I'm going to wait for trusted experts to look at the data, before I assume this is true. However if the data holds up then I'm not sure what the West can do, only China seems to have the ability to influence NK right now (as we've already sanctioned them about as much as we can).
PS - The reason my initial reaction is skeptical is not that this type of thing cannot happen (as we witnessed during WWII). It is that other defectors have defected from NK before and told the West exactly what we wanted to hear so they'd receive preferential treatment, these claims get splashed all over the headlines, then it turns out further down the road these people's accounts might not be true (and the corrections are on page 5 in a one paragraph story). But raw data is very compelling proof, hard to fake, so as soon as it has been verified I'll buy it.
As I posted elsewhere, there is little doubt and plenty of evidence of the NK regime's atrocities against its own citizens (and other nations' citizens too, sometimes).
EDIT: Interestingly, there are several posts using the same arguments to create doubt about this and all NK defectors (something I also posted elsewhere; sorry).
EDIT2: This follows the pattern of the professional/governmental astroturf campaign pretty closely (though, because the astroturfers' goal is to look like everyone else, I could of course be wrong). Certainly you can imagine the value of creating doubt about all NK defectors. Generally the pros build reputation by making posts on topics unrelated to their goal, and then, when it's time to take action, try to make arguments that go as far as they can while sounding reasonable. Here's a great story on a Russian operation:
While there have been highly credible reports of concentration camps within NK (inc. satellite photos of the complexes), I think some of the other claims against NK come from single sources and are hard to corroborate.
Which isn't to say they're untrue. Just unverified.
It is also worth considering that if the West cared about the North Korean people's health and wellbeing we would also have to discuss sanctions in that conversation, as sanctions have definitely caused deaths and suffering within NK.
All I am getting at is, when it comes to NK there is a lot of legitimate "bad" you can say about them. But there is also a lot of propaganda. It is sometimes hard to sort those two things into what is credible and what is uncredible, and defectors are going to say what we want to hear.
> Interestingly, there are several posts using the same arguments to create doubt about this and all NK defectors (something I also posted elsewhere; sorry).
And there are several posts claiming this is just categorically true without even wanting to wait for trusted experts to look at the data. I just want fact, and I believe in this instance (because of the raw data) it is likely that after an examination of the details we can determine with a reasonable degree of certainty the facts of this case.
Seems like that is the minimum we should expect before we start beating our drums of war once more.
It doesn't mean much. NK has been a brutal dictatorship for over 60 years; undoubtedly, like with anything else, there has been some misinformation about the issue. It doesn't make NK defectors particularly hard to believe, and especially doesn't cast doubt on the overall picture of oppression.
Is there any way an outside person can somehow help the cause of human rights protection for North Koreans? I understand that it's the place where the worst things on Earth are happening in our times, but have no slightest idea if it's anyhow possible to help the oppressed people...
Another option from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_Strategy_Center ("sent over (...) 400 radio sets (...) into North Korea" -- I recall people living under communist regime in the past as mentioning that radio is important for giving a glimpse of a different, better world; also from "NKSC's History": "While [the future founder of NKSC] Kang Cheol Hwan lived in North Korea he remembers being influenced by foreign South Korean radio broadcasts which helped him decide to defect from the country after having lived 10 years in the Yodok Political Prison Camp.")
1) Make sure as many people know about it as possible, which creates political pressure on your government.
2) Make sure your government knows that it's a priority for you.
3) Contact Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch; they probably can tell you much more about what you can do.
In my very humble opinion, I think the key is the Chinese public. If they pressure their government, it may be a hassle the Communist dictators decide that they don't need.
Not that I can think of. The rulers of NK seem to not care about any level of suffering the poor people stuck there go through. Our attempts to bring about change via sanctions have just increase the suffering of the average person. It really is the closest we have to an Orwellian nightmare on the planet.
This surprised me. To be honest, I've seen a lot of "information" (and misinformation) about North Korea, and the media makes jokes about them to a degree that it's been difficult for me to tell what's real and what's not.
I knew it was probably pretty bad, but I did not know exactly how bad. There's no way they could all starve and have no internet, right? That seemed like one of the exaggerations to me. But this article implies (and what develops will likely prove) that there are in fact many serious human rights violations going on in that country though, so this helps a lot.
Edit: I understand why this could be seen as ignorance, so I understand the downvotes. However, I want to clarify that my comment is more about the impact that the media has, at least on me, in actually reducing the perceived "terribleness" of North Korea. Perhaps I am just too easily influenced and uninformed.
I agree they are terrible, but it's also still true that defectors have admitted to lying, and not everything that's been said about them has been true. It's good that he has data because that can be verified, and I think we'd all agree verifying this, true or not, is what should be done.
My biggest fear is that they have been working on germ warfare - something like the smallpox the Soviet Union produced with a 90% kill rate that our vaccines don't work on [1].
Did you link to the right thing? That smallpox outbreak didn't have a 90% kill rate and vaccination did work against it. All three of the deaths were amongst the unvaccinated (with 7 others who were vaccinated surviving).
I'm sure the USSR and US did create super bio weapons during the cold war. The claim isn't strange to me, the link is however.
