pretty full on read

http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2007-09-atbirth.htm

Here is a snip

At around 8 o’clock in the morning, 6 April 1996, I was ordered to report to school immediately. When I arrived at the school, I noted a passenger car waiting at the school. The people who emerged from the car approached me, no questions, hand-cuffed and blindfolded me and drove me to an unknown location. I felt like we were descending in an elevator, and I found myself in a dark chamber illuminated only by a single light bulb, when they removed the scarf from my eyes.

Directly before me was a man sitting at a desk in an empty room. He gave me a sheet of paper and told me to read it. There appeared the names of my father’s brothers, two of whom had collaborated with South Korea during the Korean War and then fled to South Korea. This is the very first time I understood why my father and his brothers were brought here. I wrote my name and placed my fingerprint at the bottom of the document..

This was a secret underground torture chamber in Camp 14. I was in cell No. 7, a dark and small room with no light except a small electric light on the ceiling. There I was told that my mother and brother were arrested at dawn that morning while attempting to escape from the camp, and I was told to tell him all about a family conspiracy.

This was an awful and unthinkable crime and I jumped with surprise at the news. The next day I was taken to a chamber, full of all kinds of torture instruments. I was stripped, my legs were cuffed and my hands were tied with rope. I was hung by my legs and hands from the ceiling. Some one told me to confess the truth about who started the escape plan. I said I had known nothing about it.

Strangely, I had no fear at that moment. Even today, my lack of fear at that time remains a mystery. Someone started a charcoal fire and brought it just under my back. I felt the heat at my waist and shrieked. I instinctively struggled hard to avoid the flames. My torturers pierced me with a steel hook near my groin to stop my writhing, then I blacked out.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious but I found myself in a cell that rocked from my own feces and urine. I summoned all my strength to get up but felt great pain at my waist. I found blood and wounds at my lower abdomen. As days passed, the pain grew and my flesh began to decay, stinking so terribly that the guards avoided entering my cell.

But it's for the greater good!

it sucks we cant stop em, i wonder if they will ever change? I doubt it tho, they wont give up that failing government and answer for their crimes, not when they are that drunk with power

http://imgur.com/a/648Mv

Let them starve and they'll collapse when they can no longer feed their soldiers. The question is whether or not they want to go out in a blaze of fire.

if it came to that id imagine they would try to "take" the food from the south

I think the problem is that they are managing to feed their military OK, it's the rest of the population that is starving.

Very sad story, but to be honest didn't surprise me. It's pretty much what I imagined life in a military or political prison would be like, especially in a country like North Korea.

I feel sorry for the kid, he's obviously got some deep issues, and will likely never really know how to assimilate into society correctly, let alone raise a family.

I missed the last part where he escaped and wrote about this all on the internet.

Is this legit? Or are we all just taking it for granted?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Dong-hyu...hts_activist%29


That may help Gharph..

AD

Did you read the whole link ? He talks about how he escaped towards the end

Cheers man. I always gotta ask about stuff like this.

Pity NK doesn't have massive oil and gas reserves under it. Then America would be all over 'liberating' the masses.

If it had massive oil and gas they would be liberating us

I hope these people go through "official channels" if they try to leave NK. We can't have them "jumping the queue". Also they will need to have "documentation" as to their indentities. People without "papers" are just trying to "defraud the system". I hope they don't try to "guilt trip" their way into another country with a "sob story". Keep them "locked up" until they are known not to be "dangerous savages". People from such a brutal culture cannot be trusted "That's only common sense".

I think he is trying to work out how many quotation marks he can squeeze into 1 paragraph, good news in, its a new world record

Anything for the Great Leader!
I can see the allegory behind that but I won't elaborate on it in case I accidentally stuff up one little fact resulting in a horde of TGR going apeshit on me.

It sucks for them but that's just how it is. Living in a shit country doesn't automatically give someone the right to live in another illegally. If a country is willing to take them, then fine but they can also refuse them if they want

I'm fairly sure Hlass was being sarcastic.

Very easy to say it sucks to be them whilst sitting in a first world country with every right imaginable.

I think Slurms picked up on the sarcasm Xen :P He was replying to Hlass as if Hlass's statement reads "this is why we need to give the refugees a chance, and stop detaining them for not providing the 100 pieces of paper requested upon arival".

While it is very sad many refugees are detained for ~200 days on average, I understand the need for detention (not that long though). A couple of weeks to try to find any information you can on each individual or family will be useful in either identifying skills, education and training has and possibly setting them up in an area that has high demand for their skillset. Obviously the main reason the government is doing it is for security checks. Can you imagine the public uproar if the government let "terrorists" into the country through refugee channels?

I'd like to see screening and detention stay, but I'd like to see processing times comes way down to be in line with the rest of the first world. If people can get through processing and into our community by ~ 1 month after arriving it's far more acceptable and reasonable. I also think if they can't speak English, the government should run free classes at public library's for them and their families to learn. The biggest cultural barier is often language, and if they can get English under their belt they are much more likely to assimilate and join the workforce successfully.

Which then brings up the issue of available manpower.

Australians themselves are having massive delays in getting security clearances to work for Australian Govt due to staff shortage.

Would be nice if people weren't all lumped into 1 group. It really feels like everyone comes in suspected a terrorist until proven otherwise.

It'd be great if people had the appropriate paperwork, but we all know that it's not always possible.

AD

took me 7 months to get my clearance, that is without chucking my passport in the ocean and lying, it was also in the Howard era before labor started waving carrots at people smugglers. But no worries we can do a security screen on a random dude in a few weeks, disregard the work involved in that process.

I would like to see some backing behind those calls the greenies have been saying, during what experience in an intelligence agency did you discover the system can be cut to a 1/10 of its size without mass extra manning?

Howard was far worse.. Trust me on this.. He let in less BOAT people. But the number that came in via other means? FAR higher. But BOAT people get the media attention. Overstayed visas DON'T!

AD

a good doco with people who escaped North korea and lived in camps

your right and the first safe country they come they can claim asylum

Keyword there being "safe" country. Many neighboring countries are just as unsafe to seek refuge in times of conflict or war.

I rekon they would be safe if they escaped to South Korea even tho they are still "in war" with the north

when you go through five or six different countries how do you do that without a passport?
pretty much all SE asian countries will be "safe"
poor conditions but they wont be killed

Depends on their method of travel through said countries, if they were smuggled into and out of those countries, then it's obviously doable without a passport.

My point was more to the point of simply stating "just go to the next country over" isn't always a possible solution for all refugees, depending on the danger presented to them.

Don't worry too much about the Greens. Nobody takes them too seriously.

well the majority are heading in once they have been in indo for a while and i reckon as soon as it can be shown they have gone through a safe country without asking for refugee status they are no longer refugees
there are 50 million or something refugees in the world. why do we have to give a shit about the ones who make it to a safe country while the other rot in camps?