North Korea Violations

Political freedoms of the people are continuously violating them with unfair laws, which are just for show and discrimination according to class by the dictator Kim Jong-Un. In North Korea, the laws are for show, but the people experiencing the laws know the truth and that they have no rights. According to the “The Problems of Human Rights in North Korea,” “In North Korea, the laws are for show, and the people live outside the protection of the law. The Constitution of North Korea guarantees democratic freedoms such as the freedoms of speech,

North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un, made North Korea a harsh and brutal place to live. He has made many rules for North Korea, but if someone doesn’t follow they capture them, the government officials/ agents put a board behind you and make you sit down. If they pushed on you, you would collapse, and you would hear your kneecaps

The North Korean Government has listed 24 articles under the Fundamental Rights and Duties of Korean citizens (Articles 62-86). (Helpline Law.)

North Korea is a Totalitarian country that often uses many different fear tactics to control their citizens. “ Her brother who was arrested in China in 1994 for attempting to “defect” from the DPRK... As an example to others against committing similar “anti-state” offenses, he was tied to the back of a truck which took him to their hometown, Musan.”(North Korean control #3 doc A) Someone's brother was arrested in China for trying to defect from North Korea, and as an example, he was dragged around by a truck to show people not to try and escape. This shows that North Korea wanted to impose fear on their citizens, so they wouldn’t try to leave. “The woman she knew was lined up alongside eight other prisoners... her crime was having watched South

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 country of North Korea compares rather closely to the world in Ayn Rand’s Anthem. Both nations of people are very closed off from the community and the outside world. The citizens only know about what the government officials want them to know about. In North Korea everyone depends upon and worships their leader, Kim Jong Il, almost as though he is their god. They all only depend on what they classify as “we” and they rely only on that because they do not have access to anyone else or even know what it means to be an individual. In both the book and North Korea, the citizens are locked down and watched with a careful eye. Breaking the rules in Anthem would send you to the Uncharted Forest, which is very similar to what happens to those

The government restricts its people’s rights and freedoms, in order to keep its people under control. Seeing that North Korea is a dictatorship, it is important for them that they are able to maintain their power by controlling and restricting the rights and freedoms of individuals, in order to prevent people abusing various powers and freedoms to either defect or overthrown the government. This is generally why the North Korean government restricts its people’s rights and violate sections of the Canadian Charter. For instance, the North Korean regime heavily violates Section 6.1 of the Charter, having serious consequences on North Koreans. Section 6.1 states: “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada”. This is not the case for North Koreans, where they are unable to leave the regime legally and can only leave by defecting illegally. Defecting will have serious consequences for the family of the defector; they will be sent to Camp 14, a modern-day concentration camp, as part of North Korea’s traditional “three generations of

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

For my project I choose to do the prison camps of North Korea and how it's very unfair for the family's. I think it's bad for the families because if a person in said family commits a small crime the entire family goes into a prison camp even if another family didn't know they were related to said person, once the families are put into prison camps they are forced to do hard labor for the rest of their lives, and there's not enough space in the camps causing the “supreme” leader to build more camps slowly causing his citizens to die of starvation.

This briefing will address the necessities of United Nations to pressure the Democratic People of the Republic Korea, also known as North Korea, by adding sanction to the country. As a hegemonic state, the United States is a significant state to play a role as the leader to enforce DPRK to withdraw itself from the threat of the global security and morality. DPRK had broken many regulations of the UN treaties on militarization, nuclear activities, and violation of human rights. Although the US is one the countries that has the most stock of nuclear weapons , it is aware of its destructiveness and vulnerability more than any country that hold nuclear weapons today. After continuous negotiations to suspend its conductivity of nuclear activities, DPRK had repeatedly engaged and disengaged its pursuit for a nuclear reform. Should the U.S. violate DPRK sovereignty and prioritize world peace and order? As an established great militarily powerful state, the United States must persuade the UN to keep adding sanctions against the DPRK.

North Korea has become “increasingly reliant on international aid from NGOs, South Korea and the UN to feed its people” (Poverty & Famine, 2012). After the famine began, the South elected a liberal president who was “keen to build peace with the ‘sister country’” (Poverty & Famine, 2012). This actually helped to rebuild and bond the two countries’ trust. Since then, however, things have changed. After George W. Bush changed policies along with South Korea’s new and more conservative president from 2008 to 2013, relations have been more tense with the North and they slowly stopped receiving aid from the U.S. In 2013, when a new president was elected, South Korea donated $12 million in food supplies and fertilizer to NK as part of the President’s plan to foster a “new era” in inter-Korean relations (Manyin & Nitikin, 2014, p. 4). Supporting the United Nations’ efforts in finding donors who will fund the World Food Program towards North Korea is in their best interest. However, because of lack of funds, they’ve had to slow down aid: “Its program for the country has only received about $5.7 million in aid this year, mostly from Switzerland, Australia, Canada, and private donors” (Cheng, 2014), and also noted by Thomson Reuters Foundation (2015), “funding for UN agencies in North Korea dropped to less than $50 million in 2014, down from $300 million in 2004.”

The 2018 Winter Olympics are scheduled to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea; directly bordering the hermit kingdom of North Korea. Based on prior and present tensions between the two countries (Korean War, 1950-1953), it begs the question of what extent will North Korean art, philosophies, and ethics have on the 2018 Olympics. In more recent times, North Korea has become more vocal about its actions such as the building of its military, weapons, and possibly the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack (Levs, 2014). However, there is still a substantial lack of information on North Korean culture and mindset due to their secrecy. Solely looking at art, philosophies, and ethics, North Korea will have next to no effect on the 2018 Olympics.

The United States’ sanctions imposed against Cuba are due to both the rise of Fidel Castro and the country’s affiliation with the Soviet Union, which has resulted in hostile actions against both the U.S. and Cuban citizens (U.S. – Cuba Relations Direction of Policy, 2005). Recently, restrictions have loosened since the inception of the U.S. trade embargo in 1995 resulting in relaxed travel restrictions and the exporting of agricultural goods into Cuba (U.S. – Cuba Relations Direction of Policy, 2005; Gootnick, 2007). Nevertheless, the sanctions against Cuba not only continue to prohibit the business relations between U.S. companies, they also employ a heavy inspection process on all exports as wells as increased penalization of violators, particularly

Countries under the rule of a dictator, or a tyrant leader are another obstacle towards a set of universal human rights. North Korea is an example of one of these countries, being condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Council for its “systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations” (Human Rights Watch, 2016b). These violations have arisen from the leadership of Kim Jong-Un, who has continued to restrict freedom of movement, speech, and association, as well as other basic human rights in North Korea (Human Rights Watch, 2016b). Any person that does speak out against Jong-Un’s cruelty is arrested and taken to a political prison, where they are forced to carry out back breaking labour (Human Rights Watch, 2016b). Since dictators like Kim Jong-Un have complete control of a country, they have no obligation to enact a set of incontrovertible human rights as it does not fit their agenda, severely restricting the ability of human rights to be universal. The cultural differences in non-western countries such as Saudi Arabia, and the rule of dictators like that of Kim Jong-Un prevent an incontrovertible and permanently valid set of human rights from being

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.