Google Earth Exposes North Korea's Hidden Gulag

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dey can't deny an' hide it from the world anymore...

Google Earth Helps Put N. Korea Gulag System on Map
January 10, 2013 - Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's visit to North Korea this week has been met with sharp criticism and low expectations, but the global Internet search giant indirectly is helping to make history by revealing one of the reclusive country's darkest secrets, say human rights activists.

Google Earth, the company's popular satellite imagery product, might have been the last thing Schmidt would have wanted to showcase for his hosts, because it presents a bird's eye view of many things secretive North Korea wants to keep hidden. Human rights activists and bloggers have taken a Google program used mostly for recreation, education and marketing and applied it to map a vast system of dozens of prison camps that span North Korea, a country slightly smaller in area than Greece and home to 23 million people.

As many as 250,000 political prisoners and their families toil on starvation rations in the mostly remote mountain camps, according to estimates by international human rights groups. Schmidt's trip to Pyongyang with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has been criticized by the U.S. State Department as ill-timed - coming weeks after North Korea conducted a rocket launch in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

OneFreeKorea says this Google Earth screenshot shows the No. 12 Reeducation Camp at “Chongo-ri” or “Jeongeo-ri” in North Hamgyong Province, North Korea.

Rights activists are skeptical that celebrity visits to Pyongyang can produce meaningful results, but they are inclined to give Google credit for living up to its informal motto of "Don't Be Evil" when it comes to how Google Earth sheds light on North Korea. "What Eric Schmidt does or does not do in Pyongyang will probably be forgotten in a few weeks," said Joshua Stanton, a Washington lawyer who devotes his spare time to blogging and activism on North Korea human rights. "The good that Google has done, however inadvertently, by helping people tell the truth about North Korea, will probably be reflected in the history of the country one day," he said.

Google has characterized Schmidt's trip as "personal" travel, and Schmidt did not respond to requests for comment before leaving for Pyongyang. The company declined to comment on the use of Google Earth in monitoring North Korea. Richardson said last week he hoped to win the release of Kenneth Bae, a U.S. tour guide detained in the North since November.

Hidden gulag no longer so hidden

 

[waltky]

No. Korea is one big prison camp anyway...

Signs North Korea expanding controls near notorious prison camp
March 8th, 2013 - North Korea may be expanding one of its notorious prison camps to incorporate control of civilians in adjacent villages.

Amnesty International says new satellite imagery of the area surrounding a prison known as Camp 14 shows signs of a security perimeter and guard towers around mining operations that are not typically seen in other villages. "What's most worrisome about this development is that it seems to expand the scope of control beyond the formal boundaries of the prison camp," said Frank Jannuzi, deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA, in a briefing with reporters. "You are seeing evidence of new levels of intrusion and control and security around civilian populations in a country already characterized by severe restrictions on basic freedom of movement and communication."

This DigitalGlobe image shows an area of increased security near a notorius North Korean prison camp.

The images, taken between 2006 and February of this year, show up to 20 probable guard towers and controlled points of entry to areas not immediately bordering the prison camp but in close proximity to areas undergoing an expansion in mining activities. There was also a significant addition of buildings in the area that Amnesty International said might be used to house citizens brought into the area to serve as forced labor in the mines. As many as 1,500 people may have been brought into the area to live in the new units, the group said. North Korea watchers who have traveled to the secretive nation in the past say the level of government control varies from village to village.

But new guard towers and security gates surrounding villages near Camp 14 may indicate that no one gets in or out of the region without official permission, Amnesty International says. With most of the world's focus centered on the bellicose rhetoric from the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Amnesty International says it hopes the photos will spur the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry that could get on the ground and investigate current conditions.

And with additional sanctions from the U.N. Security Council this week directed at the North's recent ballistic missile and nuclear tests, Jannuzi said there should be additional focus on other likely drivers of change within North Korea. "If there is to be change on the Korean peninsula, it's going to come through a change in the human condition, the mindset of the North Korean people in government, their exposure to the outside world and the world's attention to their suffering," he said.

Signs North Korea expanding controls near notorious prison camp ? CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs

 

[t_polkow]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dey can't deny an' hide it from the world anymore...

Google Earth Helps Put N. Korea Gulag System on Map
January 10, 2013 - Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's visit to North Korea this week has been met with sharp criticism and low expectations, but the global Internet search giant indirectly is helping to make history by revealing one of the reclusive country's darkest secrets, say human rights activists.

Google Earth, the company's popular satellite imagery product, might have been the last thing Schmidt would have wanted to showcase for his hosts, because it presents a bird's eye view of many things secretive North Korea wants to keep hidden. Human rights activists and bloggers have taken a Google program used mostly for recreation, education and marketing and applied it to map a vast system of dozens of prison camps that span North Korea, a country slightly smaller in area than Greece and home to 23 million people.

As many as 250,000 political prisoners and their families toil on starvation rations in the mostly remote mountain camps, according to estimates by international human rights groups. Schmidt's trip to Pyongyang with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has been criticized by the U.S. State Department as ill-timed - coming weeks after North Korea conducted a rocket launch in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

OneFreeKorea says this Google Earth screenshot shows the No. 12 Reeducation Camp at “Chongo-ri” or “Jeongeo-ri” in North Hamgyong Province, North Korea.

