10 SHOCKING Facts You Never Knew About North Korea

Escaping from North Korea in search of freedom | Yeonmi Park | One Young World
Published on Oct 18, 2014

Speech from Yeonmi Park telling her story of life in North Korea and calls for action against such human rights violators.

If you want to help us bring the world together, please leave a LIKE on this video, SHARE the video, and SUBSCRIBE to our channel.

Here are some of our links if you want to keep up with One Young World –
Website:https://www.oneyoungworld.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OneYoungWorld
Facebook: https://www.oneyoungworld.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oneyoungworld/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/one-…

Watch the Summit highlights here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3IIi…

Yeonmi was speaking at the One Young World Summit 2014 in Dublin, Ireland. The Summit brought together 1,300 young leaders with 194 countries represented to debate and devise solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems.

______________________________________________________________________________________

North Korea, otherwise known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a unique nation for all the wrong reasons. It is easily the most backward, isolated country on the planet.

Because of this isolation, information about the nature of the country, and the regime in power, is scarce and often not widely known.

But North Korea is a small, belligerent nation with the capability to cause real harm to the country’s around it, even the United States. These are 10 things you should know about the rogue state of North Korea.

1. Without oil, they’ve turned to wood-powered cars.

One of the ways in which North Korea is unique is that it gives us a look at what a future without oil might look like under the worst possible scenario.

The reclusive nation, whose only trading partner is China, functions almost entirely without gasoline and petroleum products, which has forced them to improvise.

Vehicles have been retrofitted to run on what they refer to as “wood gas,” carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas that’s produced from wood or coal.

Of course, using wood as fuel for cars is an ecological disaster that ruins air quality in cities and dumps immense amounts of carbon pollution into the atmosphere.

Wood gas engines were invented in 1839 and were used through WWII, when near the end of the war, Germany turned to powering more than 500,000 vehicles with the gas.

 

2. The country’s widespread poverty is even visible from space.

North Korea’s economy is strictly centrally planned. Some reforms have occurred since 2015 but for the most part, it is still an incredibly rigid, command economy.

There is very little data about the country’s economy, but it’s likely that North Korea has the weakest economy on Earth.

The average GDP per capita in North Korea is $1,800, making it 197th in the world. The GDP is 18 times higher in South Korea and 28 times higher in the United States.

Half of the nation’s 24 million citizens live in extreme poverty, according to the KUNI report, and a third of children have stunted growth due to malnutrition.

North Korea’s life expectancy is only 69 years old and has been in decline since 1980. Most homes are heated with fire places where citizens burn whatever they can find for heat to survive the bitingly cold North Korean winters.

Electricity is unreliable, as should be obvious from the image above. Most homes receive just a few hours of electricity a day, if any at all.

 

3. North Korea has no laws regarding Marijuana.

I hesitate to say that marijuana is legal in North Korea, but it’s also not criminalized in any way.

Cannabis appears to be sold pretty freely in the nation with one 29-year-old freelance writer from England recounting a story of how he purchased an entire bag of weed from an indoor market in a rural town in North Korea and smoked it in restaurants, bars, and in parks.

According to an anonymous source, Kim Jong Un’s regime doesn’t see marijuana as a drug and therefore doesn’t see any reason to interfere with it.

It’s possible, though unconfirmed, that marijuana consumption is encouraged as an alternative to tobacco, a luxury most North Koreans cannot afford.

 

4. North Korea operates concentration camps.

People are well aware of the concentration camps from World War II, where Germany imprisoned and murdered millions of “undesirable” people, and even the United States used to intern Japanese-American citizens during the war in the Pacific. While many of us may think that concentration camps are a horrid relic of an age passed, they’re alive and well in North Korea.

It is believed that up to 200,000 North Koreans reside in prison camps, arrested because of supposed political crimes. If one person commits a political crime, their entire family is interned.

