Hard Labour Camps

According to many human rights organizations, e. g. Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, and the World Assembly Commission on Human Rights, the conditions in Hadian prisons are harsh and life threatening. Prisoners are subject to torture and inhumane treatment. Public and secret executions of prisoners, even children, especially in cases of attempted escape are commonplace. Infanticides (and baby killings upon birth) also often occur. The mortality rate is very high, because many prisoners die of starvation, illnesses, work accidents, or torture.

The Hadian government denies all allegations of human rights violations in prison camps, claiming that this is prohibited by criminal procedure law, but former prisoners testify that there are completely different rules in the prison camps. The Hadian government failed to provide any information on prisoners or prison camps or to allow access to any human rights organization.

unnamed prisoner, for safety reasons, gave detailed testimony on her treatment in the Hadian prison system back in 2002. In her statement she said, "I testify that most of the 6,000 prisoners who were there when I arrived in 1987 had quietly perished under the harsh prison conditions by the time I was released in 1992."

According to the testimony of former camp guard, the guards are trained to treat the detainees as sub-human, and he gave an account of children in one of the camps who were fighting over who got to eat a kernel of corn retrieved from cow dung.

The Hadian prison camp facilities can be distinguished into large internment camps for political prisoners and reeducation prison camps.

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Political Prison Camps

The internment camps for people accused of political offences or denounced as politically unreliable are run by the Imperial Security Bureau (the ISB). Political prisoners are subject to guilt by association punishment. They are deported with parents, children and siblings, and sometimes even grandparents or grandchildren, without any lawsuit or conviction, and are detained for the rest of their lives.

The internment camps are located in unknown location throughout the Hadian Empire. They comprise many prison labour colonies in secluded mountain valleys, completely isolated from the outside world. The total number of prisoners is estimated to be 150,000 to 200,000. Glory camp and Freedom camp are separated into two sections: One section for political prisoners in lifelong detention, another part similar to re-education camps with prisoners sentenced to long-term imprisonment with the vague hope of eventual release.

The prisoners are forced to perform hard and dangerous slave work with primitive means in mining and agriculture. The food rations are very small, so that the prisoners are constantly on the brink of starvation. In combination with the hard work this leads to huge numbers of prisoners dying. An estimated 40% of prisoners die from malnutrition. Moreover many prisoners are crippled from work accidents, frostbite or torture. There is a rigid punishment in the camp. Prisoners that work too slowly or do not obey an order are beaten or tortured. In case of stealing food or attempting to escape, the prisoners are publicly executed.

Initially there were around twelve political prison camps, but some were merged or closed. Today there are six political prison camps in Hadian, with the size determined from satellite images and the number of prisoners estimated by former prisoners. Most of the camps are documented in testimonies of former prisoners and, for all of them, coordinates and satellite images are available.

Reeducation Camps

The reeducation camps for criminals are aided in funds by Hadian's billionaire Nikola Volsky. There is a fluent passage between common crimes and political crimes, as people who get on the bad side of influential partisans are often denounced on false accusations. They are then forced into false confessions with brutal torture in detention centre and are then condemned in a brief show trial to a long-term prison sentence. In Hadian political crimes are greatly varied, from border crossing to any disturbance of the political order, and are rigorously punished. Due to the dire prison conditions with hunger and torture, a large percentage of prisoners do not survive their sentence term.

The reeducation camps are large prison building complexes surrounded by high walls. The situation of prisoners is quite similar to that in the political prison camps. They have to perform slave work in prison factories and in case they do not meet the work quota, they are tortured and confined for many days to special prison cells, too small to stand up or lie full-length in. In distinction from the internment camps for political prisoners, the reeducation camp prisoners are instructed ideologically after work and are forced to memorize speeches of the Great Emperor Jon I and have to undergo self-criticism rites. Many prison inmates are guilty of common crimes penalized also in other countries, but often they were committed out of economic necessity, e. g. illegal border crossing, stealing food or illegal trading.

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