Category: Kim Jong Un

North Korea continues to expand prison camps

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Washington-based Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) released images of Camp No. 25, a camp near Chongjin, on North Korea’s northeast coast. According to HRNK, the camp underwent an expansion before 2010, when it almost doubled in scale, and has continued to operate at its larger size.

“Our satellite imagery analysis of Camp No. 25 and other such unlawful detention facilities appears to confirm the sustained, if not increased importance of the use of forced labor under Kim Jong-un,” HRNK executive director Greg Scarlatoiu said in a statement.

HRNK‘s report comes after separate analysis by Amnesty International this month concluded that Pyongyang “is continuing to maintain, and even invest, in these repressive facilities. … These camps constitute the cornerstone of the country’s large infrastructure dedicated to political repression and social control that enables widespread and systematic human rights abuses.”

The UN’s 2014 report estimated that “hundreds of thousands of political prisoners” have died in the North Korean gulags over the past 50 years amid “unspeakable atrocities.”

[CNN]

Refusing to stop criticizing Kim Jong-un

Posted on by

Yeonmi Park is a young woman who fled North Korea through Mongolia. Border guards had surrounded her group of refugees as it meandered through the Gobi desert, and told them they would be immediately sent back to China.

Yeonmi and her mother begged for their lives. When that failed, they tried something altogether more radical. They grabbed the small knives they had brought and thrust them to their throats, threatening to commit suicide unless the guards let them stay in Mongolia. ‘I thought it was the end of my life. We were saying goodbye to one another,’ Yeonmi says.

Their actions, though, proved effective. Yeonmi and her mother were taken into custody and after 15 days were transferred to a detention center in Ulan Bator, the Mongolian capital. Several weeks later they were handed over to South Korean officials and one day Yeonmi stood at Ulan Bator’s Chinggis Khaan airport preparing to board a plane for Seoul. It was her first time flying and her new-found freedom had not yet sunk in. ‘Oh my God,’ she thought when Mongolian customs officials waved her through. ‘They didn’t stop me.’

A few hours later the plane touched down at Incheon airport in Seoul. Yeonmi stepped off the passenger jet wearing a shabby prison uniform. She remembers gasping at the sight of the moving walkways – a contraption unimaginable in her broken and impoverished homeland – and the immaculate lavatory facilities. ‘It was the first time I had seen a fancy rest room. I thought, “It’s so clean. Do I wash my hands in the [lavatory bowl]?’’ ’ she says. ‘Every­thing was shiny. I’d never seen anything like it.’

In April she was finally reunited with the sister she had long feared was dead; Eunmi, now 23, had reached South Korea via China and Thailand.

Still Yeonmi feels she has not entirely escaped the clutches of Kim Jong-un’s regime. South Korea allocates local detectives to keep an eye on all newly arrived defectors, and in May Yeonmi received a call from the official handling her case. He warned her that her name had been added to a ‘target list’ of outspoken defectors that the North Korean regime wanted to eliminate. The revelation made her more angry than scared.

The detective and Yeonmi’s mother urged her to stop criticizing Kim Jong-un. But she ignored them, convinced that she, as someone who had suffered the same fate, now had a moral obligation to draw attention to the thousands of women risking sexual violence and murder as they tried to escape North Korea.

[The Telegraph]

Might Trump Administration decrease focus on North Korean human rights?

Posted on by

On Wednesday Tomás Ojea Quintana, the new United Nations Special Rapporteur for North Korean human rights, met with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se in Seoul to consult on plans to again bring a resolution before the United Nations Security Council next month to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry issued a report comparing ongoing atrocities in North Korea to those committed by Nazi Germany, and documenting a network of political prisons in the country incarcerating nearly 120,000 men, women and children, as well as widespread and systematic abuses that include torture, enslavement, rape and murder.

The recent election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president has raised questions over whether his administration will prioritize support for human rights abroad.  Trump has said he would be willing to meet informally with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without any pre-conditions.

Rights advocates are concerned the President-elect will be willing to overlook the North’s human rights violations and drop calls for further U.N. rebukes in exchange for stronger support from China and Russia to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

[VoA]

China censors website searches mocking Kim Jong Un after North Korean complaints

Posted on by

Searches for the Chinese words “Jin San Pang” (“Kim Fatty the Third”) on the search engine Baidu and microblogging platform Weibo returned no results this week, after North Korean officials reportedly conveyed their displeasure in a meeting with their Chinese counterparts.

