Guild of Liars, Part 2: North Korean Refugees Expose the Lies of the National Lawyers’ Guild

[Updated]   Kudos to the Bar Assocation for doing what the cowardly and  politicized National  Human Rights Commission won’t.

The report included testimony similar to that in papers issued by Amnesty International and other rights groups, describing forced abortions and infanticide in North Korea’s political prisons.

The bar association report was the first of its kind, although the group issues annual reports on human rights in the South. It was issued against a backdrop of criticism by rights activists of the nation’s official human rights group, which has declined to comment on issues in North Korea. The association interviewed 100 North Korean defectors who arrived here after 2000. The interviews were conducted from May to July; 64 of the 100 were women.

According to the report, 90 percent of the defectors interviewed said there was little in the way of legal rights or procedures for detainees. More than 80 percent said they had suffered torture in detention.  The bar association said a convict’s personal background, such as family ties with the governing Workers’ Party, influenced the severity of punishments.

There’s much more at this Korea Times story (ht Richardson):

About 22 percent of them experienced or heard from others that the authorities do not allow suspects to sleep during investigation, while 21.1 percent said torture was widespread. Some 17 percent directly or indirectly experienced abusive language and sexual harassment during investigation, and 17.5 percent underwent investigation for more than two months without an arrest warrant.

The authorities usually informed suspects of the charges against them when they were being arrested, but arrest warrants are were rarely issued, the report said.

Prison inmates also usually suffer from torture and maltreatment, including abusive language, sexual harassment and beatings. Political offenders face compulsory labor 12-15 hours a day, according to the report.

Well, that’s odd, because I could have sworn that some of America’s finest legal scholars had concluded that North Korea was a model of procedural fairness:

We were struck by the design of the DPRK criminal justice system. We even found in a bookstore the Criminal Procedures Act of the DPRK in English [J: Found?  This apparently struck no one as an obvious plant?]. Several principles seem quite progressive and reflect more of restorative justice, than retributive justice. The prime objective of the criminal justice system is rehabilitation or setting an example, not punishment. There is an element of the latter, as there are jail terms for crimes, but this is not the major thrust of their system. In fact, they have codified a process by which those affected by the decision or the conduct of the accused have a real role in the process and those that contributed to the delinquent act or were involved in educating the person (i.e. a parent or friend) have to be available in the process to receive a “lecture” from the court. Penalties include submitting the accused to “social” or “public education. Those arrested are required to have their families notified within 48 hours. A defense counsel is to be provided to represent the rights of the accused.

We were told that there was no death penalty and that the maximum penalty for any crime is 12 years, with the objective being to try to determine why the person committed the crime and to help that person become a productive member of society. A lack of a death penalty was seen by the delegation as a sign of a civilized nation. There appear to be labor camps where people work out their sentences. No effort was made to hide the presence of these camps. The U.S. media’s recent reports on the poor conditions, high mortality rate and lack of proper care or food, in the camps requires further investigation. In light of the false and exaggerated claims about starvation in the country in general, these reports must be viewed with a grain of salt. We will ask to visit these camps on future delegations.We asked about the penalties for crimes against the state and whether there was a separate system for those crimes. There is not, but provisions are made for crimes that present a “social danger. This seems consistent with a socialist society organized around the “common good,” but very general and could be subject to abuse. How it is applied remains to be discovered. However, the North Koreans we met with seemed professed to not understanding how someone would really formally challenge the decisions of the collective, as there is, according to them, an elaborate mechanisms for participation and input at various levels off society.

It appears we have reached what is known as “an impasse.”  Either all of  those North Koreans starved themselves to the bone and walked all the way through China to perpetrate this elaborate “grand deception” — their words — or the credibility of  the Holocaust-denying Stalinists at the  National Lawyers’ Guild has pretty much reached a new low, somewhere between Axis Sally and Walter Duranty.  Which leads me to this:

Much is written about the alleged starvation, even referred to as intentional, of the North Korean people by their government. On our trips in the countryside, both north and south of Pyongyang, we covered nearly 500 kilometers. During that time we had the opportunity to see agricultural communities and small towns. We noticed that the people on the whole looked well dressed and active. We saw no one who looked malnourished or emaciated and our observations were confirmed by many of the foreigners we met who had dealings around the country.

Don’t miss the “singing anti-war songs in the orchards” vignette, or the  deeply enlightening discussion on Juche, either.   

We learned that under the Juche principle, a strong leader is necessary to guide the will of the collective as represented in the Workers Party and the Assembly. However, as discussed below, the North Koreans have an elaborate system from the shop or farm level up to receive input on key national issues. How well this is utilized is a project for further delegations, but to assert that there is no democratic participation, only top-down decisions, in the DPRK appears an exaggeration…. 

From all observations, in light of the survival of their nation under great pressure and great obstacles, it appears that there are many positives that are overlooked by the simplistic rhetorical bashing of the media. We can only conclude that the people we met appear to have genuine respect [!] for the insights and actions of the “Dear Leader” who is guiding their country. Yet, we questioned whether challenging him openly would result in prison or other penalty.

 Do tell how.

From our own experiences in the U.S. or Canada, we have seen people in our own countries persecuted for their beliefs and opinions. We have watched while Muslims are attacked or detained without due process, teachers fired if they opposed the war and brutal attacks by police against those opposing the war in Iraq. Look at the reaction to Michael Moore as “disloyal” for calling the war fictitious and saying to President Bush “Shame on you, Mr. President.

What, this Michael Moore?  Yet again the Homeland Security goons are  foiled; his Web site pops right up and poisons my fragile psyche with  dangerous  incitement to  “campaign” in “elections” to overthrow against our beseiged social order, which must be defended at any cost.  How can the Bush Adminstration say that we are safer than we were five years ago when we still haven’t caught Michael Moore?    (Pssst — FBI, look in Manhattan!)

Maybe you had to be there.  For example, I don’t recall having seen Andrei Lankov so  fired up.  I took a few bites out of Eric Sirotkin myself, because I concluded that he is  a despicable, fetid, mendacious  disgrace to the profession, just as lawyers who actually advance the cause of civil and human rights are  a credit to it.  Naturally, Lankov nailed it:

PS I just wonder if Mr. Sirotkin will ever feel sorry. I assume not. It is what I love about intellectuals!

The KBA’s work, on the other hand, is actually based on first-hand reports of those who had sacrificed everything to speak freely.  It’s  work that badly needs to be done, and the KBA will earn itself a very good legacy this way.  I wince a bit to say this now, but some of the Bar Association’s members  haven’t really distinguished  themselves lately, considering  their  feud with  the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court over legal reform.  Some members’ shennanigans, including impeachment talk, were a threat to the independence of the judiciary, and they were also flat-wrong on substance — specifically, the awfulness, incompetence,  and dishonesty of Korean police reports and the danger of relying on hearsay.