13 March 2009
THE HANKYOREH IS PLEASED TO REPORT that North Korea has become marginally less hellish in some ways! But read the fine print:
“North Korea’s human rights situation is wholly poor. Economic, social, and cultural rights are growing notably worse, while there have been institutional improvements in civic and political rights. Also, the human rights situation is different by social group and region, with continually deepening disparity.
Wait! It gets better, I swear!
The document notes that there have been systemic improvements in civic and political rights, and that the a weakened regime structure and economic difficulties have led to slight but unintended improvements in the rights of regular North Koreans. Public executions have been become less frequent since the start of the decade, and they have become more common for crimes like corruption on the part of party officials, murder, human trafficking, and narcotics production and sale than for political crimes.
So the good news (though not everyone agrees on this) is there have been fewer public executions, but the bad news is that it’s mostly because of the high cost of bullets (must be those deadbeat widows not paying their bills on time).
Someone remind me again why enriching this regime is so fucking great for the people of North Korea.
BARACK OBAMA, imperialist and warmonger.
THE ADMINISTRATION SHOWS SOME STONES and sends a destroyer to protect its survey off the Chinese coast. I’m sure the Chinese were paying very close attention to how we’d react to this.
SO WHAT WAS THE DEAL WITH THOSE OLYMPIC PROTEST ZONES?
In the end, official reports show, China never approved a single protest application — despite its repeated pledges to improve its human rights record when it won the bid to host the Games. Some would-be applicants were taken away by force by security officials and held in hotels to prevent them from filing the paperwork. Others were scared away by warnings that they could face “difficulties” if they went through with their applications.
Ji has spent the past eight months in various states of arrest and detention. In January, he was sentenced to three years in prison, the maximum penalty allowed, on charges of faking official seals on documents he filed on behalf of his clients. Ji is appealing. [Washington Post]
If you are one of those people who told us that giving China the Olympics would make it a more enlightened place, book an appointment to have yourself sterilized. Your genes are retarding humanity’s advancement.