Monday, June 10, 2002

Happy Birthday NonPerson!

The New York Times is reporting widespread infanticide within North Korea.

Significantly, this is occurring among the thousands of unfortunate "economic immigrants" who are shipped back from China where they fled for their lives. Upon arrival back in the Magic Kingdom they are eased back into North Korea society by being incarcerated in labor camps. Pregnant women are injected with miscarriage inducing drugs and those who manage to give birth are often witnesses to their newborn child's execution. As if this were not barbaric enough, the North Korean authorities take a characteristically Juche approach to the grisly deed:


"Lee Soon Ok, who worked as an accountant for six years at Kaechon political prison, recalled in an interview that she twice saw prison doctors kill newborn babies, sometimes by stepping on their necks."


A handy wooden box is provided for the collection of these would-be North Koreans.

We've known for years that North Korea's cradle to grave socialism has been rather heavily weighted in favor of the grave but this news comes at a critical moment when the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) is considering making a judgement about whether the North Korean refugees are fleeing a tyrannical death camp or just looking to pick up some extra bucks in the frozen wastelands of Northern China.

China opposes designating the escapees as "political refugees" since that would mean they couldn't be sent back home and would likely encourage a wave of new refugees. They have gone so far as to storm the Japanese consulate in Shenyang to remove asylum seekers who thought they had made it to safety.

The U.S. State Department is not taking a position because they don't want to inconvenience our "allies" against terror, the Chinese.

Meanwhile the UNHCR has received a petition pleading for wisdom rather than political expediency . . . it was signed by 12 million people.

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