1. Camp 22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBYDE6yWl0I Location: North Korea In at number one is the Hoeryong Concentration Camp - known as penal labour colony No. 22 - in North Korea. This modern day Auschwitz was hidden from the world until Kwon Hyok, a security officer in the camp, defected to China in the late nineties. He described the many barbaric acts metered out to the 50,000 political prisoners since the camp opened in 1965. He explained how the camp guards are instructed to regard the prisoners as slaves and not treat them as human beings. They are permitted to kill any prisoner at any time. Kwon himself once ordered the execution of 31 people as a collective punishment for one person's escape attempt. Daily life revolves around dangerous physical labour in mines, without any safety measures, where the corpses of those worked to death are burnt along with the coal. Food is scarce with prisoners only getting 6oz of corn per meal with no vegetables or meat and Hyok estimates 2000 people a year die of malnutrition. Rape and sexual violence is commonplace and any female prisoners who resist are killed. Kwon Hyuk also revealed that experimentation on prisoners is carried out with entire families including children herded into glass chambers and killed via anthrax and suffocating gas as well as reports that prisoners are used as guinea pigs for bomb testing. 'Once in never out' could be the mantra of Camp 22 as all prisoners are detained until they die but the worst part is the principle of guilt by association. If someone is arrested for speaking out against the government then their entire family, including babies and any elderly, would be imprisoned there to remove the 'roots' of the dissent. In 2012, it was reported that over 25,000 prisoners died of starvation within a short period of time and the remaining inmates were relocated to a different facility. Their current whereabouts, and fate, is unknown. Like this article? Let us know in the comments section below.