Testimony of Ms. Soon Ok Lee (2002)
judiciary.senate.gov
judiciary.senate.gov
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11797365-escape-from-cam...
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[0] http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/07/16/the-story-of-...
Some of the camps are massive, for example Camp 22 is estimated to be 225 sq. km and holding 50,000 people [1].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea#Int...
He doesn't have his own satellite, obviously, but buys satellite imagery to document war crimes and to warn against incursions.
from 2013.
EDIT: Corrected year typo, thank you kohanz!
I'm guessing "2012" was a typo for "2002".
500 or so prisoners in Guantanamo versus 200,000+ in NKorean camps. The NKorean prisoners don't get medical help, freedom to worship religion of choice.
The 500 are NOT there along with their wife, kids, grandkids, on both sides of the family. In NK, once a person is taken to one of the camps, it usually means 3 generations of his family is taken there. Think about it, 10+ or more people (including little kids) are dragged away to labor camps because of actions (or perceived actions) of 1 person in the family.
Please, stop comparing Guantanamo with NKorean labor camps.
Perhaps a bit of a stretch given how clean and sanitary private prisons are known to be. But since American prisoners are forced to labor at wages that are a fraction of the market rate for the same work and are charged for their incarceration at a rate higher than it is possible for them to earn in prison... perhaps it is not so different.
edit: Note, I'm genuinely asking here, not implying anything should/isnot being done
Probably the same things they were doing to help out in Rowanda and Bosinia.
They're too busy recreating the Holocaust with the Palestinians as the victim. Every couple of months we hear about the Israelis expanding their lebensraum by building some new settlements on Palestinian land.
Oh please. Make one negative comment about Jews and you get called an anti-Semite. It's even worse than with blacks.
These kind of train wrecks are inevitable when people post stuff like this to HN. Dogma vs Dogma.
It benefits everyone who isn't a citizen of North Korea for the current regime to stay in place.
Or maybe supporting the dictatorship in South Korea, and it's massacre against members of the democratization movement in 1980 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Democratization_Movemen... ). General Wickham sent troops from the DMZ so that the South Korean army could commit the massacre actually.
We could go on about Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib torture, the NSA spying on all e-mails, phone calls and web site browsing and saving it forever etc.
But no, let's hear more about a US Senate hearing on human rights in North Korea - from 11 years ago...what a farce.
It wouldn't be the first time they did that.
How about this story? http://www.npr.org/2012/03/29/149061951/escape-from-camp-14-...
If you think camp 14 is fabricated, how about detaining 85 year old American veteran with no due process?
But i know, you will keep saying it's all fabricated...
And no, I am not strictly believing that the Senate testimony is fabricated, it's just a possibility for me, since there are documented cases where testimony was fabricated in front of the Senate to legitimate a war.
I am not willing to cheer "bomb north korea" (or some other country) just because one person is testifying something in front of the senate.
You calling me subhuman and a holocaust denier because of that just reflects poorly on yourself, since that kind of rhetoric is exactly what the Nazis have used to quiet dissenters.
Just because we're subject to or even party to a government that commits atrocities doesn't mean we should give up trying to fight against other injustices.
I don't feel there is any inconsistency in using our government to expose or stop other government's problems even when we have our own, so long as we're working against our own country's injustices, too.
I do recognize that people could read this and think it's only 'others' that are bad, but I believe there will always be a percent of people that misinterpret or warp anything to suit their own ends, and that fact doesn't mean we should stop trying to make things better.
1980, what year was that? Yes, in the middle of the Cold War. Both sides on fingers to possibly launch hundreds of nukes. I'm sure the US held their nose as they 'supported' the newly emerging military dictator in SKorea. Simply, US had no choice.
And guess what the testimony from 11 years isn't the only related story. It's even more relevant as there are lots more, depressing stories coming out of NKorea.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/29/149061951/escape-from-camp-14-...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
I know most of you heard of it, but, seriously, take a moment and look a bit closer.
Certainly, Gitmo is no picnic, but I have to question if you actually RTFA.
