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Big surprise: N. Korea punishes non-mourners
Rack Ops
Member Posts: 18,596 ✭✭✭
North Korea reportedly punishing insincere mourners
ABC NewsABC News - 5 hrs ago
North Korean authorities are punishing mourners who failed to exhibit sincere sadness and despair after the death of Kim Jong Il on Dec. 17, the Daily NK reported Wednesday.
The online North Korean newspaper, which is published by opponents of the governing regime, said a source in North Hamkyung Province revealed the information. The source told the paper "authorities are handing down at least six months in a labor-training camp to anybody who didn't participate in the organized gatherings during the mourning period, or who did participate but didn't cry and didn't seem genuine," according to the Daily NK.
There are an estimated 200,000 offenders and families held in North Korean prison camps, according to a May 2011 report from Amnesty International. The report details two types of camps known as "zones." One zone, known as a Total Control Zone, is for people who have committed "serious crimes." People in these camps are never released.
The second type of zone, called a Revolutionary Zone, are camps for people who have committed what North Korean authorities perceive as less serious crimes. These crimes may include making critical comments toward government policy or trying to cross the border. Sentences in Revolutionary Zone camps can range from a few months to 10 years.
The report estimates that 40 percent of inmates in the camps will die from malnutrition, and every former inmate interviewed for the report had witnessed at least one public execution while being held.
The late Hwang Jang Yop, a North Korean defector and former official, described similar punishments after the death of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father and the founder of North Korea, in 1994.
"The party conducted surveys to see who displayed the most grief, and made this an important criterion in assessing party members' loyalty," Yop wrote. "Patients who remained in hospitals and people who drank and made merry even after hearing news of their leader's death were all singled out for punishment."
The Daily NK said its source also reported that North Koreans who were accused of being critical of the country's dynastic system were being sent to re-education camps or banished with their families to remote areas.
North Korea today said that Kim Jong Il's body will be embalmed and enshrined in the palace that houses his father's remains. The country also said it plans to build a new Kim Jong Il statue and construct "towers to his immortality."
ABC NewsABC News - 5 hrs ago
North Korean authorities are punishing mourners who failed to exhibit sincere sadness and despair after the death of Kim Jong Il on Dec. 17, the Daily NK reported Wednesday.
The online North Korean newspaper, which is published by opponents of the governing regime, said a source in North Hamkyung Province revealed the information. The source told the paper "authorities are handing down at least six months in a labor-training camp to anybody who didn't participate in the organized gatherings during the mourning period, or who did participate but didn't cry and didn't seem genuine," according to the Daily NK.
There are an estimated 200,000 offenders and families held in North Korean prison camps, according to a May 2011 report from Amnesty International. The report details two types of camps known as "zones." One zone, known as a Total Control Zone, is for people who have committed "serious crimes." People in these camps are never released.
The second type of zone, called a Revolutionary Zone, are camps for people who have committed what North Korean authorities perceive as less serious crimes. These crimes may include making critical comments toward government policy or trying to cross the border. Sentences in Revolutionary Zone camps can range from a few months to 10 years.
The report estimates that 40 percent of inmates in the camps will die from malnutrition, and every former inmate interviewed for the report had witnessed at least one public execution while being held.
The late Hwang Jang Yop, a North Korean defector and former official, described similar punishments after the death of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father and the founder of North Korea, in 1994.
"The party conducted surveys to see who displayed the most grief, and made this an important criterion in assessing party members' loyalty," Yop wrote. "Patients who remained in hospitals and people who drank and made merry even after hearing news of their leader's death were all singled out for punishment."
The Daily NK said its source also reported that North Koreans who were accused of being critical of the country's dynastic system were being sent to re-education camps or banished with their families to remote areas.
North Korea today said that Kim Jong Il's body will be embalmed and enshrined in the palace that houses his father's remains. The country also said it plans to build a new Kim Jong Il statue and construct "towers to his immortality."