The nickname pokes fun at Kim’s girth and his status as the third generation of the Kim family to rule the world’s only hereditary communist dynasty.

It is especially popular among young, irreverent Chinese who tend to look down on their country’s would-be ally.

[AP]

North Korea the world’s worst religious persecutor

Posted on by

Many governments persecute people of religious faith. However, one nation stands out: North Korea.

Before World War II missionaries were active throughout the peninsula and more than a fifth of the population was Christian.

Today, North Korea (DPRK) ostentatiously treats anyone of faith, but especially Christians, as hostile. Open Doors recently rated the DPRK number one for the 14th year in a row on the group’s “World Watch List.” Explained Open Doors: “Christianity is not only seen as ‘opium of the people’ as is normal for all communist states; it is also seen as deeply Western and despicable.

“Christians try to hide their faith as far as possible to avoid arrest and being sent to a labor camp. Thus, being Christian has to be a well-protected secret, even within families, and most parents refrain from introducing their children to the Christian faith in order to make sure that nothing slips their tongue when they are asked.”

Last year the British group Aid to the Church in Need published a persecution report which figured that some 50,000 Christians may currently be in the DPRK’s penal camps. The organization warned that the Kim Jong-un regime appeared to be tightening controls over potential dissent, including a vigorous crackdown on Christians. Aid reported that “Since 1953, at least 200,000 Christians have gone missing. If caught by the regime, unauthorized Christians face arrest torture or in some cases public execution.”

A special UN Commission of Inquiry pointed to the “almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” Believers “are prohibited from practicing their religion” and punished severely if disobedient. The ruling regime “considers the spread of Christianity a particularly severe threat.” Read more

Over 75 percent of North Korean Christians do not survive persecution

Posted on by

Human rights groups are reporting on new grim statistics from North Korea and its treatment of religious minorities, including Christians, revealing that more than 75 percent of those subjected to torture, imprisonment, and other punishments do not survive.

UPI reported on statistics from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, a South Korean nonprofit organization, which are based on the testimonies of defectors, identifying over 65,000 cases of religious persecution.

International Christian Concern, Open Doors USA, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide are some of the persecution watchdog groups that have documented the horrific treatment of minorities in North Korea.

CSW’s report released in September found close to 99 percent of 11,370 defectors in the study confirmed that there is no religious freedom under the government of Kim Jong-un. It also noted that the North Korean government tortures, mutilates, and kills Christians. The report added that some of the documented incidents against believers include “being hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges, and trampled underfoot.”

The interviews also reveal less than 23 percent of victims of religious persecution survive their punishment, according to defectors’ testimonies.

“A policy of guilt by association applies, meaning that the relatives of Christians are also detained regardless of whether they share the Christian belief. Even North Koreans who have escaped to China, and who are or become Christians, are often repatriated and subsequently imprisoned in a political prison camp,” CSW noted.

As the watchdog group also explained, religious belief is seen as a major threat to North Korea’s leadership, with Christians often accused of being imperialists seeking to undermine the rule of the ‘supreme leader,’ as Kim Jong-un is known.

[The Christian Post]

How might President Donald Trump deal with Kim Jong-un?

Posted on by

In the list of urgent priorities awaiting the US president-elect North Korea is likely to be near the top. With the best expert advice suggesting it could have a functioning nuclear arsenal capable of hitting the US within five years, how might Donald Trump deal with Kim Jong-un?

Donald Trump has called Kim Jong-un a “bad dude”. But he also added that he would be prepared to meet him over a hamburger.

And Kim Jong-un seems to have made an assessment of the president-elect. In June, the state-controlled media called Mr Trump a “wise politician” and the right choice for American voters.

In Iowa in January, the American president-elect betrayed a trace of admiration, even as he suggested his counterpart was crazy. “This guy, he’s like a maniac, OK? And you have to give him credit. How many young guys – he was like 26 or 25 when his father died – take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden, you know, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it,” he said. “I mean, this guy doesn’t play games. And we can’t play games with him. Because he really does have missiles. And he really does have nukes”.

