What would you advocate, sending in Rambo marines to drop out of the sky and "liberate" the camps, and then what ? All I am saying, is that it would be better to have quiet diplomacy and open ended talks. Why do they hate us ? We don't even ask the big questions.
I thought this story was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. The face of this young man haunts me. The way he has been forced to live his life up until the point where he excaped from that concentration camp was inhumane. What is the rest of the world doing allowing this to go on? N. Korea is a nuclear power, so we are afraid to confront them on this abomination? Modern day concentration camps..... when will we ever learn?
I thought this story was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. The face of this young man haunts me. The way he has been forced to live his life up until the point where he excaped from that concentration camp was inhumane. What is the rest of the world doing allowing this to go on? N. Korea is a nuclear power, so we are afraid to confront them on this abomination? Modern day concentration camps..... when will we ever learn?
I thought this story was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. The face of this young man haunts me. The way he has been forced to live his life up until the point where he excaped from that concentration camp was inhumane. What is the rest of the world doing allowing this to go on? N. Korea is a nuclear power, so we are afraid to confront them on this abomination? Modern day concentration camps..... when will we ever learn?
What I found so sad is his lack of emotions, even when he talked about turning in his mother and brother, and watching them be executed at 13. To think his escape meant he could eat foods to his full he had only heard about at 23 yeas old is hard to imagine. "Man's inhumanity to man". To think people can be treated like this, generation after generation is an abomination. The guards know no different, also being brain-washed generation after generation, believing this is their calling. South Koreans are so far removed from any family they might still have in North Korea, they look at their suffering the way we do, would like to do something, but know there is nothing they can do, same as the rest of the world. Don't blame them so harshtly.
China shows the true communist face by repatriating the NK refugees. They are just money hungrier than North Korea, as Deng said, "to become rich is glorious." The nation agrees with their newly found wealth, but still remains very collaborative with the N.Korea regime.
As a human interested in human psychology, development,& nature v. nurture I found his story equally provocative, profound, & heart-breaking. I shall do my part to fight for the plight of the remaining people in these camps. I went to Dachau and "bought" the patch, never again. Obviously that is never ending. I had no idea. Thank you both for this interview.
All true! The asian mentality is about family ... and family they will destroy (completely) to be held hostage. It's the same with the russian (lower case) mafia ... you rat, they kill your entire family.
Behind the wall of secrecy: Escape from Camp 14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AvDSzaEW3g
Little is known about the prison camps of North Korea where it is estimated that 200,000 are imprisoned. Many are born in the camps and generations of families are imprisoned because one of their relatives has been detained.
Shin Dong-Hyuk is one such case. He was born 26 years ago in Camp 14 in Pyeongan province, known as a 'complete control district', where the only sentence is life.
For most of his life all he knew was the camp, working 12 to 15-hour days mining coal, building dams or sewing military uniforms. If inmates were not executed they were killed in work-related accidents or died of an illness usually triggered by hunger.
But after the execution of his mother and brother, Shin Dong-Hyuk decided to try and escape. No one born into a North Korean prison camp has ever escaped before.
Shin Dong-Hyuk will be joining us at the Frontline Club with Blaine Harden whose book Escape from Camp 14; One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West recounts his extraordinary journey.
Blaine Harden is an author and journalist who reports for PBS Frontline and contributes to The Economist. He worked for The Washington Post as a correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as in New York and Seattle. He was also a national correspondent for The New York Times and writer for the Times Magazine.
Chaired by Charles Scanlon, Asia Pacific editor at BBC World Service and formerly BBC correspondent in Japan and South Korea from 2000 to 2007.
Shin Dong-hyuk - His personal story
In his own words Shin Dong-hyuk tells us about life inside one of North Korea's notorious political prison camps, how he was tortured and how he was forced to watch his mother's and brother's execution.
http://vimeo.com/41986997
"Shin Dong Hyuk's Message to his father, Shin Kyung Seop"
Shin Dong Hyuk was born in the No. 14 Camp in Kaecheon. For 23 year he believed the world consisted only of prisoners and guards. He escaped from the camp alone, leaving his father behind, in 2005. Now, he lives a new life as Shin Dong Hyuk in South Korea having discarded his original name Shin In Keun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVR8MvHqelU
Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
Blaine Harden
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0670023329/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354576848&sr=1-1&keywords=Blaine+Harden
Book Description
Release Date: March 29, 2012 A New York Times bestseller, the shocking story of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to have escaped and survived.
North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.
In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden's harrowing narrative of Shin's life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world's darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AvDSzaEW3g
Little is known about the prison camps of North Korea where it is estimated that 200,000 are imprisoned. Many are born in the camps and generations of families are imprisoned because one of their relatives has been detained.
Shin Dong-Hyuk is one such case. He was born 26 years ago in Camp 14 in Pyeongan province, known as a 'complete control district', where the only sentence is life.
For most of his life all he knew was the camp, working 12 to 15-hour days mining coal, building dams or sewing military uniforms. If inmates were not executed they were killed in work-related accidents or died of an illness usually triggered by hunger.
But after the execution of his mother and brother, Shin Dong-Hyuk decided to try and escape. No one born into a North Korean prison camp has ever escaped before.
Shin Dong-Hyuk will be joining us at the Frontline Club with Blaine Harden whose book Escape from Camp 14; One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West recounts his extraordinary journey.
Blaine Harden is an author and journalist who reports for PBS Frontline and contributes to The Economist. He worked for The Washington Post as a correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as in New York and Seattle. He was also a national correspondent for The New York Times and writer for the Times Magazine.
Chaired by Charles Scanlon, Asia Pacific editor at BBC World Service and formerly BBC correspondent in Japan and South Korea from 2000 to 2007.
Shin Dong-hyuk - His personal story
In his own words Shin Dong-hyuk tells us about life inside one of North Korea's notorious political prison camps, how he was tortured and how he was forced to watch his mother's and brother's execution.
http://vimeo.com/41986997
"Shin Dong Hyuk's Message to his father, Shin Kyung Seop"
Shin Dong Hyuk was born in the No. 14 Camp in Kaecheon. For 23 year he believed the world consisted only of prisoners and guards. He escaped from the camp alone, leaving his father behind, in 2005. Now, he lives a new life as Shin Dong Hyuk in South Korea having discarded his original name Shin In Keun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVR8MvHqelU
Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
Blaine Harden
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0670023329/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354576848&sr=1-1&keywords=Blaine+Harden
Book Description
Release Date: March 29, 2012
A New York Times bestseller, the shocking story of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to have escaped and survived.
North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.
In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden's harrowing narrative of Shin's life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world's darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.