Human rights for women in N.Korea is shocking

The status of Human rights for women in North Korea's Chongori concentration camp is shocking. Through a report titled "Help me! - Chongori concentration camp in North Korea : a place where there have been anti-human crimes", We will get a chance to know serious conditions inChongori concentration camp in North Korea. 80% people of those who defected from North Korea was repatriated to Chongori concentration camp and that place has been notorious for its treatment to inmates with harsh abuse. Acocording to that report, people inside the camp eat very little amount of food and all the inmates have to do harsh works such as logging, mining, and farming. And if they don't meet the quota, they can't sleep. Human rights for women is more shocking. Guard in that concentration camp forcibly abort a child and then make the womne infertile by burning their womb. And sexual harassment and torture is widely happening. We can't expect North Korean government to at least guarantee the right to lead a life as a human as well as freedom of ideology. North Korea's propaganda that it is a wonderful country and got a first rank in happiness index is totally unacceptable.

A dark age with out freedom of press

North Korea has once more been nominated as the country with worst freedom of press, religion, and expression. North Korea oppresses information, and even the media that's being used for state propagandas are under heavy surveillance and control of the state. The internet is heavily restricted to the very few. There is almost no exchange with the outside world. The reason for the oppression is freedom of press will hinder maintaining the oppressive regime. So, they control the media by only praising Kim Jong Un, and hide all the important things from its people. I feel sorry for the North Korean people who are living in a dark age without freedom of press.

The man who escaped from North Korea's maximum security concentration camp

French daily newspaper Le Monde featured an article about Shin Dong Hyuk, a North Korean man who was born in a North Korea concentration camp where he lived a miserable life until his escape. The title of the article is Escape from Camp 14. It captures the devastating reality of the North Korean government's violation of human rights. In the book, Shin vividly describes what his life was like on the camp. Shin had to witness the execution of his mother and brother after their failed attempt to escape the camp, and Shin's father had to endure merciless torture that eventually took his eyesight. There were unimaginable violence and torture. People were treated less than animals and were forced into gruesome labor. Shin said the words love, empathy, and family were unthinkable and meaningless in the camp. Hitler's death camps and Stalin's gulag are continuing their legacy through North Korea's concentration camps. The North Korean government's propaganda boasting its nation as a utopia and a paradise is outrageous and ridiculous.

S.Korea, U.S., China, Russia Urge N.Korea to Scrap Missile Launch

The leaders of South Korea, the U.S., China and Russia in bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit on Monday urged North Korea to abandon a planned rocket launch. Japan has also strongly demanded Pyongyang halt what many believe is really a long-range missile test, meaning all participants in six-party talks on the North nuclear program except the North itself are united in wanting the planned launch cancelled. President Lee Myung-bak met consecutively with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, where talks focused on North Korea. Hu and Medvedev also spoke one-on-one with U.S. President Barack Obama, who met Lee a day ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit. In the 45-minute meeting with Lee at Cheong Wa Dae, Hu called the rocket launch plan "undesirable" and added China's leadership is "trying hard to get North Korea to give it up it." China has evidently decided it is diplomatically wiser to adopt close ally Pyongyang's description of the planned launch, which the North says aims to put a satellite into orbit. But Hu's comments suggest that Beijing in principle agrees that the launch is a long-range ballistic missile test and therefore violates UN Security Council Resolution 1874. Medvedev also said in his meeting with Lee that Pyongyang should focus on feeding its people rather than launching any long-range missiles. The united positions of UN Security Council members China, Russia and the U.S. indicate that the North will not be able to avoid UN sanctions if it goes ahead with the launch.

Rough diplomacy: UN delegates in punch up

South Korean politicians have scuffled with North Korean delegates at a UN meeting on the North's alleged human rights abuses. Several South Koreans tried to grab a North Korean diplomat leaving UN meeting in Switzerland as they chanted slogans against China's policy of repatriating North Korean defectors, footage from Yonhap news agency shot on Monday showed. The South Koreans were pushed away by security and North Korean delegates. The incident came amid reports that China is returning dozens of North Koreans to their communist homeland instead of letting them defect to the South. China sees North Koreans who illegally cross its border as economic migrants, but activists fear the North Koreans are refugees who will face torture and imprisonment if repatriated.

