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The Aquariums Of Pyongyang
''The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag ( ko, 수용소의 노래)'', by Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, is an account of the imprisonment of Kang Chol-Hwan and his family in the Yodok concentration camp in North Korea. It begins with an introduction by co-author Pierre Rigoulot describing Kang's new life in the Republic of Korea, then continues with a brief history of both North and South Korea since the Korean War in 1953. The book is about a powerful family with money and material goods that has everything taken from them by the Workers' Party of Korea. Kang's family, while of Korean ethnicity, originally lived in Japan before emigrating to the DPRK at the behest of his communist grandmother. When Kang was nine years old, his grandfather was imprisoned for suspected activity against the State. Because of guilt by association (''Sippenhaft''), state policy was to incarcerate the immediate family of political prisoners. Kang Chol-Hwan, his gran ...
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Public Execution
A public execution is a form of capital punishment which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend." This definition excludes the presence of only a small number of witnesses called upon to assure executive accountability. The purpose of such displays has historically been to deter individuals from defying laws or authorities. Attendance at such events was historically encouraged and sometimes even mandatory. While today most countries regard public executions with distaste, they have been practiced at some point in history nearly everywhere. At many points in the past, public executions were preferred to executions behind closed doors because of their capacity for deterrence. However, the actual efficacy of this form of terror is disputed. They also allowed the convicted the opportunity to make a final speech, gave the state the chance to display its power in front of those who fell under its jurisdiction, and granted the public what was considered to be a great spect ...
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Human Rights Abuses In North Korea
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Its intelligence and its desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. Although some scientists equate the term ''humans'' with all members of the genus ''Homo'', in common usage, it generally refers to ''Homo sapiens'', the only extant member. Anatomically mode ...
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Yodok Stories
''Yodok Stories'' is a documentary film directed by Polish documentary screenwriter and director Andrzej Fidyk and produced by Torstein Grude. Today, more than 200,000 men, women and children face torture, starvation and murder in North Korea's concentration camps. Few survive the atrocities, yet the camps population is kept stable by a steady influx of new persons considered to be 'class enemies'. A small group of people have managed to flee the camps and start a new life in the prosperous South Korea. The film follows some of these refugees who despite fear of persecution and death threats produce an extraordinary musical about their experiences in the Yodok concentration camp. Awards Yodok Stories won the Planet Doc Review, Youth Jury Award in Poland, The "In the spirit of freedom" award at Jerusalem Film Festival and the Bergen International Film Festival, Youth Jury's Documentary Award in 2008. The film has been screened at numerous film festivals worldwide, including the ...
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North Korean Literature
Reading is a popular pastime in North Korea, where literacy and books enjoy a high cultural standing, elevated by the regime's efforts to disseminate propaganda as texts. Because of this, writers are held in high prestige. The partition of Korea following the Second World War led to a considerable cross-border movement, which included writers moving from North to South or from South to North. North Korea's subsequent literary tradition was shaped and controlled by the State. The "Guidelines for ''Juche'' Literature", published by the official (), emphasised that literature must extoll the country's leader, Kim Il-sung, and, later, Kim Jong-il. Only members of the Writers' Alliance are authorised to have their works published. History Background Russian, and later Soviet, literature were popular in pre-liberation North Korea. Koreans viewed Russian literature very differently from Western audiences, searching for Confucian undertones of social engineering. While Westerners ...
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Human Rights In North Korea
The human rights record of North Korea is often considered to be the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations, the European Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of the country's record. Most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty. Western human rights groups such as Amnesty International and nations such as the United States have asserted that, in practice, there is no right to free speech, and the only media providers that are deemed legal are those operated by the government in North Korea. According to reports from Amnesty International and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, by 2017 an estimated 200,000 prisoners were incarcerated in camps that are dedicated to political crimes, and subjected to forced labour, physical abuse, and execution. The North Korean government strictly monitors the activities of for ...
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Prisons In North Korea
North Korean prisons have conditions that are unsanitary, life-threatening and are comparable to historical concentration camps. A significant number of prisoners have died each year, since they are subject to torture and inhumane treatment. Public and secret executions of prisoners, even children, especially in cases of attempted escape, are commonplace. Infanticides (and infant killings upon birth) also often occur. The mortality rate is exceptionally high, because many prisoners die of starvation, illnesses, work accidents, or torture. During the height of the North Korean famine, the government’s response was to set up many low-level labor camps for those who were caught crossing the North Korean-Chinese border or were repatriated from China. These labor training facilities were also used in response to the black market activity that resulted in people searching for food throughout the countryside (Haggard & Noland, 2012). In 2004, these “labor training” facilities were m ...
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Victor Cha
Victor D. Cha (born 1960) is an American academic, author and former national foreign policy advisor. He is a former Director for Asian Affairs in the White House's National Security Council, with responsibility for Japan, North and South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.Victor Cha
– Whitehouse.gov
He was 's top advisor on n affairs.Officials Head to Kor ...
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George W
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. While in his twenties, Bush flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. In 1978, Bush unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball before he was elected governor of Texas in 1994. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. He also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the nation. In the 2000 presidential election, Bush defeated Democratic incum ...
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China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ...
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The Game Of Their Lives (2002 Film)
''The Game of Their Lives'' (, ''Chollima Football Team'') is a 2002 documentary film directed by Daniel Gordon with Nicholas Bonner of Koryo Tours as an associate producer about the seven surviving members of the North Korea national football team who participated in the 1966 FIFA World Cup. Its victory over Italy propelled the North Korean team into the quarterfinal: it was the first time an Asian team had advanced so far in a World Cup. Awards *2003: Winner, the Royal Television Society award for best sports documentary. *2003: Nominated for Best Historical Documentary at the Grierson Awards. *2003: Nominated for Best Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards. *2003: First prize, Seville Film Festival. *2004: Refracting Reality Documentary Film Award, Seattle International Film Festival, tied with Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003). See also * ''A State of Mind ''A State of Mind'' is a 2004 documentary film directed by Daniel Gordon and produced by Nich ...
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