If they escape, often their entire families are killed. 40% of the prisoners interned at these concentration camps die of malnutrition. Many are sentenced to “hard labor” for a seemingly reasonable length of time but are then promptly worked to death.

5. Children must attend school, but at a cost.

Children in North Korea are mandated to attend school, similar to in the United States. But unlike in the U.S., North Korea’s school children are required to bring their own desks and chairs and are required to give up money to pay for heat. Some parents keep their kids out of school by bribing teachers to not report them.

 

6. It’s the year 105 in North Korea.

In North Korea, their calendars are not based on what the rest of the world uses. Instead of it being 2017, it is the year 105 inside their borders. Why? Their calendar is based on the date of their dear revolutionary leader Kim Il-Sung’s birth: April 15, 1912.

 

7. North Korea holds elections.

While North Korea does hold elections, they aren’t exactly free elections. Each election gives you once choice, and I’ll give you 1 chance to guess who the choice is. When the votes are tallied, 100% of the votes cast are cast for their dear leader.

 

8. North Korea will punish you for three generations.

If you are born in North Korea and your grandfather committed a crime, you’re on the hook for that crime too. When someone commits a crime, their whole family is held responsible for it.

Grandparents, parents, and children can wind up in prison work camps because of the infractions of one individual. They call this their “3 generations of punishment rule.”

9. Kim Il-Sung is their only true leader.

While Kim Il-Sung, their first leader since the communist revolution, is long dead, he is still considered the leader of the country.

It’s why his son, and now grandson, were able to so easily take the reins of leadership when the former dies. While the heirs have the reins, Kim Il-Sung will forever have the heart of the DPRK.

10. The newest leader, Kim Jong Un, is an eccentric, brutal dictator.

When he assumed power after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, it was hoped that Kim, much younger than previous leaders as well as educated in Europe, would bring about reforms. This has not proven to be case. Kim is just as bent on preserving his power as his father and grandfather were.

The list of eccentricities is long. Among them, he’s the only “general” in the world with no military experience, he got plastic surgery to look more like his grandfather, he has issued the execution of people via mortar rounds, is obsessed with Michael Jordan, had his uncle “obliterated” for supposed crimes against the state, and even executed his ex-girlfriend.

For North Korea, it’s hard to see a way out of the vile, kleptocratic dictatorship they’re forced to live under. Kim Jong Un is leader for life, and there’s no sign that he will instigate reforms. For the millions of starving, impoverished people in the DPRK, we can only pray.

 

Article from: http://www.higherperspectives.com/shocking-facts-north-korea-2312425603.html?c=vidlink

Assad’s Troops Are Raping Children to Silence Dissenters

By Khaled Rawas On 11/12/15 at 5:17 PM

Children, who live in the rebel-held neighborhood of Jobar in Damascus, Syria, are pictured July 18. The Assad regime utilizes the incredibly harmful effects of rape on the victim and her society to suppress any form of dissent, the author writes. Bassam Khabieh/Reuters

This article first appeared on the Atlantic Council site.

“I will not forgive him, nor will I let God’s mercy descend onto him,” uttered a woman activist working to support rape victims at a secret humanitarian organization in Damascus.

The activist leveled this charge not against the regime and its Shabiha militias—which use this most cruel weapon of war systematically to intimidate, suppress and humiliate Assad’s many opponents—but in reference to the father of a twelve year-old girl who was brutally gang raped by pro-Assad factions in her own home in front of her family.

Rape is a brutal and despicable weapon in any context, capable of tearing individuals, families and whole communities asunder. In Syria, rape not only brutalizes the victims and strips them of their humanity in their own eyes but also in the eyes of their families and society.

The Assad regime utilizes its incredibly harmful effects on the victim and her society to suppress any form of dissent. Clearly, a 12-year-old girl was no threat to the regime, but raping her in front of her family was a means to repress the opposition and callously silence those who long for freedom.

