Essay --

Imagine having to work a 100 hour work week as a slave, being so desperate for food that you eat snakes, rats, and human corpses to stay alive, and being forced to witness public executions of your closest family members. This is the reality for the 176,000 political and associative prisoners living in North Korean prisons with no rights, no trial, and no reason. The world will have to regard the human rights abuses in North Korean as an important issue if we wish to stop the torture, murder, and starvation that it enforces on its people. Recognition for our need for basic human rights is required to understand how North Korea deprives its people from the choices we as citizens of the USA take for granted. The United Nation’s office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights says that â€Å"human rights are rights inherent to all human beings†. These rights include the rights to life, liberty, property, movement, expression, and security. The United States has different rights engrained in its Bill of Rights, like the right to a speedy trial, freedom from harboring soldiers, and the freedom to a militia. North Korea has had its prisons for more than 5 decades, and its background goes back to the Korean War, when they stored their Prisoners of War and the members of the opposition in the camps. They have continued to today, despite the fact that the North Korean government denies their existence. Those on the outside mainly get their information from prison escapees and satellite imagery, and by these testimonies we can only make educated guesses on the population, location, and size of the camps. Shin Dong-hyuk has helped the rest of the world understand what prison life was like, for his story is haunting. He was born in a prison camp... ...t? Indeed, one of the biggest pitfalls that we as people have subsided from is publicizing the rejection of rights from the North Korean peoples, and we have forgotten that we can get out the word to top diplomatic officials on how and when we wish to combat the violations. Spreading the word is one of the most helpful things you can currently do to, as you, as an American, have the right to democracy and the people’s choice in matters, a right that North Korean citizens have been blatantly denied. Get educated on these matters through books, websites and documentaries, then go spread the information you have been given. As support for the prisoners grows, so will support for the human race as a whole, it will be only then that the issue of North Korea’s concentration camps will be brought to the diplomatic table for and by the people wherever they shall reside.