So what might President Trump do to prevent North Korea fulfilling its ambition to become a fully-fledged nuclear power? On television in February, Mr Trump indicated that he thought China was the key: “China has control – absolute control – over North Korea. They don’t say it, but they do…I would force China to do it economically”.

[Read full BBC article]

30000 North Korean defectors will have officially reached South Korea in November 2016

Posted on by

The number of North Korean defectors who have arrived in South Korea over the years will reach the 30,000 mark this month, the unification ministry said Sunday.

“As of late October, there are 29,948 former North Koreans in the South so the 30,000 mark should be reached around Nov. 15-16,” an official from the ministry in charge of formulating North Korean policy said.

He said Seoul plans to mark the occasion with a new resettlement policy that will better help escapees integrate into South Korean society. The new plan aims to facilitate greater social participation of North Korea defectors, help them find jobs and concentrate on helping youngsters assimilate into schools and their studies.

There has been a 21 percent spike in defectors reaching the country this year compared to 2015. Official data showed that 2016 marked the first year since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took power in late 2011 that the number of defectors increased noticeably. Initially, a drop in numbers was attributed to tighter border control along the North Korea-China frontier which is not generally heavily guarded.

Official sources attributed this year’s increase to the “reign of terror” perpetrated by Kim, and tighter international sanctions that is forcing North Korean workers living abroad to repatriate more money.

Those defectors who cited freedom and discontent over North Korean politics reached 87.8 percent in the 2014-16 period, from 33.3 percent before 2001, and 42.1 percent in the 2002-2005 period.

[Yonhap]

North Koreans joke about Kim Jong Un and his government

Posted on by

Political satire, jokes at the expenses of national leaders, and outright criticism of the government are normal parts of both public and private lives in democratically based states across the globe.

But North Korea is not a free and open society. So what do North Koreans think about their leaders?

An interview project with North Koreans currently residing in North Korea found that 35 of 36 respondents’ family, friends, or neighbors complain or make jokes about the government in private.

The fact that all but one of the interviewees say people they know complain and makes jokes about the government is an extraordinary number given the gravity with which the North Korean regime responds to criticism.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights (published in February 2014) on the subject of North Korean’s rights and freedoms  found that there is “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought… as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion.”

People who express dissent or criticize the state, even if unintentionally, are subject to harsh punishments and detention, often punished without trial. Suspects of political crimes may simply disappear and their relatives may never be notified of the arrest, the charges, or the whereabouts of the alleged criminal. If not executed, citizens accused of major political crimes are sent to a political prison camp.

[Read more at Beyond Parallel]

Where is Kim Jong-un’s wife, Ri Sol-ju?

Posted on by

The wife of Kim Jong-un has not been seen in public for seven months prompting speculation that she is either pregnant or perhaps has fallen out of favor.

Experts monitoring the situation in Pyongyang have suggested Ri Sol-ju, who was introduced as First Lady in 2012, may have fallen out with Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, who is increasingly regarded as the power behind the throne. Kim Yo-jong was put in charge of North Korea’s Propaganda and Agitation Department last year and is responsible for building up her brother’s cult of personality.

Ri was last seen on a tour of a new commercial district and health complex in Pyongyang on March 28 March of this year, South Korean news agency Yonhap News reported. In contrast Kim Jong-un has frequently been seen touring the country and hosted the country’s first party congress in 36 years in May.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University who focuses on the Pyongyang leadership, said: “There are several possible reasons, including that she is pregnant or that there is some sort of problem between the two of them. There have also been reports of instability in Pyongyang and rumors of several attempted attacks, including by factions in the North Korean military, against Kim last year. So it is also possible that Ri has not appeared in public because she is being closely guarded.”

In 2012, Ri disappeared from public view, prompting speculation that she had fallen out of favor or was pregnant. It was later revealed that she gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter, sometime in late 2012.

On the other hand, Kim Jong-un is not above disposing of those closest to him if they fall out of favor. He executed his uncle, Jang Sung-taek, after finding him guilty of treason despite their relationship being reportedly close beforehand. Announcing the execution, Kim Jong-un denounced him as “human scum worse than a dog” for an alleged attempt to introduce reform.

[The Independent]