a has officially had no cases, but nevertheless they develop these symptoms, so they need to be quarantined. That means, in effect, that they're locked away in camps and left there to rot.
Here's more from the Daily NK.
North Korea recently created a new camp for violators of COVID-19 quarantine rules in Sungho-ri, North Hwanghae Province, Daily NK has learned.
Previously, Daily NK reported that North Korean authorities are sending quarantine violators to political prison camps, charging them with violating Workers’ Party policy and treating them as “special criminals” guilty of political crimes.
In a phone conversation with Daily NK on Wednesday, a source in North Korea said with the number of quarantine violators “greatly increasing,” a new political prison camp was opened in Hwachon to accommodate them. According to the source, the new camp “isn’t big, and it is managed by the Ministry of Social Security.”
The Ministry of Social Security currently manages Camp 17 in Kaechon and Camp 18 in Pukchang, both of which are in South Pyongan Province.
The facility may be similar in size to those two camps or slightly smaller.
“[The authorities] opened the facility in one of the coal mines where there used to be a work site for the Hwachon Political Prison Camp,” said the source. “They created the new camp by walling off the mine and using the existing buildings.”
Sounds lovely.
Nonetheless, serious human rights abuses are reportedly taking place in the camp, according to the source.
“Having opened a new prison, the authorities make an example of newly arrived prisoners by making them run in teams of seven after finishing work in the mine,” said the source. “The excuse is to make them reflect on their crimes before the Fatherland.
“If you pass out while running, they make you run more – 10 times the amount of time you were on the ground,” he continued, adding, “In early December, six of 53 new prisoners died a day after entering the camp [from cruel treatment].”
The source also told Daily NK that the authorities are not properly enforcing COVID-19 quarantine protocols in the camp. He noted that people are being sent to the camp for violating quarantine rules, but within the facility, “things are a mess.”
The report talks of "quarantine violators", but one can't help wondering whether this just refers to those who've broken the quarantine rules, or whether it's in fact North-Korea-speak for those who've actually developed Covid-like symptoms. Presumably, by their thinking, anyone who develops coronavirus symptoms must at some point have violated quarantine regulations, and so bears the guilt of crimes against the Fatherland for their condition.
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