In 2004 Spc. Sean Baker, a soldier posing as a prisoner during training exercises at the camp, was beaten so severely that he suffered a brain injury and seizures.
How many deaths are swept under the rug at places like Gitmo or at CIA black sites? If they're beating people to the point of brain injury, I'm guessing it happens.
Starting 16 November 2009, as enabled by the Supreme Court ruling in Boumediene, dozens of detainees began to use habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts to seek freedom from the Guantánamo Bay prison. In some cases, they testified by video from the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Fifteen Federal judges have found the government's evidence against 30 detainees wanting and ordered their release. That number was expected to rise as the judges were scheduled to hear challenges from dozens more prisoners.
How many North Korean prisoners get any kind of hearing?
Guantanamo: "As of August 2013, 164 detainees remain at Guantanamo"
North Korea: "When Shin worked in the garment factory and accidentally dropped a sewing machine, the foreman hacked off his right middle finger just above the first knuckle as punishment"
In fact, the danger of United States becoming totalitarian is low: creeping authoritarianism, police state tactics, "law and order" used to justify horrid prison conditions and insane sentences, "reasons of state" blackholes (like aforementioned Gitmo), are real dangers. Plurality of the world is governed by either hybrid or authoritarian regimes (which most usually serve to satisfy their rulers' thirst of money and power); North Korea, a few former USSR republics, and perhaps areas of failed states controlled by totalitarian factions are the only unambiguously totalitarian states.
However, by hinting at moral equivalence between United States and North Korea, you end up serving those advocating this creeping authoritarianism: they can now present outlandish arguments that since those opposed to Guantanamo "apologize" for North Korea (note, I am not accusing you of this -- you are not saying North Korea is justified in what they do, but this could easily be spun as such!), advancement of their goals is advancement of North Korea's, Taliban's, etc... goals.
I'm saying this as somebody who feels very strong about torture being an unconditional and absolute moral wrong, sees Guantanamo as representing a very evil and dangerous tendency, and also sees current prison conditions in US as something that -- in the future -- will be seen in the same light as the breaking wheel and the torture rack. Comments like this do not help; just don't do this -- instead, speak up for human rights of all individuals (whether or not their testimony looks like it "serves US agenda" or "helps the terrorists").
[Edit: the big reason I feel strongly about this is that I came from former USSR myself. I remember many Americans, especially those who were unhappy with US behaviour during Cold War would always speak about how US was slighting "my guys", "my country", and being sorry for break up of USSR. They were surprised why I would speak so negatively about "my country" -- as if government and country were equivalent, Cold War was a morally neutral football match, and as if my country wasn't one my family willing adopted and chose to make their home, that is the US.]
You live in a country where the NSA knows every single thing about you, where the government has killed US citizens without a trial and where your government has tortured the children of prisoners.
Anyone who has ever lived in a totalitarian state before knows that the US joined the club a long time ago. We're just waiting for you Americans to realise it.
In a way, saying "we live in a totalitarian state" sounds like defeatism to me: if it's true means there are genuine dangers to speaking out and standing up for individual rights -- which is a legitimate excuse not to do so. It also absolves the voters (and non-voters) of responsibility -- as in totalitarian and authoritarian countries individuals have no say in these policies. So stating US is totalitarian could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here's how The Economist -- for the most part, a publication with a civil libertarian bend -- saw the United States in 2007 -- the near height of abuses: http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.p...
#17 is a far cry American's own self perception, but it is an even further cry from authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Given that, e.g., Vaclav Havel has successfully stood up against true totalitarianism with not much more than a typewriter, I think there's both a chance and a responsibility to turn this trend back.
On more serious note... When could we deploy few hundred thousands microdrones there and assasinate everyone who gives the orders?
It would be any unhappy event, assuredly, but if "the global economy" wasn't destroyed by the Iraq debacle, I'm pretty sure that a similar conflict in Korea would carry comparable consequences.
All the same, I do not advocate any sort of war. Not out of squeamishness, but mostly because even the victors are handed empty promises by war. War isn't as productive as people would like to romanticize.