Essay on North Korea: Hope for the Helpless

North Korea’s prison camps are extremely horrifying. A decade later after World War l, North Korea established its own system of prison camps (Szoldra). As same as concentration camps, prisoners were inhumanly punished. Since then, prison conditions in North Korea are horrendous and not tolerated by prisoners as well as their family members and society. North Korea’s prison systems not only frightened the prisoners, but the society as well. Because of the issues generated by North Korea’s horrifying prison conditions have not only been serious problems in history but also today, this issue is being resolve by the collaboration of society.

The mistreatment of men, women, and children not only affect the citizens of North Korea, but also the countries around the world trying to fight for human rights. Numerous communities have been pushing for respectful treatment of all individuals. While many countries have progressed in allowing everyone more human rights, North Korea has backtracked. The government prevents their citizens the freedom of speech, the privacy of life, and the ability to nourish their bodies. Tom Head, a civil rights activist, describes how the North Korean government forces their citizens to remain loyal and obedient to the republic. Head expresses that “anyone who is overheard saying anything perceived as critical to the government is subject to...torture, execution, or imprisonment in one of North Korea's ten brutal concentration camps” (Head). Sadly, if citizens of North Korea demonstrate a disagreement toward the ideology of Kim Jong Un, they could be inhumanely murdered or imprisoned. According to Human Rights Watch, “the [North Korean] government [has the ability] to

North Korea has been hiding concentration camps from the entire world for years. Their restrictive laws keep the rest of the world from finding out, or that’s what the tiny country tries to achieve. This results in a major problem. Many people are being held against their will in camps that feed them barely any food and other necessary resources-- Some even resorted to desperate measures. “One witness said that young male inmates in North Korean prison camps became so desperate for food they would eat live worms or snakes caught in the field to feel something in their stomachs” (Park, CNN) This catastrophe affects “...up to 200,000 prisoners...” (Reist 5) and needs to be fixed. There are many stories about people who have been taken by the North Korean government and were put in concentration camps. For example, two foreign journalists were visiting North Korea and were put into a camp with no real reason specified from North Korea; it’s believed that these two girls are innocent. “[The ladies] were tried and convicted of grave crimes against North Korea, the nature of which was never specified” (NPR 6). They are

In the northern part of the Korean peninsula lies North Korea. After Japan ended its rule over Korea, it is soon divided between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Korean War lasted for three years and remained divided. The "eternal president", Kim Il Sung, ruled from 1912 to 1994. He wanted North Korea to be self-sufficient and independent socially and economically. Sung created reforms to

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea, has always had a history of imprisoning people that disagree with the governments policies, or for “disrespecting” the countries leaders, but these prisons are not just any prisons, they are prison camps, which function similarly to Nazi Concentration Camps.

The Secret State of North Korea offered a great look into what basic things North Koreans are lacking. Even within the realm of Communism. Lack of freedoms, lack of food, lack of community, lack of trust, lack of a social society, lack of programs for children, lack of equality, and a lack of information. When Kim Il-Sung created North Korea, the government was based on Marxism and Leninism, called “Juche.” Just as the Soviets, the North Koreans followed suite with massive inequality between the government officials and the common people. The documentary showed its viewers what the government is omnipresent in the everyday lives of its people, so much so that recordings of daily life are illegal, and “random” searches take place commonly.

Many countries are against what is being done in North Korea prison camps (gulags) and sympathize with the victims, because it is a crime against humanity. After watching an interview of Shin Dong-hyuk with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, I found the testimony of the ex-prisoner appalling yet intriguing. It made me question, how can an entire country get away with heinous crimes against humanity for this long? The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues to be defiant to international law by committing a crime against humanity through means of imprisonment of the wrongly accused, imprisonment without a fair public trial, child labor, and cruel

The government claims that citizens get the full amount of basic rights and claim that DPRK has the best rights in the world ( Federal Research Division, 172-175). Contrary to what they said, the DPRK is one of the most repressive governments on the face of the earth. Their constitution claims that they get freedom of religion, speech, press, and more ( 175-176). The North Korean government instead ignores every single word in their own constitution (United Nations Human Rights Council 3). The Supreme People’s Assembly meets only once a year ( Federal Research Division, 175-176). The current state of modern North Korea is based off the policy of aggression, fear, and governmental brainwashing. (Daily Mail Reporter). North Korean citizens can and will be placed in a labor camp if they do anything that goes against the regime (“North Korea”). Not only can North Korean citizens get placed in a labor camp for going against the regime, but foreigners can and will be placed in a labor camp for committing that crime, too (David Brunnstrom). In the North, the government boasts about many of their so-called achievements and superiority over the others. Their media constantly shows how plentiful and how powerful the country is (“Kim Jong Un's New Year Address”). Videos and images of industry, food, technology, and stocked stores picture the country as a perfect

The country of North Korea has long been under the watchful eye of not only the United States but also the United Nations for many years over concerns of it nuclear weapons program but now, they are being looked at for an entirely different reason. Recent reports about the inhuman treatment of an estimated 200,000 North Korean citizens in the countries six political prison camps are been closely looked at. These reports show the mistreatment, starvation, and even unlawful killing of North Korean citizens from everything from owning a Bible to watching soap operas.

