Mass surveillance tech has enabled world’s most restrictive state to exert ‘control in all parts of life’, report says.

James Heenan, head of the UN Human Rights Office for North Korea, told a Geneva briefing that the number of executions for both normal and political crimes had increased since COVID-era restrictions.

An unspecified number of people had already been executed under new laws imposing the death penalty for distributing foreign TV series, including the popular K-Dramas from South Korea, he added.

kim-cool If we find you watching Alien: Earth, we will take you out.

  • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    68·
    2 days ago

    From a subsequent interview with James Heenan on methodology:

    How do you monitor human rights in a context like DPRK?

    We rely on first-hand testimonies from victims and witnesses: the thousands of people who have left the DPRK for other countries. We also use information published by the Government of the DPRK, as well as other open-source data such as satellite images. We use other sources, such as information from civil society organizations, to corroborate what we hear. For this report, the Office interviewed 314 victims and witnesses who left the country after 2014. We located these people with the help of our partners, including civil society.

    So ‘civil society’ organisations (meaning political think tanks, USAID fronts etc) come and say “oh yeah, we work with some people who escaped North Korea in the last ten years, want us to hook you up with the some testimony”.

    So they interview the people provided by these groups (who are also often providing them money, housing, travel documentation in exchange for giving these testimonies) who tell them whatever they think they want to hear.

    And then guys like James go, ‘well it sounds kind of crazy but since we can’t go to North Korea to verify it, I guess it must just be true! How terrible.’

    • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netMEnglish
      43·
      2 days ago

      first-hand testimonies

      From :yeonmi-park: & co? People whose livelihoods depend on support from the South Korean state and NED fronts? Who are threatened if they refuse to provide the “correct” testimony? Whose testimonies are entirely excluded if they contradict the narrative and are determined by the “researchers” to be the result of brainwashing?

      information published by the Government of the DPRK

      For some reason I doubt that the DPRK has published anything claiming to have executed people for watching the Ben Shapiro Show.

      other open-source data

      What “data” are we talking about? This could encompass basically any information from almost any source. Since this is the UN though it’s probably info cooked up by the CIA and funneled through multiple fronts.

      satellite images

      Can anyone explain to me how it’s possible to determine that people were executed for watching the Ben Shapiro Show using satellite imagery?

      information from civil society organizations

      You mean the NED fronts staffed by South Korean fascists who cook up stories about the DPRK? That you take at face value?

      We located these people with the help of our partners, including civil society.

      “We let the not-CIA pick and choose which defectors from the designated bad country we spoke with, they were definitely all actual defectors and we can definitely take everything they say at face value, stop asking questions.”

        • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netMEnglish
          7·
          2 days ago

          The last one is the most egregious. “The Adolf Hitler Institute for Jewish Studies provided us with multiple individuals who testified that Jews fed innocent Auschwitz guards to imported alligators from Florida, Auschwitz was a luxury resort before Stalin killed all the guests and blamed it on Hitler” etc.