Google Earth exposes North Korea's secret prison camps

Google Earth exposes North Korea's secret prison camps

Telegraph

Human rights activists are turning to Google Earth to identify the vast network of prison camps that dot the North Korean countryside and hold as many as 200,000 people deemed hostile to the regime.

Rights groups are pushing the United Nations high commissioner for human rights to open an international investigation into Pyongyang's "deplorable" record on its citizens' rights, including a system of political prisons that has operated for more than 50 years.

(visit the link for the full news article)
Link

Here is another story (an update really) with more information on this deplorable situation that was published by (reported by) By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
10:19AM GMT 25 Jan 2013

It tells of the camps and the reasons people are put in them and live a life of "hell on earth" still to this day. With nothing being done about this (and I really don't know what could be done) terrible act.

Its hard to believe the things "humans do to humans" also pictures follow the link.

What can anyone do?

(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by RUFFREADY


Here is another story (an update really) with more information on this deplorable situation that was published by (reported by) By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
10:19AM GMT 25 Jan 2013

It tells of the camps and the reasons people are put in them and live a life of "hell on earth" still to this day. With nothing being done about this (and I really don't know what could be done) terrible act.

Its hard to believe the things "humans do to humans" also pictures follow the link.

What can anyone do?

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9826125/Google-Earth-exposes-North-Koreas-secret-prison-camps.html]www.telegraph.co.uk[ /url]
(visit the link for the full news article)

What makes them secret?

And how reliable is the source?

All anyone can do is what South Korea has been doing all along. They make it known as much as they can that another world exists outside those borders and if the opportunity ever should come by internal changes within the North, they'll be more than happy to assist all their fellow Koreans. I understand those sentiments run pretty strong over there and it's the regime, not the people, the South despise.

Someday, with luck, the North will know a life without extreme want and need for the very basics. Kim looked like he could stand to lose a few pounds the last pics I saw of him, so maybe that helps motivate the North Koreans to clean their own house at some point. That must be infuriating to those who know what does lay beyond.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Those few pounds too many are Divine ones and therefor should be praised..

Inmates - who can be imprisoned for life, along with three generations of their families, for anything deemed to be critical of the regime - are forced to survive by eating rats and picking corn kernels out of animal waste.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

hmm...

Somehow it seems there is an agenda at play here. I mean cmon.

And where is the quote that North Korea denied these particular camps that look like military camps, existed? And they blend that with a 'political prison system' that has been operating for 50 years? Hmm

I would like to see some hard evidence that these North Korean human rights abuses are wide spread.

I think 'news' items like this are offensive.

reply to post by dollukka

Ahh yes... I forgot. Dear Leader is a living God and above mere mortal concerns as decent appearances while his people read "101 ways to cook tree bark and like it". That is quite a place there isn't it? One of the last totally closed off and more than a little insane places left. Hopefully that won't last too much longer for the good of all those living there. Poor folks don't even know how different life could be for them outside that land.

Then again...maybe that's better? Anyone on ATS ever personally lived in a TRUE oppressive regime? Anyone perhaps live on the East side of the Berlin Wall and all beyond it before it fell? I'm curious if any are around to answer that. Is it better knowing what isn't available but hope for or to not know what cannot be had?

North Korea scares me! Literally!! ....I feel so badly for its people, and I'm sure they are torturing the hell out of any prisoner just for fun. Its A power thing...and now their psycho leader and son of former psycho leader is testing nuke missiles. That's just great......
Wrabbit ...I don't know which is better...hope that keeps you going, or not knowing that keeps you in line and safer...it sounds like the prisoners in these camps had hope, and that is why they and their next 3 generations will live and die in prisoner camps. ....
we ALL need to be truly thankful for what we have! Freedom is not free!

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


We can only imagine what their thoughts about outside World are as their school system and books are also quite weird and unaccurate.
North Korea history

The problem is you cannot disagree with goverment policy in public or among anyone around you as that would be a ticket to these camps.. Goverment there and Divine Leader are running a sect.

reply to post by dollukka


ahahahahhaa

Surely those history books are fake! It says Kim Jong-Il killed 900, 000 Americans with a bag of quarters ahaha

They're funny, but I'm positive it's just a funny cracked article. Is a shame Kim John-Un doesn't seem to have done anything of importance yet. It seems mostly everything is as usual. I guess large changes though might result in assasinations.

so what do you guys think?

