Inside North Korea Labor Camps (a little graphic)

[Leonard Washington]

I did a search, but its an old story.

This prison is ROUGH! Maybe a little rough for some sensitive eyes.

Jan. 15, 2003 - In the far north of North Korea, in remote locations not far from the borders with China and Russia, a gulag not unlike the worst labor camps built by Mao and Stalin in the last century holds some 200,000 men, women and children accused of political crimes. A month-long investigation by NBC News, including interviews with former prisoners, guards and U.S. and South Korean officials, revealed the horrifying conditions these people must endure — conditions that shock even those North Koreans accustomed to the near-famine conditions of Kim Jong Il’s realm.

“It's one of the worst, if not the worst situation — human rights abuse situation — in the world today,” said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who held hearings on the camps last year. “There are very few places that could compete with the level of depravity, the harshness of this regime in North Korea toward its own people.”

Soon Ok Lee, imprisoned for seven years at a camp near Kaechon in Pyungbuk province, described how the female relatives of male prisoners were treated.

“I was in prison from 1987 till January 1993,” she told NBC News in Seoul, where she now lives. ”[The women] were forced to abort their children. They put salty water into the pregnant women’s womb with a large syringe, in order to kill the baby even when the woman was 8 months or 9 months pregnant.

“And then, from time to time there a living infant is delivered. And then if someone delivers a live infant, then the guards kick the bloody baby and kill it. And I saw an infant who was crying with pain. I have to express this in words, that I witnessed such an inhumane hell.”

Testing on humans

Soon also spoke about the use of prisoners as guinea pigs, which a senior U.S. official describes as “very plausible. We have heard similar reports.”

“I saw so many poor victims,” she said. “Hundreds of people became victims of biochemical testing. I was imprisoned in 1987 and during the years of 1988 through ’93, when I was released, I saw the research supervisors — they were enjoying the effect of biochemical weapons, effective beyond their expectations — they were saying they were successful.”

She tearfully described how in one instance about 50 inmates were taken to an auditorium and given a piece of boiled cabbage to eat. Within a half hour, they began vomiting blood and quickly died.

“I saw that in 20 or 30 minutes they died like this in that place. Looking at that scene, I lost my mind. Was this reality or a nightmare? And then I screamed and was sent out of the auditorium.”

Prison guard Ahn’s memories are, like the others’, nothing short of gruesome. Every day, he said there were beatings and deaths.

“I heard many times that eyeballs were taken out by beating,” he recalled. “And I saw that by beating the person the muscle was damaged and the bone was exposed, outside, and they put salt on the wounded part. At the beginning I was frightened when I witnessed it, but it was repeated again and again, so my feelings were paralyzed.”

Moreover, said Ahn, beating and killing prisoners was not only tolerated, it was encouraged and even rewarded.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3071466/

[PiLfan]

“And then, from time to time there a living infant is delivered. And then if someone delivers a live infant, then the guards kick the bloody baby and kill it. And I saw an infant who was crying with pain. I have to express this in words, that I witnessed such an inhumane hell.”

I hope there's a special place in hell for the ******* that do this. Hard to fathom the depths of depravity and monstrosity that some humans will inflict upon another. This kind of evil shakes my very conviction in mankind.

[Popeman38]

And yet every Human Rights office in the world focuses their attention on our treatment of several hundred people picked up on a battlefield? :doh: While we have screwed the pooch on several occasions, what we have done does not even compare to what is an everyday practice in NK. Yet very view "reports" on the depravity of human rights are publicized.

[Bang]

And yet every Human Rights office in the world focuses their attention on our treatment of several hundred people picked up on a battlefield? :doh: While we have screwed the pooch on several occasions, what we have done does not even compare to what is an everyday practice in NK. Yet very view "reports" on the depravity of human rights are publicized.

It is aggravating, but they know there's a chance we'll do something about it.

Every paper in the world could print this every day on the front page, along with every other nasty thing the North Koreans do, and they won't care, they won't listen, and they sure as hell won't change.

We're supposed to be better than that, for one, and we're also liable to listen to complaints as opposed to threatening everyone with war. It's pointless to complain about the North Koreans. May as well try to teach a dog to drive a bus.

~Bang

[mcsluggo]

And yet every Human Rights office in the world focuses their attention on our treatment of several hundred people picked up on a battlefield? :doh: While we have screwed the pooch on several occasions, what we have done does not even compare to what is an everyday practice in NK. Yet very view "reports" on the depravity of human rights are publicized.

is that really where you want to set the bar for the US?

and people complain about low standards in our SCHOOL system... sheesh.

[China]

If you download the Google Earth North Korea Uncovered:

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=165472

You can see satellite images of this particular gulag.