Friday, November 30, 2007

Another North Korean atrocity

Time to do a human-rights post.

On A16 of today's WSJ, author Shin Dong-hyok briefly narrates his experience as a recent North Korean prisoner. Shocking? Read on.

"I was born a prisoner on Nov. 19, 1982, and until two years ago, North Korea's Political Prison Camp No. 14 was the only place I had ever called home." Chilling first sentence.

"Under North Korea's "Three Generation Rule," up to three generations of the criminal's family must be imprisoned as traitors." I guess the Great Leader takes Ex. 20:5b a bit too literally.

After being "tortured severely for seven months," he bears physical and emotional scars: "On Nov. 29, 1996, my mother and brother were found guilty of treason [he still cannot figure out what this 'crime' was] and sentenced to public execution. I was taken outside and forced to witness their deaths."

Why are we even considering this idolatrous regime as having a possibility of being good? This did not stop with Dong-hyok: "Today, tens of thousands are suffering silently in government-sponsored political prison camps in North Korea. Inmates...often fight with one another in hopes of getting one more meal...Women often undergo forced abortions and children have no childhood."

Dong-hyok writes from Seoul. "We must become their voice." Amen.

3 comments:

MathewK said...

Did you hear of the fellow that was caught for making overseas phone calls, they executed him in a stadium of around 150,000 people to make an example. Savage and barbaric, that place is run by an evil man.

Aurora said...

Hannah, this is a heartbreaking story. I can't stand to even think about Nth Korea. And I don't know what the solution is going to be because the international community doesn't give a flying hoot apparently. China is backing them up (because they have so many abuses of their own)

MathewK said...

One of the usual excuses offered by both China and S. Korea are what to do with the millions of refugees that will need to be fed and looked after if N. Korea falls.

I'd have to assume, they're waiting for all of them to die or something, cos i don't see anything else happening.