If the story is true do you think these prisoners would enjoy a right to bear arms?

just wondering...

reply to post by ModernAcademia


I think the American government does a much better job of controlling its people and letting them think they have some say in the matter.

reply to post by dollukka

Oh goodness... You should warn people before they click on that link. Don't have a mouth full of any liquid in mid drink while reading just the first section. They have the tallest mountain ever eh? 6 months premature was he? (Well that would explain mental development...err..nvm )

I also liked the part another notes about 900,000 dead with our own currency. I must have missed that loss of American troops. Even our Civil War only broke a bit over 600,000. When did this big war happen? It sure wasn't the Korean Conflict where we kicked their sorry butts to the Yalu River before MacArthur threatened nuking China or the border one too many times and they decided we were too close for comfort in the north. China is what gave them their land back...not their own doing. The U.N. forces had won when China popped their little shocker on everyone.

You know the part I think REALLY needs to come with a warning label for accidentally snorted soda in uncontrolled response? The "millions of invisible nuclear weapons" he'll use to raise the world temperature 10 million times ..and of course, North Korea will survive the Earth becoming a mini-SUN at that estimate.

Oh.. Who knew Pyongyang was capable of 'roll on the floor' humor to such a degree. Surely you jest about that being a "history" book though. Even they can't be....well.. wait.. They can, huh? (cleans up soda from keys)

By Alastair GaleBy Alastair Gale

Associated Press Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
For the human rights groups that work hard to bring international attention to the abuses at North Korea’s network of vast prison camps, Monday’s call for an international inquiry into the camps by the United Nations’ human rights chief marked a breakthrough moment.
More-visible human rights violations in countries such as Syria tend to hog media attention, despite the significantly larger scale of the problem in North Korea. Political interest in North Korea is usually concentrated on the threat it represents to neighboring countries rather than to its own people.

blogs.wsj.com...

Well at least its out there. Reports on this are better than nothing. Maybe China will get on it eventually if it bothers their bottom line.

I am certainly not defending NK and there use of prison camps but you need to know that two other communist countries also have them. Both China and Vietnam still operate re-education camps but for some reason these stories are under-reported.

Originally posted by RUFFREADY

Here is another story (an update really) with more information on this deplorable situation that was published by (reported by) By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
10:19AM GMT 25 Jan 2013

It tells of the camps and the reasons people are put in them and live a life of "hell on earth" still to this day. With nothing being done about this (and I really don't know what could be done) terrible act.

Its hard to believe the things "humans do to humans" also pictures follow the link.

What can anyone do?

(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 26-1-2013 by RUFFREADY because: (no reason given)

unless and untl you have evidence of the US or Israel mistreating people, the UN is not interested.
ironic that the UN's only major military action was in Korea. well at least they saved half of the country.

if the UN can't or won't do anything about NKor or Iran's nukes what the flock good are they???

Originally posted by deessell
I am certainly not defending NK and there use of prison camps but you need to know that two other communist countries also have them. Both China and Vietnam still operate re-education camps but for some reason these stories are under-reported.

They can call it anything they want -- prison camps, reeducation camps, etc. Simple fact is: The US has more of our people in prison than any other country in the world. This is creating a permanent underclass as former prisoners face discrimination in jobs, housing, etc for many, many years.

Adding insult to injury, Washington is aiding and abetting gargantuan fraud by Wall Street and the Central Banksters to loot our treasury and the treasuries of foreign lands. This entire global economic slump is a totally engineered event.

Gotta ask, if they are secret how the hell do they know whats going on in them?

That eating rats comment was brilliant haha

reply to post by jcarpenter

How does the U.S. Criminal Justice System compare on ANY level to the brutality of the re-education camps in NK and China both? I'll agree in one area for how abused and overused imprisonment is under the U.S. system but there is simply no earthly basis for comparison or relativism here.

A U.S. prison with TV rooms if not in-cell TV's for many states....vocational training in many cases...counseling, medical care on demand BETTER than what many in the public can get with no cost and more simply isn't in the same category as what can be seen of the camps of the DPRK. It's nothing remotely like the forced labor camps of China as we know from those who've come out of them to tell about the experience while in them.

How is it that everything on the PLANET seems to require the discussion come back to how the U.S. is somehow worse or AT BEST, 100% equal to whatever bad example or bad conduct is being cited? To say that gets old....doesn't even touch how it's beginning to get. It goes to the very heart of the site's motto here, IMO.

We don't have the moral high ground as long as Gitmo still exists.