Falling for a depraved regime
THE Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the most sadistic regime in the world.
Extrajudicial killings, public executions, torture, slavery, rape and forced abortions are among the human rights abuses being committed by the North Korean dictatorship.
A United Nations report in 2014 ran to 400 pages detailing stomachturning depravity including the murder of dissenters’ newborn children.
Remember that when you see fawning coverage of North Korea’s all-female cheer squad at the Winter Olympics or the praise some media outlets have heaped on Kim Yo-jong, the Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea – and the sister of despot Kim Jong-un.
Segments of the media, particularly in the US, have disgraced themselves with their obsequious coverage of DPRK’s propaganda efforts. Adopting the adage “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” some anti-Trump media outlets have granted the North Korean regime priceless PR coverage.
Reuters’ headlines included “North Korea judged winner of diplomatic gold at Olympics”; CNN went with “Kim’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics”; the Wash- ington Post called her a “political princess”, while the New York Times wrote of how “Kim Jong-un’s sister outflanked Vice-President Mike Pence in diplomacy”.
Then there were the pieces praising the choreographed chants of young women in matching outfits dubbed the “army of beauties”.
It is perverse to report on these women as if they’re exotic oddities instead of enslaved girls who, with their families, will face brutal consequences if they don’t perform.
In 2005, the chanting beauties were sent to South Korea for the Asian Athletics Championship and although they are said to have performed well, 21 reportedly ended up in prison camps back in North Korea.
Their crime was to speak about what they saw across the border. One way the regime exerts control and demands obedience from the populace is by regulating the dissemination of information.
“There is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association,” the UN reports.
“The key to the political system is the political and security apparatus that strategically uses surveillance, coercion, fear and punishment to preclude the expression of any dissent.
“Public executions and enforced disappearance to political prison camps serve as the ultimate means to terrorise the population.”
Victims of the regime have spoken of being forced to watch family members being killed and prisoners being beaten.
A North Korean defector, Hee Yeon Lim, spoke last year about being pulled out of school to watch 11 musicians, accused of engaging in pornography, being killed by anti-aircraft machineguns.
Hee Yeon and her classmates were taken to a stadium to witness the executions of the gagged prisoners, who were tied to the end of guns that are designed to bring down warplanes. “Their bodies were blown to bits, totally destroyed, blood and bits flying everywhere,” she said.
Others who have defected from North Korea have similar horror stories, including Ji Seong-ho who earned praise from Trump during last month’s State of the Union address.
Indeed the most powerful moments of Trump’s speech involved acknowledging victims of North Korea’s evil regime, including the parents of US student Otto Warmbier, 21, who was imprisoned on fake charges of attempted theft and convicted after a coerced “confession”.
Sentenced to 15 years hard labour, Warmbier was returned to the US in a vegetative state 17 months into his sentence and died soon after.
We will never know the savagery inflicted on him.
Before you allow yourself to be manipulated by North Korea’s propaganda machine or the regime’s useful idiots in the Western media, consider the 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners currently in gulags being beaten and starved.
North Korea deserves nothing but condemnation. For decades it has brutalised its citizens and poses an unacceptable risk to its neighbours and the rest of the world.