Rights activists are skeptical that celebrity visits to Pyongyang can produce meaningful results, but they are inclined to give Google credit for living up to its informal motto of "Don't Be Evil" when it comes to how Google Earth sheds light on North Korea. "What Eric Schmidt does or does not do in Pyongyang will probably be forgotten in a few weeks," said Joshua Stanton, a Washington lawyer who devotes his spare time to blogging and activism on North Korea human rights. "The good that Google has done, however inadvertently, by helping people tell the truth about North Korea, will probably be reflected in the history of the country one day," he said.

Google has characterized Schmidt's trip as "personal" travel, and Schmidt did not respond to requests for comment before leaving for Pyongyang. The company declined to comment on the use of Google Earth in monitoring North Korea. Richardson said last week he hoped to win the release of Kenneth Bae, a U.S. tour guide detained in the North since November.

Hidden gulag no longer so hidden

Wow the DPRK even labeled what is is we are looking at! The camp sight and number of the camp!! Thats good enough for me!!

 

[UKRider]

Curtis Melvin, who has spent years leading a crowdsourcing effort to map North Korea using Google Earth, said he was surprised to learn of the separate work for Google Maps. "It's not even a fraction of what I've already published," he said. Mr. Melvin's work, for example, shows the outlines of what his collaborators have said are several more prison camps than are visible on the Google Maps version.

Mr. Melvin, who publishes a website called North Korean Economy Watch, recently collaborated with 38 North, a North Korea website operated by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, on a digital atlas of North Korea. He has relied on information provided by people who have visited the country or former citizens who defected from it.

Jayanth Mysore, a Google senior product manager, wrote in a blog post that the North Korea map is "not perfect" and added Google encourages people "to continue helping us improve the quality of these maps."

Hwang Min-woo, a 28-year-old South Korean who contributed to the North Korea map, said he began working on it after trying to use Google Maps on a trip to Laos four years ago and finding it inadequate.

Google Maps Details Streets, Prison Camps in North Korea - WSJ.com

 

[Mad Scientist]

What is problem? America have Prisons too you know as well as Death Penalty.

Does this "Google Earth" also show Kaesong Joint Manufacturing Facility in North Korea that is used by South Korea?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region

Bonus Question: Why America have Military in South Korea?

 

[Unkotare]

What is problem? America have Prisons too you know as well as Death Penalty.

Does this "Google Earth" also show Kaesong Joint Manufacturing Facility in North Korea that is used by South Korea?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region

Bonus Question: Why America have Military in South Korea?

Is this a little act you are putting on, troll? How long until you get tired of it?

 

[waltky]

Lil' Kim workin' his people to death in labor camps...

Deaths occur every day at North Korea prison camp, analyst says
July 18, 2016 -- As many as four people die every day in North Korea's Kaechon internment camp, also known as the notorious Camp 14.

The causes of death include malnutrition, disease and escape attempts. North Korea has reduced its prison population in the past decade and now detains 80,000 to 120,000 for "crimes against the state." But Han Dong-ho, a research fellow at the North Korea human rights research center at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Monday conditions at Camp 14 are no less grim than in past decades. "Kaechon internment camp located in the city of Kaechon in South Pyongan Province imprisons 3,000-4,000 people but there is no heating and air conditioning system in a place of malnutrition and disease...where there is a lack of proper care and medicine for the injured," Han said, according to South Korean news service No Cut News.

Han also said there are no fixed working hours, and hours worked are filled by quota. If the workload is not fulfilled, prisoners are deprived of food, subject to beatings or solitary confinement, Han said. The researcher said solitary confinement consists of a week of detention. The prison camp retains many North Korean defectors who were repatriated from China, News 1 reported.

Diseases travel quickly inside the camp and as many as 30-50 people can die in a day if a contagion spreads rapidly while the authorities do nothing to intervene. Han also said families of the imprisoned are not notified of their deaths. Other human rights violations occurring at the camp include various torture methods that have included punching, kicking, whipping, electric shocks, food and sleep deprivation, rape, forced abortions and waterboarding.

Deaths occur every day at North Korea prison camp, analyst says

See also:

Ill North Korea woman kills herself under pressure of forced labor
July 18, 2016 - The woman was ill but was required to pledge free labor to the regime.

A North Korean woman killed herself after pressure from authorities to take part in a mass-mobilization movement known as the "200-day battle." The unidentified woman in her 40s from Sinpa County in Yanggang Province was in poor health, a source in the province told South Korean news service Daily NK. But despite her health condition North Korean authorities required that she volunteer free labor on behalf of the Kim Jong Un regime.

The woman killed herself while facing pressure from the government, the source said. According to witnesses, the woman was heard frequently saying, "What is the point of living like this," referring to her personal hardships and health condition. "She chose the most extreme option in the face of state pressure to pledge forced labor, after leading a difficult life, living hand-to-mouth selling goods, rather than farming," the North Korean source said.

The demands of North Korea's mass-mobilization movement mean there are no provisions for taking care of the sick. "Kim Jong Un professes a love of the people but ultimately the authorities are pushing people to their deaths," the source said. The 200-day battle was announced at Kim's Seventh Party Congress and is part of his five-year economic development strategy, according to News 1. But the policy could be hurting ordinary people's livelihoods. The price of rice, a staple North Korean grain, has jumped recently in the wake of the movement.

Ill North Korea woman kills herself under pressure of forced labor

 

[Bleipriester]

Oh no! No air conditioners!

 

[strollingbones]

how does n koreas prision population compared to the us?