Samchung re-education camp

Samchung re-education camp
Indoctrination camps, labor camps
Coordinates	38°06′N 127°05′E
Location	Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea
Operated by	Government of South Korea
Operational	1980–1981
Number of inmates	60,000–100,000+ (peak)
Killed	at least 339

Samchung re-education camp
Hangul	삼청교육대
Hanja	三清教育隊
Revised Romanization	Samcheong Gyoyukdae
McCune–Reischauer	Samchung Kyoyuktae

The Samchung re-education camp was a South Korean concentration camp set up during the early 1980s under the rule of military dictator Chun Doo-hwan. More than 60,000 people—with estimates up to almost 100,000 people, many of them innocent civilians—were arrested without warrants and faced violent treatment in such camps. The camp was located in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province.

History

In August 1980, under the South Korean military junta, Samchung served as a prison camp for critics of the new military regime and people considered to be a "social ill". This included participants of the notable Gwangju Uprising.

Within a span of six months, more than 40,000 people, many of whom had clean criminal records, were forced into hard labor or faced physical violence by the military, with some of them dying due to ill-treatment.

There were four categories in the camp, A, B, C and D. Each letter corresponded to the severity of treatment an interned person would receive in the camp, with A being the most severe and D the least.

See also

• Human rights in South Korea
• Slavery on salt farms in Sinan County