For Immediate Release

No Chain (The Association of North Korean Political Victims & Their Families) has received news from inside North Korea through its sources, that barbed wire fencing from one of its political prison camps, Camp 22 (Hoeryoung gwan-li-so, closed in June 2009), is being used as border fencing along the North Korea-China border, with work starting earlier this month. 

The work of dismantling and shipping the barbed wire fencing to the border area is being carried out by state-run companies (공장 기업소) and their laborers/workers, with the entire ‘project’ expected to take about a month.  The border area that will be covered with additional fencing with barbed wire material from Camp 22 will be around the Hoeryoung (회령), Onsung (온성), and Saetbyul(샛별) areas in North Hamgyung Province (함경북도) along the Tumen River (두만강).

“According to our sources inside North Korea, the laborers tasked with carrying out this project - the ones who are dismantling the barbed wire from Camp 22, loading them on trucks, and unloading the materials along the border area and putting up the barbed wire fencing again - have been told by the Worker’s Party officials that this new project is being carried out in order to ‘prevent invasion plans by the Chinese’,” said Mr. JUNG Gwang Il, Founder & Executive Director of No Chain. 

“This action being carried out by the regime and using China as an excuse is nothing more than a move by the regime to further enhance the border security to prevent residents from escaping to China, and to internally strengthen the regime’s power and control over the people; it also highlights the deteriorating relationship between North Korea and China, in light of China supporting new sanctions against North Korea for its provocative actions in recent months”, said Henry Song, North America Director for No Chain. 

“The North Korean regime is using this to turn the people against the China, in light of recent developments, and is a marked turn in the relationship between the two countries, and another way that the regime is lashing out against the new sanctions moves,” added Mr. JUNG.

No Chain will wait for further updates from inside North Korea regarding this development.

 Let’s continue to pray for the deliverance of North Korea from its depraved and demented government under Kim Jung-Un and that China will decide enough is enough and remove this rogue regime from power so its people can go free.