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UNHRC Discusses Repatriation of N.Korean Defectors

A South Korean government representative to the UN Human Rights Council on Monday urged "all countries directly involved" to abide by the principle prohibiting forced repatriation so that North Korean defectors in China are not sent back against their will. In a keynote speech at a UNHRC meeting in Geneva, Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Bong-hyun said, "North Korean defectors are not a matter of political consideration but a humanitarian issue. They are in an unimaginably terrible situation where they are deprived of their basic rights and dignity. If repatriated, they face a seriously life-threatening and inhumane fate, including torture." Kim did not mention China directly. He also expressed concerns about human rights abuses in the North, especially in political prison camps. He urged the North to respond to the South Korean Red Cross' proposal to resume reunions of families separated by the Korean War and the North's bizarre abduction campaign. "An increasing number of families of abduction victims, prisoners-of-war and others have died without knowing whether their relatives are still alive," he said. Kim also mentioned the plight of so-called comfort women, who were pressed into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II. "All countries concerned should take necessary measures including compensation for the victims and punishment of those responsible, as well as trying to protect women during wartime," he said. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/02/28/2012022800746.html North Korean Defectors - Movie | Crossing 1 of 10

China to Repatriate 'Hundreds' of N.Koreans

Hundreds of North Korean defectors were awaiting repatriation as of last Friday after being arrested in various parts of China, rights activists say. "Some 220 defectors have been interrogated by regional security departments in China and are being held at about 10 detention centers near the North Korea-China border," said Kim Hoe-tae of Solidarity for North Korean Human Rights. "They'll be sent back to the North one by one." Other defector groups and activists say there are even more, counting those who are still on the way to detention centers after their arrests, bringing the total to anywhere between 300 and 400. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China sent between 4,800 and 8,900 defectors back to the North every year between 1998 and 2006, Kim added. Former unification deputy minister Kim Suk-woo agreed. "China has repatriated about 5,000 defectors to the North every year under an agreement on the extradition of fugitives and criminals it concluded with the North in the 1960s," he said. Different groups give different estimates on the number of defectors who have been arrested in Shenyang, Yanji, and Changchun this month, ranging from 24 to 40. "We're certain of the number of defectors arrested in China for whom we've worked through our brokers," a member of a defector group said. "But it's hard for us to find out the total number." But most activists believe the numbers reported in the press are just the tip of the iceberg. ◆ Flood of Refugees It is estimated that somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 North Koreans are currently roaming China, including North Korean women who were sold to Chinese men, people who crossed the border in search of food, and families who are trying to get to South Korea. Those who are looking for food often find work at factories or lumber camps in China as undocumented immigrant workers. But those who wish to defect to the South move to designated gathering points, from where they are taken to safe houses provided by Christian missions and cross the border through the southwestern province of Yunnan into Laos or Burma. They then make their way to Thailand, where they spend three or four weeks in immigration detention centers before they are deported to South Korea. Some 2,500 to 3,000 defectors have reached South Korea annually over the past five years, 2,737 last year. ◆ Hardship The fate of defectors who are arrested in China and repatriated depends on what motivated them to flee in the first place. Those who fled hunger are normally categorized as ordinary criminals and held in prisons or labor camps managed by the Ministry of People's Security. They suffer forced labor and beatings but are released after a certain period. But those who are found to have attempted to escape to South Korea, contacted South Koreans or foreigners, or visited churches, are treated as political criminals and held in political concentration camps supervised by the State Security Department. Some are executed, depending on the extent of their crimes or the prevailing mood in the regime. "Defectors can escape the most severe punishment if they insist that they were merely trying to find food in China, even if they really wanted to go to South Korea," a defector said. "But if media reports confirm that they were trying to get to the South, as we've seen recently, they face the worst kind of punishment." Meanwhile, the North Korean propaganda website Uriminzokkiri accused South Korea of "making a bigger fuss about the issue of 'defectors' than ever before." It was the first response from the North since conflict between South Korea and China over the issue started making headlines.

Is China trying to be called a murderer?