Embargoed until 9:00a.m. EST Friday, September 18

HRNK and AllSource Analysis have worked together to give you an updated satellite imagery analysis of one of the political prison camps in North Korea, Camp 15. Together, HRNK and ASA have discovered the closure of the "Revolutionizing Zone." 

While examining satellite imagery of an area near the North Korean capital city, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and AllSource Analysis, Inc. (ASA) may have come across evidence of a ghastly sight: the public execution of several individuals by anti-aircraft machine gun fire.

Please click here to read more. 

On April 27, 2015, HRNK released their report, Arsenal of Terror: North Korea, State Sponsor of Terrorism by Joshua Stanton at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Please click here to view the press release. 

As part of a joint undertaking with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) to use satellite imagery
to shed light on human suffering in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, more commonly known as North Korea, AllSource Analysis has been mon- itoring activity at political prison facilities throughout North Korea. This report details activity at the facility commonly known as Camp 15.

As part of a joint undertaking with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) to use satellite imagery to shed light on human suffering in North Korea AllSource Analysis (ASA) has been monitoring activity at political prison facilities in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, more commonly known as North Korea). 

This report covers activity observed during the past 12 months at the facility commonly known as Kwan-li-so No. 25 (Political Prison Camp No. 25) and updates HRNK’s February 2013 report on the same subject.

For this report, ASA undertook an imagery analysis of Camp No. 25 and its environs using a 50 cm pansharpened multispectral satellite image collected by Airbus Defense and Space (Airbus) on March 22, 2014.

In Illicit: North Korea’s Evolving Operations to Earn Hard Curre­­ncy, Sheena Chestnut Greitens provides a detailed and thoroughly researched account of the role of illicit activities in the North Korean economy. A central conclusion of Chestnut Greitens’ analysis is that in the context of eroding state control over the licit aspects of the economy, illicit activities are also being “privatized” by North Korea’s elite.  As HRNK Co-chair and former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios puts it, Chestnut Greitens’ report provides “evidence that a market economy is developing in North Korea, in this case a criminal one that is feeding off the suffering and deprivation of the population. The report is about the absence of the rule of law on a grand scale in North Korea and in a way that criminal activity is now being privatized.  It is very useful in understanding the perverse transformation of the country going on right now.”

David Hawk interprets reports of changes in North Korea's political prison camps in his most recent report, North Korea's Hidden Gulag: Interpreting Reports of Changes in the Prison Camps. Please view the press release here. 

The newest version of Coercion, Control, Surveillance, and Punishment: An Examination of the North Korea Police State by Ken Gause, updated on May 24, 2013. 

For this report, DigitalGlobe Analytics examined eleven images collected from 2003 to 2013 of the North Korean political prison facility known as Camp 25 (a.k.a. Kwan-liso No. 25, Political Prison Facility No. 25, No. 25 Chongjin Political Concentration Camp, Susŏng Correctional Center) in Susŏng-dong, Ch’ŏngjin-si, Hamgyŏng-bukto, on the northeast coast of the nation. In this analysis, imagery was compared to identify changes in the organization of the camp, including variations in:

• Walls, perimeter, guard posts and gates
• Administrative areas
• Light industrial and prisoner housing areas
• Agriculture
• Agricultural support facilities
• Other buildings

Imagery of these areas could reveal changes that would provide insight into the operational status, prison population and security of Camp 25.

As a follow-up to the October 2012 joint HRNK- DigitalGlobe imagery analysis of North Korea’s Camp 22 (Kwan-li-so No. 22, Korean People’s Security Guard Unit 2209), DigitalGlobe’s Analysis Center was asked to assist in identifying reported activity in and around Camp 22 in Hamgyŏng-bukto. More specifically, the Analysis Center was to examine:

• The outer perimeter fence, guard towers and guard positions to determine if some, or all, have been razed. The razing of these structures could indicate that Camp 22 prisoners have been replaced with a non-prisoner workforce.2
• Mining-related activities in the Kungsim-dong and Kungsimjukp’o-dong areas. Undisclosed sources claim that mining operations in these areas have been shut down and the miners relocated to the Chungbong-dong (i.e., Camp 22) Mine, replacing the former prisoner workforce there.3
• Examine and assess Camp 16 (Kwan-li-so No. 16) to determine if there is evidence that the prison population has increased in the past year. Such indications could support reports that prisoners from Camp 22 were transferred to Camp 16.
• Because of time and resource constraints, the Analysis Center can only address the first two items at this time. A future report will examine Camp 16.