North Korean Prison Camps Massive and Growing

Former inmates at the political labor camp at Yodok, North Korea, said they were frequently tortured and had been forced to watch the executions of fellow prisoners, the report said, noting that the North’s network of political prisons is estimated to hold 200,000 inmates.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International. “For decades, the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps. These are places out of sight of the rest of the world.” The report says that almost all of the human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the past 60 years “are ignored.”

After comparing recent satellite photos of prison camps with images from 10 years ago, Mr. Zarifi said, Amnesty International became concerned that the “prison camps appear to be growing.”

North Korea’s work farms and prison factories are the world’s most notorious, according to human rights experts. Political prisoners sentenced to hard labor initially included landlords, purged party officials and the religiously active, according to Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, the authors of “Witness to Transformation,” an authoritative study of North Korean refugees.

Political prisons, they said, also now hold “anyone guilty of political or ideological crimes or even suspected of disloyalty,” adding that the system shows “little pretense of due process.”

Son Hyang-sun, a woman who defected from North Korea 15 years ago because she was starving, said she was caught on her first escape attempt. She was convicted and jailed for four months.

“They tortured me with an electric stick, yes, a cattle prod,” she said in an interview with The International Herald Tribune. “They stuck it everywhere.”

A recent State Department report on human rights in North Korea said “detainees and prisoners consistently reported violence and torture” as well as virtual starvation rations. In various accounts, escaped inmates have reported eating earthworms and rats to get enough protein to survive.

Jeong Kyoung-il, a former Yodok inmate who was interviewed last month by Amnesty, said that deaths in the prison occurred almost daily. But the deaths of fellow prisoners came to be seen in a depraved and desperate light. “Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it, rather than feel sad, because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food,” Mr. Jeong said.

 

North Korean Prison Camps Massive and Growing

SEOUL — New satellite images and firsthand accounts from former political prisoners and former jailers in North Korea have confirmed the massive scale and bleak conditions of the penal system in the secretive North, according to a report released Wednesday by the human rights group Amnesty International.

Former inmates at the political labor camp at Yodok said they were frequently tortured and had been forced to watch executions of fellow prisoners, the report said, noting that North Korea’s network of political prisons, known as “kwan li-so,” is estimated to hold some 200,000 inmates.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International. “For decades the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps. These are places out of sight of the rest of the world, where almost the entire range of human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the last 60 years are ignored.”

After comparing recent satellite photos of prison camps with images from 10 years ago, Mr. Zarifi said, his group became concerned that the “prison camps appear to be growing in size.”

North Korea’s work farms and prison factories are the world’s most notorious, according to human rights experts. Political prisoners sentenced to hard labor initially included landlords, purged party officials and the religiously active, according to Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, the authors of “Witness to Transformation,” an authoritative study of North Korean refugees.

Political prisons, they said, also now hold “anyone guilty of political or ideological crimes or even suspected of disloyalty,” adding that the system shows “little pretense of due process.”

Son Hyang-sun, a woman who defected from North Korea 15 years ago because she was starving, said she was apprehended on her first escape attempt and was taken back to the North. She was convicted and jailed for four months, spending part of that time in a political prison.

“They tortured me with an electric stick, yes, a cattle prod,” she said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune. “They stuck it everywhere.”

A recent U.S. State Department report on human rights in North Korea said “detainees and prisoners consistently reported violence and torture.”

A former Yodok inmate who was interviewed last month by Amnesty, Jeong Kyoung-il, said that deaths in the prison were almost daily occurrences. But under the perilous conditions in the camp, the deaths of fellow prisoners came to be seen in a depraved and desperate light.

“Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it, rather than feel sad, because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food,” Mr. Jeong said.

“I used to take charge of burying dead people’s bodies. When an officer told me to, I gathered some people and buried the bodies. After receiving extra food for the job, we felt glad rather than feeling sad.”

 

Economix: Ranks of the Rich Growing in China

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HONG KONG — China’s economic boom has made many Chinese very wealthy indeed. A new study by the consulting firm Bain & Company shows just how many — and how rapidly — the ranks of the rich are swelling in this country of 1.3 billion.

Bain estimates that the number of high-net-worth individuals — mostly first-generation entrepreneurs who have more than 10 million renminbi, or about $1.5 million, in investable assets — will grow to 585,000 this year. That’s twice the number than in 2008. Moreover, the number of individuals who are worth more than 100 million renminbi is rising at its fastest pace.

‘‘Wealth creation in China is marching on unimpeded,’’ said Johnson Chng, Bain’s chief of financial services in greater China and the author of the study.

The greatest concentration of millionaires and multimillionaires are in Beijing; Shanghai; the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, which are adjacent to Shanghai; and the southern province of Guangdong. More than 30,000 high-net-worth individuals live in each of these areas.

But central and western areas of China have the speediest growth rates. In provinces like Sichuan, Hunan and Hubei, and the Bohai Bay basin (including Tianjin and Liaoning) the number of rich soared by a rate of 31 to 40 percent a year from 2008 to 2010, according to the Bain study, which was conducted in collaboration with China Merchants Bank.

This echoes — and highlights — the gradual, partially Beijing-engineered shift of economic wealth and activity away from the coastal areas into the country’s more underdeveloped interior.

All this may be good news for companies wishing to cash in on the increasing affluence to be found in China (and many other rapidly growing Asian countries).

Luxury-goods makers and retailers from Luis Vuitton to Samsonite to Ermenegildo Zegna have spent considerable time, effort and cash into rolling out a formidable presence in China. So for that matter have banks, which have been racing to build their private banking business. And China’s rich increasingly trust and use such services: 45 percent cited these as major investment channels in the Bain study, up from only 15 percent in 2008 — though the bulk of that business currently goes to domestic, rather than overseas, banks.

For the authorities in Beijing, however, the rapidly widening wealth gap in China is an increasing concern. Many commentators now consider it as one of the country’s most pressing economic problems.

Striking truckers in Shanghai, angered by the sharp rise in fuel prices in recent months, this week hammered home an important point: many millions of Chinese have missed out on the wealth boom spotlighted by the Bain report.

 

Children 'growing up too quickly'

11 April 2011 Last updated at 05:51 ET  Padded bras and other adult clothing aimed at young girls is a concern for some parents Almost nine out of every 10 UK parents say children are having to grow up too early, with nearly half unhappy with pre-watershed TV, a survey suggests.

The research is part of a government-commissioned review into the sexualisation of children, conducted by Mothers' Union head Reg Bailey.

Most parents said music videos and celebrity were encouraging children to act older than they were.

Mr Bailey is due to publish a full report in May.

Of the 1,025 parents of five- to 16-year-olds surveyed, 40% said they had seen things in public places, such as shop window displays and advertising hoardings, that they felt were inappropriate for children to see because of their sexual content.

And 41% of parents said they had seen programmes or adverts on television before 9pm that they felt were unsuitable for similar reasons.

'Prudish'

The review is also conducting focus groups, and Mr Bailey said emerging areas of concern included adult-style clothing aimed at young children, as well as toys and games they felt were inappropriate.

Parents were "struggling against the slow creep of an increasingly commercial and sexualised culture and behaviour, which they say prevents them from parenting the way they want", he said.

He said parents "had little faith in regulators or businesses taking their concerns seriously", but also were put off complaining be fears they would be seen as "prudish or out of touch".

The review is exploring whether the should be restrictions on retailers selling sexualised products aimed at children - such as "Porn star" T-shirts or padded bras.

A code of conduct on "age appropriate" marketing and a new watchdog are among plans being considered by the review.

Items that have been criticised include pencil cases and other products with the Playboy logo.