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Eight reasons why North Korea's leaders should be tried for crimes against humanity

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The list of crimes against their own people and others is long and worthy of attention.

The Telegraph has published a list of eight crimes for which North Korea and its leadership could be tried in international court. Although the odds of anyone from North Korea facing such justice are long, the world should be prepared because anything could happen in the reclusive state and that could include a complete reversal of the political situation there.

Highlights

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
11/20/2014 (9 years ago)

Published in Asia Pacific

Keywords: North Korea, crimes, humanity, international

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Kims have ruled Korea for decades in a dynasty that now spans three generations. The reclusive regime strictly controls what comes into the country and what gets out. Even people and news are tightly controlled.

An obsession with power and control has created a despotic state where people are often brutally repressed, brainwashed, and outright killed, sometimes in gruesome fashion. By all international  standards, these crimes against humanity are among the worst offenses a leader and his regime can commit and Kim Jong Un should be brought to justice for his role in perpetuating them.

Do you have a cause that cries for justice? Let us pray for justice in the world.

Here are the crimes that The Telegraph suggests North Korean officials ought to be tried.

1.    Racial Purity

The notion of racial purity is not just something from Nazi Germany. The North Koreans also have a notion of it and enforce it as a practice. Children of mixed race parents, typically those with one Chinese parent, are killed.

2.    Government-Manufactured Famine

While it seems absurd that a government would deliberately create a famine this is precisely what happened in North Korea in the 1990s. Up to 2.5 million people died from malnutrition and starvation. Aid was sent to the country, but the government did not forward that aid and instead seized it and distributed it as it pleased. Anyone who smuggled food or attempted to obtain more food than was rationed to them was punished.

3.    Malnourished Generation

According to The Telegraph, 45 percent of North Korean children suffered from stunted growth because of malnutrition between 2003 and 2008. Such impacts are generally permanent in children.

4.    Death Camps

North Korea maintains a massive system of concentration camps. Over half of the people sent to these camps die from causes suffered within the camps including execution, starvation, illness and overwork. The inmates of each camp provide slave labor to the state and are a pillar of the nation's economy. Often, the people sent to the camps are unaware of why. I one member of a family commits a crime, the entire family is often rounded up and imprisoned even though they may have no knowledge of why.  This keeps the camps stocked with laborers and prevents upset family members from organizing resistance to the government.

5.    Forced Confessions

Children in North Korea are conditioned to implicate their friends and neighbors for failings. Students must routinely justify their behavior to their teachers and peers and are forced to name at least one peer who has fallen short in some way. This conditions people to report one another and to confess to crimes they may be accused of.

6.    Mass Rituals

North Koreans will train for extended periods to participate in mass rituals for the pleasure of their Dear Leader. The Telegraph states the training can last for ten hours per day every day for six months with children sometimes fainting from exhaustion. State holidays and ceremonies require public participation and on days of mourning people who are not thought to be sincere or to cry enough are subject to arrest.

7.    Severe Punishments for Petty Offenses

Watch the wrong television show or get caught listening to a foreign radio broadcast and you could be sent to a concentration camp or be killed. People are often tortured following arrest.

8.    Kidnappings

North Korea has kidnapped as many as 200,000 foreigners since 1950 from as far away as Japan. According to North Korea, the kidnappings have been part of training for spies. Once kidnapped, with rare exception, the people are not returned. Most have died in North Korean captivity.

That North Korean officials should answer for these crimes, there is no doubt. However, it is highly unlikely they will be called to answer. It is difficult to believe that members of the regime would allow themselves to be taken alive or even kept alive if they were captured in a coup or an international operation to bring them to justice. Indeed, such an action itself is unlikely. As such, the world can expect many more years of terrible depravity from North Korea.

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