“When I heard about this incident from members of the community, I managed to track down the phone number of this young girl’s father, who had come to represent a crime against humanity itself,” says the female activist. The activist learned that the girl was in the third month of her pregnancy, but in keeping with Muslim tradition, the girl’s father refused to allow her to abort the child.

When the activist attempted to speak with the father about the incident, he angrily declined to discuss the matter and quickly hung up the phone. After the young girl gave birth to the child, the activist received additional reports that she and her baby were physically assaulted by her father for bringing dishonor upon the family. Again the activist attempted to make contact with the father, but he rebuffed her.

In the end, the young girl took her newborn child and fled from her home, prompting the activist’s earlier comment of the father who mercilessly forbade his daughter from aborting the child of a Shabiha -rape, but then displayed no mercy toward the child of that rape. Already stripped her of her humanity, her family’s shame and humiliation stripped her of it a second time.

Regrettably, the girl’s story is hardly unique. Thousands women and girls have been victims of the regime’s institutionalized campaign of sexual and gender-based violence. The roots of this epidemic do not stem from the 2011 revolution, but rather extend from Syria’s legal and religious tradition set long before the revolution.

Syria’s constitution—still in force today—contains several laws pertaining to “honor crimes” and sexual assault, including the crimes of rape, seduction, licentious behavior and violations of women’s private chambers (pursuant to Section 7, chapter 1, clauses 498-507).

Article 192 of the penal code considers the perpetrator of an honor crime under the influence of passion caused by the victim’s lack of scrupulousness. Additionally, the penal code allows judges to exercise great discretion when determining how to convict and sentence perpetrators of honor crimes, calling for all factors that may mitigate the penalty to be considered when applicable.

The Syrian constitution also derives certain components of its legal code from particular interpretations Islamic law (sharia). The regime codified the narrow-minded religious precepts regarding rape and honor crimes to extend its authority into people’s personal lives. In the process it empowered a certain brand of religious men: those willing to align themselves with the government to gain influence.

Any criticism of these precepts became a challenge to the political system, silencing moderate voices of Islamic jurisprudence, which take as their basis natural law and a respect for human nature. Religious discourse and Friday sermons were further used to guide the public toward the regime’s perspective and away from any critical thought.

A woman who was a former regime prisoner said, “During my detention, I saw many female detainees whose families refused to recognize them on the assumption they had been raped, even if that wasn’t true. For example, the regime forced one activist [detainee] to conduct an interview on national television and claim that twenty-one Free Syrian Army fighters gang raped her to spread its false version of who revolutionaries are by playing on the religious and social tension of regime supporters.

“This was not the only injustice that she faced. After being transferred to the Adra civilian prison, her father visited her and disowned her, ordering her never to return to her community. Even if she was ever released from prison, she could never go back home.”

The regime’s detention of the activist was not enough; by forcing her to lie, she was crushed between the brutality of the regime and the shame of her family.

Syrian society has failed to deal with mass rape and other sensitive gender issues in a fair and just manner—incidents that only increase in frequency. For example, one common solution is for a man to volunteer to marry the victim, as though it were an act of mercy; often the man is much older than the victim and possibly already married.

As though society has not done enough damage at this point, some of these men publicly declare that the marriage is intended to protect the victim. Those who engage in this practice act as though they are committing a holy act, without pausing to consider the emotional, mental and psychological damage done to the wellbeing of the victim.

As a Syrian, I hope that the revolution will not only fight the Assad regime, but also the damaging traditions and mores that oppress our society. The fight for freedom calls for us to think and act logically, not to listen to overzealous religious leaders and a brutal regime.

Syria’s honor does not depend on the female hymen, but in eradicating the ruthless Assad regime and its cruel system of gender-based oppression. This is the revolution that we need.

Khaled Rawas is a mechanical engineer, civil society activist and member of Damascus’s Revolution Leadership Council.

Article from: http://www.newsweek.com/assads-troops-are-raping-children-silence-dissenters-393202