North Korea and the NSDAP

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

SEOUL, South Korea - A Christian woman accused of distributing the Bible, a book banned in communist North Korea, was publicly executed last month for the crime, South Korean activists said yesterday.

The 33-year-old mother of three, Ri Hyon Ok, also was accused of spying for South Korea and the United States, and of organizing dissidents, a rights group said in Seoul, citing documents obtained from the North. Ri reportedly was executed in Ryongchon, near the border with China.

The Investigative Commission on Crime Against Humanity report included a copy of Ri's government-issued photo ID and said her husband, children, and parents were sent to a political prison the day after her June 16 execution.

The comments on the story in the Huffington Post are most instructive. Most of them see no difference between Evangelical Christianity and Kil Jong Il's Ju-Che. 2009 America or Nazi Germany, what's the real difference, anyway? I truly believe that many would have defended the National Socialist German Workers Party in the 1930's. Because those who were sent to KZs deserved it for breaking the law, for being found guilty by People's Courts of being Enemies of the State.

I hope they don't learn the hard way. The ignorance, the stupidity... breathtaking.

From Military.com:

"If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society... is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing."
...
The former military captain says it was in the early 1990s, that he watched his then commander wrestle with giving up his 12-year-old daughter who was mentally ill.

The commander, he says, initially resisted, but after mounting pressure from his military superiors, he gave in.

Im watched as the girl was taken away. She was never seen again.

One of Im's own men later gave him an eyewitness account of human-testing.
...
The extent of the stockpile is a concern to Kim Sang-hun, a retired UN official who has spent years investigating the North's chemical and biological weapons programme.

He believes over the past 20 years, the programme has advanced at a startling pace, specifically because the country's rulers approve and support the use of human test subjects.

"Human experimentation is a widespread practice," Kim says.

"I hoped I was wrong, but it is the reality and it is taking place in North Korea and it is taking place at a number of locations."

There are some who question claims that the North conducts human trials. But Kim says he has interviewed hundred of defectors who, more times than not, volunteer personal vivid accounts.

"The programme is now a commonly known fact in the North Korean public," he says.

As a former member of the elite special forces, Im agrees.

While the government may be secretive about a lot of things, he says "when it comes to human experimentation, most know it happens".

Investigating what he says are serious UN violations regarding the rights of children and prisoners, Kim Sang-hun has amassed a vast amount of evidence.

Dr Josef Mengele would be right at home. So would Dr John Heller who said

The men's status did not warrant ethical debate. They were subjects, not patients; clinical material, not sick people.