North Korea which is ranked as one of the world's most corrupt governments, has had many problems with the U.N and many other Human Rights Programs, North Korea constantly torture their civilians and take bribes to persuasive them . According to The index of Freedom.

Of the myriad human rights abuses that are presented by the North Korean regime, the American detainees present a special interest to the United States. North Korea has made a policy of detaining certain American journalists and tourists that enter the state. These detainees may be held for indeterminable amounts of time and face horrid conditions in labor camps (North Korea). The human rights violations involved with these detentions are what draw ire of the United States and many other countries around the globe. To fully understand this policy, North Korea’s history of abductions and the current prisoners’ situations should be examined. With that insight, one can determine that North Korea is detaining Americans for three specific reasons: to promote domestic security, restart international negations, and to gain additional economic capital.

According to senior editor Peter Weber of the political The Week magazine, “North Korea isn’t Nazi Germany--in some ways, it’s worse.” In this column Weber points out a 36 page report and its 373 page addendum report conducted by retired Australian judge Michael Kirby of the United Nations that revealed grisly details about the human rights abuses occurring in North Korea. The report was based on testimonies from witnesses and former inmates who had spent time in one of the encampments and who luckily made it out alive. Pyongyang 14 is one of the many camps that Kim Jong-un has in place to exterminate, murder, enslave, torture, and starve his people as the report notes. In addition, there are also forced abortions and other sexual violence that take place in this inhumane setting. North Korea forbids that their citizens know about life outside of the country, so if they attempt to do so there will be room for them in one of the prison camps since Jong-un is expanding their capacity. Something as little as watching a soap opera can land a North Korean in one of these camps, that is if they are not killed right away. For example, 10 people in the country were executed last year by firing squad when upper echelons in the North Korean hierarchy found out that they were watching “foreign” soap operas (Ryall). It is beyond belief that one’s life can be taken for something of such small magnitude. In Weber’s column he describes an interview Kirby had with a one-time prisoner at

Under Yi Sŏng-Gye’s son King Sejong, considered Korea’s greatest ruler, inventions like the rain gauge, the use of a movable type, and the birth of Korean alphabet called Hangeul, still in use today, surfaced. (Piddock, 27-28) They ruled the entire peninsula for 500 years. Then Korea was annexed by neighbors Japan in 1910. Korea continued to be under Japan until 1945 when it was liberated at the end of World War II. (“North Korea”, Culturegrams) “With the defeat of Japan in 1945, the Allies agreed to divide the Korean Peninsula between the Soviet Union and the United States at the thirty-eighth parallel as a temporary measure.” (Piddock, 30) The Soviet Union received the Northern part of Korea, and the United States the South. “.. Soviet forces closed off northern Korea at the thirty-eighth parallel and placed Korean communists in power there.” Evidently, North Korea was bound to turn communist.

North Korea appears on the international stage as a country existing beyond the world we all know. It isolates its citizens from the rest of international community and does not obey any rules determined by international law, but requires respect and recognition. Moreover, North Korea is one of the countries that remains aggressive towards its neighbors and applies various terrorist techniques, i.e. illegal contraband, political terror and mass abductions of other countries’ citizens in its foreign policy. The reasons for which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) behaves so unpredictably and irrationally are diversified. First of all, the DPRK as a country is managed very irrationally – regimes of Kim Il-sung and

Hyeonseo Lee gave a presentation on TED Talk entitled, “My Escape from North Korea”, summarizing about her life in North Korea. She was born and raised there and sing patriotic songs. All the history books told her that North Korea was the best country in the world. As she got older, a famine struck North Korea in the mid-1990’s. Although, she never experienced starvation, she witnessed the events first hand. This was the pushing point for Hyeonseo, who decided to leave North Korea. Due to China and North Korea’s stringent border policies and the Chinese government immigration policy, the life of a North Korean refugee is challenging and extremely risky. They risk being deported back to the very country that they escaped from. There are reports and stories about the violation of human rights and labor camps in North Korea. She would live in China for ten years before moving to South Korea. Hyeonseo was forced to help her family escape from North Korea. The regime caught Hyeonseo for sending money to her family. Lee’s family to be relocated by the order of the North Korean government. She needed to smuggle them through China to a South Korean embassy in Laos. Unfortunately, Hyeonseo Lee’s story won’t be the last we hear about the abysmal conditions in North Korea. There are, potentially millions more, stories detailing the humanitarian disaster in the country and we must take steps to prepare for the eventual collapse of the country.