Comments
On a lighter note... That crap sucks and I feel for the citizens of that country who had no choice but to be born and will never smell the air of sweet freedom unless another country intervenes. We should do something about this. I've been to South Korea and they have good stuff going on, like China our ally, but are way to overcrowded to fully shine. That land up north could help them be more useful to us.
(saying China and ally in the same sentence gave me a sickening feeling but my country says they are so there it is.)
Edited again... Hey, if you didn't notice it, I put a lot of satyr satire in this and it is not really my actual point of view. Oh God, I feel the social pressures closing in. Feelings of guilt, of being banned, disliked, ridiculed.
Edited some more for spelling... Sorry, sorry, sorry, don't dismiss me please.
Silly communists. If they had a better system they could just feed their desired behavior to media outlets. This would externalize the expense of ensuring conformity on the media, which is self-funded. Consumers of this restricted media, the people, will then police each other, outcasting those who do not stick to a small variety of approved responses. If a wild idea appears it can then be isolated as silly, wrong, or dangerous and the people will dependably beg for it to be eliminated. If it is found to be useful it can be hijacked, edited, and repurposed to shift into an even more controlling paradigm.
On a lighter note... That crap sucks and I feel for the citizens of that country who had no choice but to be born and will never smell the air of sweet freedom unless another country intervenes. We should do something about this. I've been to South Korea and they have good stuff going on, like China our ally, but are way to overcrowded to fully shine. That land up north could help them be more useful to us.
(saying China and ally in the same sentence gave me a sickening feeling but my country says they are so there it is.)
Edited again... Hey, if you didn't notice it, I put a lot of satyr in this and it is not really my actual point of view. Oh God, I feel the social pressures closing in. Feelings of guilt, of being banned, disliked, ridiculed.
[:D][:D] I'm pretty sure you mean "satire". Look up "satyr" and see what you get!![:D]
Never mind, here you go...... http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/satyr
Haha, that does sound funny with the alternate definition. Ultimately, it's my spell checker that is the source of any of my perceived intellect. This time it decided to show me who runs Barter Town. [:D]
So I wonder if it was the military rounding up folks or did the kid order it? To me the kid is just a puppet while the military run a muck. So if the kid gets to wield power will he free up the people or perpetuate the cycle?
Frankly it's a situation that I wouldn't like if it were inflicted on me but it's another country doing things the way that country does it. I've been stationed in a couple other countries and it changed my understanding of the world. Other countries aren't like us and actually don't want to be like us. As long as they don't do anything to my country then as far as I'm concerned they can keep on truck'n. Things like military intervention, aid organizations, and outside support only go to inflate the problem, start war with no good results, or cause the situation to adapt to the new aid income while staying the same.
A good example of this is in Africa, where sick babies starve and die. Foreign aid comes to heal the babies and give the parents sacks of grain. Sounds like a great idea to us because our culture supports that that is the right thing to do. What then happens is that the mothers, who have adapted their culture to let weak babies die and support only the strong ones, will deny the healed babies of food and eat it themselves and give it to their healthy kids. Where sacks of grain or other salable items are involved you will find those things on the market shortly after being distributed and the mothers dressed in brightly colored new clothing and using new conveniences in their homes. You don't see this stuff on TV because it will not get any desired results for the people who put stuff on TV. Aid organizations get paid to keep doing this and their story is what you see advertised on TV because they pay the advertisement fees. There's no money in telling the truth in this situation.
The problem is not in trying to help others but to impose our beliefs or moral values in places not compatible with it. You don't really make friends by pushing your way of life on them.
Another great example was in Ethiopia, who's government forced farmers to stop farming as it would hurt their foreign aid status. Apples to apples you might think but taxing farmers is a lot harder than just taking all the aid for yourself and selling the crumbs as you see fit. Another is Haiti. They have a corrupt government that wasn't helping people from the disaster so we donated a crapload of stuff to help them. Their government locked it up in the port and demanded extortion money to let it get to the people. The valuable stuff was just stolen outright.
