I think most criminal types usually aren't homeless, they are living it up.
This is North Korea in 2022
The poor starving children on the brink of death while their "beloved" communist dictator enjoys lavish meals inside his palace
One detailed debunking vid is this. It is a fun vid from what I watched of its first few minutes and I will watch it later because it is about two hours long. Watch it."describing torture and the killing of Christians in hot iron liquid in a North Korean political prison." LOL, this is the same as Saddam dissolving his opponents in acid tanks and his soldiers in Kuwait throwing babies out of incubators. Same level of propaganda created by White House to demonize those countries they want to regime-change and people like you fall for that.With the flow of information from North Korea fiercely controlled, outsiders have long relied on defector testimonies to gain an understanding of what goes on inside the secretive state.
But relying on the anecdotes of individuals – all with different views and experiences – can also be risky.
Kim Jong-un is no joke, says North Korean defector
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In a report released last year, the UN accused the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, of crimes against humanity, and called for the case to be referred to the international criminal court. UN investigators had been denied access to the country, so the organisation had instead carried out 240 confidential interviews with North Korean refugees living in South Korea, Japan, the UK and the US, including Shin Dong-hyuk, whose story was told in the bestselling Escape from Camp 14.
In January, the DPRK government released a video claiming to show Shin’s father denouncing his son’s stories as fake. When questioned, Shin confessed that parts of his account were also inaccurate, including sections on his time in Camp 14, the infamous labour camp for political prisoners, and the age at which he was tortured.
Shin is not alone. Another North Korean, Lee Soon-ok, offered testimony to the US House of Representatives in 2004, describing torture and the killing of Christians in hot iron liquid in a North Korean political prison.
Jiyoung Song
But Lee’s testimony was challenged by Chang In-suk, then head of the North Korean Defectors’ Association in Seoul, who claimed to know first hand that Lee had never been a political prisoner. Many former DPRK citizens on the website NKnet agreed Lee’s accounts were unlikely to be true.
Similarly, Kwon Hyuk told the US Congress that he was an intelligence officer at the DPRK embassy in Beijing and had witnessed human experiments in political prisons – a critical factor in the US decision to pass the North Korea Human Rights Act in 2004.
Kwon’s account, retold in a BBC documentary back in 2004, was later questioned by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, which argued that he never had access to such information. Many years later, Kwon has since disappeared from the public eye.
While there is no doubt the North Korean regime has committed serious human rights abuses, there are questions to be asked about how heavily outsiders should rely on defectors’ testimonies as credible evidence.
North Korea refugee and human rights activist Shin Dong-hyuk at a rally outside the White House in 2012. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
I have been interviewing North Koreans as a DPRK watcher and human rights researcher since 1999. What I’ve found suggests there are serious ethical dilemmas in the way we gather information.
What is behind the inconsistencies?
Cash payments in return for interviews with North Korean refugees have been standard practice in the field for years.
Initially, the payment was to cover the cost of meals and local transport, which was approximately $30 in the late 1990s when I first began interviewing in China and South Korea. However, the fees had risen to $200 per hour by the time I attempted to interview people from North Korea in May 2014.
A government official from the South Korean ministry of unification told me the range of fees could vary wildly, from $50-500 per hour, depending on the quality of information.
But this practice raises a difficulty: how does the payment change the relation between a researcher and an interviewee, and what effect will it have on the story itself?
This practice also drives the demand for “saleable stories”: the more exclusive, shocking or emotional, the higher the fee.
Shin, the son of a political prisoner, doubtlessly had a horrific time inside the country, and is thought to be the only prisoner to have successfully escaped from the “total control zone” internment camp.
After his escape, he met former US president George W Bush, and his story was made into a documentary. Though parts of his story have been challenged by counter-testimony and contradictions, the power of the west’s curiosity and the media’s desire for a good story cannot be overestimated.
North Korean refugees have become well aware of what the interviewer wants to hear. Whether speaking to the UN, US Congress or western media, the questions are the same every time: why did you leave North Korea, and how terrible is it?With the number of defectors reaching 20,000 in 2010, first-person testimonies have become the norm, and have increasingly come to involve younger victims with more tragic, dramatic, visual and emotional accounts.
This raises another issue, because in my experience one-on-one interviews tend to generate more exaggerated stories. Although there are ways to confirm information through cross-examination and by consulting multiple sources, these methods are highly time-consuming, while a significant amount of the information disclosed by a single source is simply unverifiable given the fiercely secretive nature of the DPRK.
A woman and child stand in a Pyongyang subway station. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Pressure
In my 16 years studying North Korean refugees, I have experienced numerous inconsistent stories, some intentional omission and occasionally, some lies. In one case the breach of trust was so significant that I could not continue my research – not just because it affected my professional capacity to analyse and deliver credible stories in an ethical way, but because it also had a deep impact on the personal trust I had invested in subjects I had sincerely cared about.
But many refugees say they feel pressured for defector stories. Ahn Myung-chol, a former prison guard at Camp 22, said people liked shocking stories and these so-called “defector-activists” were merely responding to this desire. Chong Kwang-il, a former prisoner at Camp 15, said the fame brought by media exposure trapped them, forcing them to reproduce a certain narrative.
Choi Sung-chol, from the Korean Nationality Residents Association, said the line between small and large inconsistencies was often hard to draw: “Most North Koreans do not worry about small factual mistakes as long as the big picture that North Korea violates human rights is right.”
