Oh. Sweet. Jesus.
.
N.Korean defector says
disabled newborns are killed
By Jack Kim
Link Here
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has no people with physical disabilities because they are killed almost as soon as they are born, a physician who defected from the communist state said on Wednesday.
Ri Kwang-chol, who fled to the South last year, told a forum of rights activists that the practice of killing newborns was widespread but denied he himself took part in it.
"There are no people with physical defects in North Korea," Ri told members of the New Right Union, which groups local activists and North Korean refugees.
He said babies born with physical disabilities were killed in infancy in hospitals or in homes and were quickly buried.
The practice is encouraged by the state, Ri said, as a way of purifying the masses and eliminating people who might be considered "different."
The group urged the South Korean government to change course away from "silent diplomacy" and immediately begin taking action to pressure the North to improve its human rights record.
The South Korean government has refused to join international condemnation of human rights abuses in the North out of concern that such a move could rattle ties with Pyongyang, which considers any criticism of its human rights as deeply offensive.
"The government should stop trying to avoid upsetting Kim Jong-il," said another defector, Kim Young-sun, 67, referring to the North Korean leader. "It should try to upset Kim Jong-il," she said, adding it would be the best way to change the North.
Kim Young-sun is a survivor of the North's Yodok prison camp, notorious for its forced labor and life-sentences for people charged with conspiring against the Kim Jong-il leadership.
Mun Hyon-ok said women from her hometown in the northern region of North Korea bordering China were taken by a ring of human traffickers and probably ended up in China.
"And there are women who are selling themselves for a handful of rice," she told the forum.
North Korea has called itself a people's paradise and said criticism of its human rights was motivated by a goal of toppling the leadership of Kim Jong-il.
South Korea has come under fire from human rights groups and some countries for abstaining in votes on U.N. measures to condemn the North's human rights record.
Seoul has also avoided the subject in bilateral talks with the North. South Korean officials have said the best way to improve the situation is through quiet diplomacy and encouraging the North to improve its food situation and open up to the international community.
N.Korean defector says
disabled newborns are killed
By Jack Kim
Link Here
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has no people with physical disabilities because they are killed almost as soon as they are born, a physician who defected from the communist state said on Wednesday.
Ri Kwang-chol, who fled to the South last year, told a forum of rights activists that the practice of killing newborns was widespread but denied he himself took part in it.
"There are no people with physical defects in North Korea," Ri told members of the New Right Union, which groups local activists and North Korean refugees.
He said babies born with physical disabilities were killed in infancy in hospitals or in homes and were quickly buried.
The practice is encouraged by the state, Ri said, as a way of purifying the masses and eliminating people who might be considered "different."
The group urged the South Korean government to change course away from "silent diplomacy" and immediately begin taking action to pressure the North to improve its human rights record.
The South Korean government has refused to join international condemnation of human rights abuses in the North out of concern that such a move could rattle ties with Pyongyang, which considers any criticism of its human rights as deeply offensive.
"The government should stop trying to avoid upsetting Kim Jong-il," said another defector, Kim Young-sun, 67, referring to the North Korean leader. "It should try to upset Kim Jong-il," she said, adding it would be the best way to change the North.
Kim Young-sun is a survivor of the North's Yodok prison camp, notorious for its forced labor and life-sentences for people charged with conspiring against the Kim Jong-il leadership.
Mun Hyon-ok said women from her hometown in the northern region of North Korea bordering China were taken by a ring of human traffickers and probably ended up in China.
"And there are women who are selling themselves for a handful of rice," she told the forum.
North Korea has called itself a people's paradise and said criticism of its human rights was motivated by a goal of toppling the leadership of Kim Jong-il.
South Korea has come under fire from human rights groups and some countries for abstaining in votes on U.N. measures to condemn the North's human rights record.
Seoul has also avoided the subject in bilateral talks with the North. South Korean officials have said the best way to improve the situation is through quiet diplomacy and encouraging the North to improve its food situation and open up to the international community.
posted by Christy at 11:57 AM
7 Comments:
Be careful with quoting the New Right Foundation.
It is a far-right group that wants to restore fascism in South Korea, and make it a permanent puppet of the Republican United States. Of course, it will do everything to ensure that the US stays Republican and Christian.
To them (and the likes of Concerned Women for America and Sam Brownback), North Korean human rights are no more than guilt trip cards to make you support their cause.
So by all means, do pay attention to North Korean human rights - but don't support the right-wing bastards, who will only make the situation worse in their attempt to gain power and support.
Rachel..
Aside from the sourcing.. Do you think this story is an accurate reflection of what is really happening inside North Korea..?
I mean, when you hear them say, They kill defective newborns at birth, how much truth do you believe it holds?
I would believe the story...
The North Koreans don't have enough food to feed everybody, so killing off "undesirables" - political dissidents, disabled babies, and others - makes perfect sense to them. In fact, it is verified through independent sources, that once a political dissident is found in a family, all its members, for three generations, will be killed, aborted, whatever (in accordance with old Korean customs).
Also remember that this is an Asian society, where individuals must sacrifice their needs in order to make the group survive. Imperial Japan also worked like this, to a degree - hence the kamikaze pilots.
It is so hard to imagine that world.
My 3rd child was born with a cleftlip. Sometimes I look at those first pics of her and involuntarily I think, even had I been a good little nazi, she would have been killed and I would have been at the very least forcefully sterilized.
Maybe the difference is actually a male/female conflict. I can not think of any woman at all, even the evil ones, that would do something , command something so ... inhuman.
But under the male dominated 'natural/macho order, it does make perfect, and even natural sense in an animalistic logic.
I am not sure really what I am trying to say. It is just.. Man that is just sick.
It is sick indeed, Christy.
Remember that Korea is a very Confucian (read: male-dominated) country. And desperate times call for desperate measures.
Even the more affluent South is not much better. The only abortion you can get away with in the South will be the one to ensure that your next child will be a boy.
The story is about the same throughout the Confucian world, including China with its severe gender imbalance. The Christians and the Muslims don't have a duopoly on sexism.
"once a political dissident is found in a family, all its members, for three generations, will be killed, aborted, whatever (in accordance with old Korean customs).'
My grandfather told me almost that exact thing once, and yeah, he was refering to the Japanese.
It just seems so alien to me.
Evil, even.
Not that they are evil.. The... Logic.. to me is what seems evil.
And as I said it is almost actually more a male/female confrontation of ideals. On a fundemental level it does seem to be about that, though I am not sure it is really that simple either.
As you said the Asian countries do not have a monopoly. The whole logic really brings up profound evolutionary questions.
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