The tens of thousands of pounds of rice that we already ship to North Korea is sold to the people who can afford it... after the government takes their share. So now what? Can we help them? No, they have to help themselves. Can we just WAR them into being cool like us? No, it would just make the survivors hate us. Just leave them alone already and if they throw a hissy fit and start attacking other countries then that becomes the issue.
Good article this week in the Weekly Standard about the opportunity our POTUS has now to work with China to bring a true unification of the two Koreas while NK is recalibrating under the new "Un." China dislikes NK about as much as we do and now is the time to bring the two Koreas together...an opportunity that if our present POTUS was on top of it, he could play. How? We agree to pull our troops out, they agree to give up the bomb. Kinda like German unification. China not happy about the crazy NK with the bomb on their border...who knows what they would do. Great opportunity for some proactive diplomacy on our part....but, of course, our guy is more worried about reelection and "noncampaigning" than foreign policy so he is completely out to lunch to the idea.
But if we pull out of South Korea it will collapse their economy as they try to ship all of the kidnapped Philippineo and Russian sex slaves back home. And who would eat all that chicken-on-a-stick?
Silly communists.
Just what is "Communistic" about their system? Sounds like an old fashioned feudal system to me.
quote:Originally posted by buckstar
Silly communists.
Just what is "Communistic" about their system? Sounds like an old fashioned feudal system to me.
The CIA World Factbook lists North Korea's government type as "Communist state one-man dictatorship". As for what my personal impression of what government it is? I can't tell ya, never been there. All I have is media reports and cry-eyed investigative journalist shows to go on. Same as you.
I chose the opening of "silly communists" to set up my example of how a populace could potentially be controlled while making profit on the mechanism. I think I first read about this from an author who proposed the methods for a communist society but made his money working with other forms of government, who were more accepting of his ideas. The name(s) that fathered the concepts escape me though as I placed more interest in the technique than the author.
There are several documentaries on the subject if you're willing to search them out. The more recent ones are quite watered down though.
Too old to live...too young to die...
quote:Originally posted by gary wray
Good article this week in the Weekly Standard about the opportunity our POTUS has now to work with China to bring a true unification of the two Koreas while NK is recalibrating under the new "Un." China dislikes NK about as much as we do and now is the time to bring the two Koreas together...an opportunity that if our present POTUS was on top of it, he could play. How? We agree to pull our troops out, they agree to give up the bomb. Kinda like German unification. China not happy about the crazy NK with the bomb on their border...who knows what they would do. Great opportunity for some proactive diplomacy on our part....but, of course, our guy is more worried about reelection and "noncampaigning" than foreign policy so he is completely out to lunch to the idea.
But if we pull out of South Korea it will collapse their economy as they try to ship all of the kidnapped Philippineo and Russian sex slaves back home. And who would eat all that chicken-on-a-stick?
Chicken???
quote:Originally posted by buckstar
quote:Originally posted by gary wray
Good article this week in the Weekly Standard about the opportunity our POTUS has now to work with China to bring a true unification of the two Koreas while NK is recalibrating under the new "Un." China dislikes NK about as much as we do and now is the time to bring the two Koreas together...an opportunity that if our present POTUS was on top of it, he could play. How? We agree to pull our troops out, they agree to give up the bomb. Kinda like German unification. China not happy about the crazy NK with the bomb on their border...who knows what they would do. Great opportunity for some proactive diplomacy on our part....but, of course, our guy is more worried about reelection and "noncampaigning" than foreign policy so he is completely out to lunch to the idea.
But if we pull out of South Korea it will collapse their economy as they try to ship all of the kidnapped Philippineo and Russian sex slaves back home. And who would eat all that chicken-on-a-stick?
Chicken???
I want to believe it was chicken, and so it was chicken.