North Korea at 70: welcome to our series
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Choi added: “We, North Koreans, know what is true and what is fake, but at the same time we do not want to ruin the bigger political moves like the UN committee of investigation or the US Human Rights Act.”
Versions of this article originally appeared on Asia & the Pacific Policy Society’s Policy Forum and on Song Jiyoung’s blog. A Korean version of this article is available at NK News Korean
USSR Under Stalin
It is difficult to agree with you entirely. An entirely free enterprise/capitalist system breeds greater and greater distance between rich and poor. We need safety nets, especially for the poorest sections, guaranteeing the five basics needed to live a human experience. Charity alone, as the British found with their Victorian and earlier experiments, don't cut it. Neville Chamberlain is vilified today for being the patsy who fell for Hitler's hollow promises, but he had a great role in British politics and in British public policy long before he become the Prime Minister. That track record, those achievements are worthy of emulation. Along with that, let us hope there is no Maggie Thatcher in our future, if that future ever sees a Health Service, universal education free of cost and minimal roti, kapda and makan. We have already wrecked our demographic dividend, it is fearful to think of the consequences of this continuing crony capitalism.
Who told you that they don't allow tours? They do but under the strict watch of "Tour Guides"
Striking communism doesn't mean you are pro American that BS is used by commies often
www.bloomberg.com
Perhaps you're right about the defectors white house often uses sellouts such as yourself to destabilize countriesThat North Korean defector, Yeonmi Park, seems to be a notorious White House puppet who has been debunked.
And even the British mainstream media newspaper The Guardian speaks about the lies of these defectors :
www.history.com
Yeah whoever doesn't agree with your commie bullshit is not a rational person LOL
Not anymore. Not in the last five years with skyrocketing costs of living. A lot of regular people without support systems are finding themselves on the streets nowadays. That’s why there are tents pitched up in all kinds of places including suburbs where they would’ve never existed before. The problem is going to be far worse in the coming years as a result of this Ukraine war and the chain of events that will be triggered because of it.
I thought the same thing, until I saw two things. It use to be reasonable for a person to work an average job and still manage to afford their own house within a reasonable amount of time. It was always a stretch, and you have to go without for many years as you are getting yourself on your feet, but housing was still more affordable decades ago.
Price-to-Income Ratios are Nearing Historic Highs
The typical sale price of an existing single-family home in 2017 was 4.2 times greater than the median household income, according to our latest Statewww.jchs.harvard.edu
Secondly, The jobs that are available in smaller cities don’t pay nearly as much to make the Price-to-income ratio work because a lot of people have moved to these cities since at least the 2008 housing crisis and developers have caught on. Case in point, Idaho housing use to be very affordable but transplants from California and other parts of the country have made that area a lot less affordable for locals (that have to manage with their same wages)
Yes, homelessness is a multi-faceted problem, and part of it is substance abuse and mental health issues. But part of it is less then affordable housing stock within a reasonable distance from work. Work from home alleviated that for some time for a section of the population but also devastated the tax basis of many cities. That is why ubiquitous and affordable mass transit is my suggestion. In a similar manner to the Tokyo train network, layers of mass transit can help bridge large cities where there are many jobs and suburban areas where housing is more affordable. For example, once the California HSR is built (when ever that actually happens) it can bridge the gap between the Central Valley and the high wage / job rich areas of SF and LA. It’s a model that has worked for the NY area with Long Island Railroad, NJ transit and Metro North.
But back to homelessness. There has to be more resources to help the mentally ill and substance abusers, but also intermediate housing (linked to a job) for those that successfully complete these programs so they don’t relapse back into these old habits. There needs to be a realistic promise of a stable home so homeless people have a tangible goal to aim for.
But I agree that this housing should not be located in the core of cities, but in less expensive areas, so the homeless are not incentivized to become too comfortable in that intermediate housing. They need to earn their way back into the central city, so that it is fair to taxpayers paying for social services and working class people trying to earn enough to pay rent or a mortgage in the central parts of cities.
endhomelessness.org
kfor.com
Nope, All her treatment was done in Pakistan. Mashallah the Doctor who was treating her send her reports to America to his colleagues and they were shocked too...
People have cars, even poor people have cars, yes they are in horrible condition but as long as they are running people can go around places and to their work, small towns just don't have needs for bus routes, big cities have it and people use it.
Doesn't matter if its a software company or any else, Its halal income and that's all that matters to me.
My Father in law's Father, he live in California and owns 3 houses, I am not sure where he get his wealth from but either it was that he bought some Gold mine in Sweden long time ago, or he owns Garages and shit ton of machinery which he later sells. As for disparity, they are living here for Generations, and I just got here
Well Pakistan situation is different but yes drug and criminal issue exists there too, also Pakistan is third world country with huge corruption problem, USA is different.
Well Wealth equality is a problem, but If it was up to me I would suggest implementing a system like Zakat on Americans which would not create the huge wealth gap but because I am not a American citizen, I don't have right to say what is right and what is wrong for America and Americans, I am a immigrant just trying to survive in this new country.
Public schools are there, no fee and free but you have pay for food/book, some even give that for free but I never really dig deep or research on American schooling System. Plus I've no kids nor any plans to have them in near future, so...
@Hamartia Antidote @F-22Raptor @gambit @KAL-EL they are all Americans and can help you better.
Well, TBH getting free stuff is nothing but a fantasy specially in today's world, yes everyone wants free stuff but is it realistic ? That's a whole different topic.
