J8 Summit 2012

Human Rights Violations in North Korea

By Daniella Rattray 8E

5/6/2012

The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Korea is a country located in East Asia which occupies the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. It is known for being shut off from the rest of the world due to its secretive tendencies and closed borders. It has been ruled by three generations of the Kim Family, who have run a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship over the country since the late 1940s. North Koreas human rights record is one of the worst in the world, and its clear to see why. The Human Rights of North Koreans are constantly being violated due to many people being unfairly imprisoned, people arent able to express their opinions publicly and dont have the freedom to choose their leadership. Many North Koreans are sent to brutal prison camps where they are subjected to degrading treatment and torture. The American diplomat Robert King explained that recent reports estimated that over 150,000 inmates are being held in these camps (Pennington). These 150,000 people are being tortured and humiliated daily in the inhumane establishments run by the government (NY Daily). Furthermore, King compared the number of the North Korean detainees to the hundreds imprisoned in Soviet Prison Camps. He states further that they were modelled on the Soviet gulags, which treated their prisoners horrifically (Pennington). One traumatised North Korean who survived and is now in hiding in China says, life in the prison was, in a word, hell. This emphasises just how bad the conditions of the Prison Camps are (Bruce). These prison camps must be closed so that the North Koreans imprisoned there will have some of their human rights restored. In the Western World, we take freedom of speech for granted, but for North Koreans its a very different story. The North Korean Government provides formal legal guarantees of freedom of speech to their citizens, but in reality they brutally

repress this human right. The United Nations published a document containing the fundamental rights every human has. This document is called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the abbreviated form is UDHR. It contains 30 articles listing the rights and article 19, the article about freedom of speech goes as follows

Everyone

has the right to

freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. On the official website of the DPRK, it states, All citizens who have reached 17 years of age have freedom of speech, the press, demonstration and association (DPRK). Even though this is stated on the website, there is much evidence to prove that this statement is very false. Amnesty International (an organization which campaigns to end abuses of human rights) says that the authorities impose severe restrictions on freedom of speech (Amnesty International). Amnesty International is an official and trusted organization, therefore this proves how bad the Freedom of Speech situation is in North Korea . If human rights are the fundamental rights that every human should have, and they are supposed to be applied universally, then why are the citizens of North Korea being denied the right to freedom of speech? The Kim family has ruled over the DPRK since the late 1940s, and if anyone opposes their leadership, they are severely punished. Elections are held every five years in North Korea, but they are rigged by the government. All seats in the government are held by the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. This is a united front of a few different partys running for government; It is led by the Workers Party of Korea (Moon, Katyal, Boulton). The workers partys leader is Kim Jong Un, therefore the Kim family has control over the whole government. The Elections are supposed

to be a secret ballot, but there is only one candidate on the ballot. To vote against the candidate, a voter can cross off the candidates name but they must do this in a special booth that has no secrecy. Many North Korean defectors have said that this act of defiance is much too risky to even attempt. North Koreans do not have the freedom to choose their leaders, and their lack of freedom conflicts with article 21 of the UDHR. This article states The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in the periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures'. It is violated because the votes are only secret if you vote for the candidate on the ballot, which the people are pressured into doing. The state of North Koreas human rights is terrible. Its citizens are being unjustly imprisoned where they are tortured and subjected to degrading treatment. The people of North Korea are not able to express their opinions without fear of being severely punished by the government. They have no freedom of expression. The Elections held every 5 years are rigged to make sure that the current party in power (Workers Party of Korea) remains in power. There are more ways in which other human rights are violated, but these are three of the most obvious in which this is happening. It is hard for the international community to help North Korea gain a satisfactory level of human rights due to the secrecy of the country and the closed borders, but if they dont help then North Korea will remain a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world.

WORK CITED PAGE

Pennington, Matthew. "North Korea Prison Camps: 150,000 Languish In Secret Gulags, Human Rights Group Says ." Huffington Post Huffington Post. 10 04 2012. 21/05/2012 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/north-korea-prison-camps-150thousand_n_1414434.html>.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, "150,000 languish in North Korean prison camps: report." NY Daily News NyDailyNews. 10 04 2012. 22/05/2012 <http://articles.nydailynews.com/2 012-04-10/news/31320502_1_camp-system-labor-colonies-prisoners>. Hill, Bruce. "North Korean camp survivor: 'Worse than life as a dog' video." Online Video Clip. The Guardian. No date. 22/05/2012 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/dec/07/northkorean-prison-camp-survivor-video>. DPRK, Democratic People's Republic of Korea official webpage of the DPR of Korea. 2011 Korean Friendship Association (KFA). 24/05/2012 <http://www.korea-dpr.com/citizen.html>. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2011: North Korea. 2011 Amnesty International. 24/05/2012 <http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/northkorea/report-2011#section-74-5>.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pennington, Matthew. "North Korea Prison Camps: 150,000 Languish In Secret Gulags, Human Rights Group Says ." Huffington Post Huffington Post. 10 04 2012. 21/05/2012 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/north-korea-prison-camps-150thousand_n_1414434.html>.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, "150,000 languish in North Korean prison camps: report." NY Daily News NyDailyNews. 10 04 2012. 22/05/2012 <http://articles.nydailynews.com/201204-10/news/31320502_1_camp-system-labor-colonies-prisoners>. Hill, Bruce. "North Korean camp survivor: 'Worse than life as a dog' - video." Online Video Clip. The Guardian. No date. 22/05/2012 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/dec/07/north-koreanprison-camp-survivor-video>. DPRK, Democratic People's Republic of Korea official webpage of the DPR of Korea. 2011 Korean Friendship Association (KFA). 24/05/2012 <http://www.koreadpr.com/citizen.html>. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2011: North Korea. 2011 Amnesty International. 24/05/2012 <http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/north-korea/report2011#section-74-5>. Head, Tom. "Human Rights in North Korea." About.com. 25/05/2012 <http://civilliberty.about.com/od/internationalhumanri ghts/p/northkorea101.htm>. Jang Yop, Hwang. The problems of Human Rights in North Korea. 25/05/2012 <http://www2.law.columbia.edu/course_00S_L9436_001/North%20 Korea%20materials/hwang%20jang3.html>. Amnesty International, North Korea: Catastrophic human rights record overshadows Day of the Sun . 12/04/2012 Amnesty International. 25/05/2012 <http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/north-koreacatastrophic-human-rights-record-overshadows-day-sun-2012-04-12>.