This was the best result I could find for demonstrating what the soviet smallpox weapons program was about. This outbreak showed that vaccination did not provide protection and the strain caused a very high rate of haemorrhage. When you have only 10 individuals infected you can't really estimate the large scale death rate.
The death rate for the strain they developed was estimated from animal studies - not even the soviets were bad enough to test this directly on humans.
I expect to see Unit 731 type of stuff but on a smaller scale.
There are really shocking things that go on in North Korea right now. Massive prisons to hold political prisoners and their families, executions by all kinds of devices, starvation of the population on a wholesale level and it won't surprise me to find they are also doing human experiments.
It's surprising how many comments are casting doubt on the story and on the stories of all NK defectors, and all using the same arguments. It's 3 of the 10 top level comments as of now.
It's surprising how many comments are literally just from this one account that you're using - 20% of the discussion by comment at the moment. Someone has skin in this game, and my gut tells me it's not the people who are advocating caution where lies have been seen before. They're not calling this guy a liar, they're saying to wait and see before getting the old pitchfork out.
Readit News
PS - The reason my initial reaction is skeptical is not that this type of thing cannot happen (as we witnessed during WWII). It is that other defectors have defected from NK before and told the West exactly what we wanted to hear so they'd receive preferential treatment, these claims get splashed all over the headlines, then it turns out further down the road these people's accounts might not be true (and the corrections are on page 5 in a one paragraph story). But raw data is very compelling proof, hard to fake, so as soon as it has been verified I'll buy it.
EDIT: Interestingly, there are several posts using the same arguments to create doubt about this and all NK defectors (something I also posted elsewhere; sorry).
EDIT2: This follows the pattern of the professional/governmental astroturf campaign pretty closely (though, because the astroturfers' goal is to look like everyone else, I could of course be wrong). Certainly you can imagine the value of creating doubt about all NK defectors. Generally the pros build reputation by making posts on topics unrelated to their goal, and then, when it's time to take action, try to make arguments that go as far as they can while sounding reasonable. Here's a great story on a Russian operation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html
Which isn't to say they're untrue. Just unverified.
It is also worth considering that if the West cared about the North Korean people's health and wellbeing we would also have to discuss sanctions in that conversation, as sanctions have definitely caused deaths and suffering within NK.
All I am getting at is, when it comes to NK there is a lot of legitimate "bad" you can say about them. But there is also a lot of propaganda. It is sometimes hard to sort those two things into what is credible and what is uncredible, and defectors are going to say what we want to hear.
> Interestingly, there are several posts using the same arguments to create doubt about this and all NK defectors (something I also posted elsewhere; sorry).
And there are several posts claiming this is just categorically true without even wanting to wait for trusted experts to look at the data. I just want fact, and I believe in this instance (because of the raw data) it is likely that after an examination of the details we can determine with a reasonable degree of certainty the facts of this case.
Seems like that is the minimum we should expect before we start beating our drums of war once more.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/the-strange-tale-of-yeonmi-pa...
http://adamcathcart.com/2014/10/09/north-korea-misinformatio...
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/north-korean-...
edit:
Wikipedia suggests e.g. this: http://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org/ (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_in_North_Korea, via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea#In...) as a charity rescuing NK defectors hiding in China into US. That said, can one anyhow confirm if they do what they advertise? Still, I plan to try donating regularly to them anyway now (which may be cumbersome without a credit card), unless I manage to find something looking even better anyhow.
Another option from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_Strategy_Center ("sent over (...) 400 radio sets (...) into North Korea" -- I recall people living under communist regime in the past as mentioning that radio is important for giving a glimpse of a different, better world; also from "NKSC's History": "While [the future founder of NKSC] Kang Cheol Hwan lived in North Korea he remembers being influenced by foreign South Korean radio broadcasts which helped him decide to defect from the country after having lived 10 years in the Yodok Political Prison Camp.")
Also, I'm not from US.
1) Make sure as many people know about it as possible, which creates political pressure on your government.
2) Make sure your government knows that it's a priority for you.
3) Contact Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch; they probably can tell you much more about what you can do.
In my very humble opinion, I think the key is the Chinese public. If they pressure their government, it may be a hassle the Communist dictators decide that they don't need.
I knew it was probably pretty bad, but I did not know exactly how bad. There's no way they could all starve and have no internet, right? That seemed like one of the exaggerations to me. But this article implies (and what develops will likely prove) that there are in fact many serious human rights violations going on in that country though, so this helps a lot.
Edit: I understand why this could be seen as ignorance, so I understand the downvotes. However, I want to clarify that my comment is more about the impact that the media has, at least on me, in actually reducing the perceived "terribleness" of North Korea. Perhaps I am just too easily influenced and uninformed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10...
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_smallpox_incident
I'm sure the USSR and US did create super bio weapons during the cold war. The claim isn't strange to me, the link is however.
The death rate for the strain they developed was estimated from animal studies - not even the soviets were bad enough to test this directly on humans.
There are really shocking things that go on in North Korea right now. Massive prisons to hold political prisoners and their families, executions by all kinds of devices, starvation of the population on a wholesale level and it won't surprise me to find they are also doing human experiments.
EDIT: Rather than repeating myself, there's more in my post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9821740