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Disabled People in North Korea

Colin Revell | 30.10.2006 14:31 | Culture | Repression | Social Struggles | World

Dear All,

Please see below for Press Release which is extremely disturbing. There must be something that the international disability, indymedia and others communites can do about these horrific human rights abuses in North Korea which goes beyond the atrocities what Hitler and the Nazi's caused to over 200,000 disabled people who were the first victims within the Holocaust!!!!!

Dear All,

Please see below for Press Release which is extremely disturbing. There must be something that the international disability community can do!!!!!

Frank

Frank Mulcahy,
'Franmar',
2 Castle Village Court,
Celbridge,
Co. Kildare
Ireland

Tel.: +353 (0)1 627 1314
Mobile/Cell Phone: +353 (0)87 2344 934
E-mail:  fmulcahy@iol.ie or
 frankmulcahy2005@yahoo.co.uk

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The North Korean government rounds up disabled people and sends them away from the capital Pyongyang to special camps, where they are sorted by their handicap and subjected to "subhuman conditions," a recently released U.N. report said.

Author Vitit Muntarbhorn, special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea, cited reports from defectors who said the mentally disabled are sent to camps known as "Ward 49." Other camps exist for dwarfs, who may marry but are barred from having children.

"To date, the situation facing those with disabilities has presented a very disconcerting picture," Muntarbhorn wrote in the report detailing what he said were rampant human rights abuses in North Korea.

Those violations include torture, refusal to give food aid to citizens and harsh punishment of those trying to flee the country, according to the report, released last Thursday.

Muntarbhorn has repeatedly written to the North Korean government about numerous concerns and has asked to be allowed into the country. The government has typically responded that it does not recognize his mandate and will not communicate with him -- or allow him to visit.

As a result, much of the evidence he relied on for his conclusions was drawn from reports compiled by other sources. The finding that North Korea was putting away the disabled was published by the Korea Institute for National Unification, a South Korean government think tank, in a 2005 report that got little international attention.

Citing that report, Muntarbhorn said the disabled are sent to camps and sorted according to their physical deformity or handicap.

"It is reported that those with disabilities are sent away from the capital city, and particularly those with mental disabilities are detained in areas or camps known as 'Ward 49' with harsh and subhuman conditions," the report said.

"North Korean authorities are practicing merciless discrimination against handicapped persons," the institute's report said.

Muntarbhorn's report detailed other rights violations against women, the elderly and children. It said that women who get pregnant with non-Koreans when they flee the country are subject to discrimination or violence if they are brought back "with dire impact on the babies or children of the relationship."

Family members of people who are seen as opponents of the North Korean government are often punished along with their relatives and it is illegal to listen to foreign radio broadcasts or own a computer without permission, Muntarbhorn said in the report.

Muntarbhorn, a Thai specialist in human rights law, made some of the same points in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council last month.

He said then he had seen "reports of a wide range of detention centers and prisons with appalling conditions and use of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, despite a ban on such practices under the country's law," Muntarbhorn said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For more information about 'Disabled People and the Holocaust' and 'Life Unworthy of Life', then see following links I have researcher:-

 http://www.outside-centre.com/thchair.html

 http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/holocaust/holocaust_remembrance_2004_-_other_victims/holocaust_remembrance_2004_-_disabled___the_holocaust.htm
 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/disabled.html
 http://fcit.usf.edu/Holocaust/people/victims.htm
 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143
 http://www.holocaust-trc.org/hndcp.htm
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/closeup/holocaust/
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/closeup/holocaust/faq.shtml
 http://www.normemma.com/areut_killcrip.htm
 http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities_02/
 http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/siandavies/271942.aspx
 http://www.holocaust-education.dk/baggrund/eutanasi.asp
 http://www.outside-centre.com/thchair.html

 http://www.drc-gb.org/library/drc_speeches/bert_massie__holocaust_memoria.aspx

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust

Learning From our Past: Making Space for Difficult History:- States of Denial: Recognising Difficult History, Strengthening Our Future:-
 http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:VsCKshDW7IsJ:www.qub.ac.uk/sites/EqualitySocialInclusionInIreland-HomePage/FileStore/Filetoupload,24727,en.doc+Holocaust+and+disabled+people&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=23

"Life Unworthy of Life" and other Medical Killing Programmes:-
 http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/mord.htm
 http://www.vhec.org/images/pdfs/lifeunworthy.pdf
 http://www.shoaheducation.com/t4.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_unworthy_of_life
 http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5436
 http://www.suite101.com/lesson.cfm/17387/734/2
 http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/10/06/181755.php
 http://experts.about.com/e/l/li/life_unworthy_of_life.htm

'Reason opposes Euthanasia':-  http://www.catholicdoctors.org.uk/CMQ/2006/Feb/reason_opposes_euthanasia.htm

Colin Revell
- e-mail: colrev@hotmail.co.uk

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