from PRX, March 23, 2020. 
https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-03-23/north-korea-still-officially-claims-zero-coronavirus-cases.
[6]  Jeong Tae Joo, “Sources: Almost 200 Soldiers Have Died from COVID-19,” Daily NK, April 16, 2020. https://www.dailynk.com/english/sources-almost-200-soldiers-have-died-covid-19/.
[7]  “'It's a Lie': Doubts Abound over North Korea's Claim of Zero Virus Cases,” South China Morning Post, April 20, 2020.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3080678/north-korea-really-coronavirus-free-defectors-experts-question.
[8] Donna Lee, "The North Korean Famine and Food Shortage: The Problem, the Politics, and the Policy," 2006, The North Korean Famine and Food Shortage: The Problem, the Politics, and the Policy (2006 Third Year Paper).
[9] Ibid.
[10]Choe Sang-hun. “North Korea Claims No Coronavirus Cases. Can It Be Trusted?” The New York Times, March 31, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/world/asia/north-korea-coronavirus.html.
[11]  UN Human Rights Council. “Report of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” UN Doc. A/HRC/25/63. Feb. 7, 2014.
[12]  Kang Mi-jin, “‘The core executives are no exception’… North Korea emphasizes continued compliance with Corona Emergency Prevention,” Daily NK, May 7, 2020.
https://www.dailynk.com/핵심-간부도-예외-없어-北-코로나-비상방역-준수-지/.
[13] Choe Sang-hun, “North Korea Claims No Coronavirus Cases. Can It Be Trusted?” The New York Times, March 31, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/world/asia/north-korea-coronavirus.html.​
[14] Benjamin K. Silberstein, “Assessing North Korea’s COVID-19 Containment and Kim Jong-un’s Political Challenges,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, May 29, 2020.
https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/05/assessing-north-korea-covid19-containment/
[15] Simon Denyer and Min Joo Kim, “North Korea Eases Coronavirus Lockdown Because Even Totalitarian States Need Trade,” The Washington Post, June 2, 2020.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-to-reopen-schools-trade-with-china-as-coronavirus-threat-recedes/2020/06/02/2f5229f8-a4a3-11ea-898e-b21b9a83f792_story.html.