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Archive 1Archive 2

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Foreign visitors

The lead said:

The North Korean government makes it very difficult for foreigners to enter the country for purposes other than tourism and it strictly monitors their activities when they do.

Well, that's not really true. Visitors and residents include businesspeople like Felix Abt, journalists (including the staff of news bureaus), diplomats, exchange students... I have changed it to be more accurate.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:57, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Holocaust

The lead currently says:

Those imprisoned have compared the conditions of these camps to those operated in Central and Eastern Europe by Nazi Germany during World War II in the Holocaust calling the DPRK's network of political prison camps the "North Korean Holocaust."

It previously said "Survivors and commentators have compared..." which is more accurate. The main (alleged) former prisoner who has made the comparison is Shin Dong-hyuk who has been somewhat discredited. Sichel is mainly quoting Shin. As is AFP. They also quote Kang Chol-hwan who was behind the false claim that the World Cup soccer team was sent to the gulag. The pieces by Hearn and Klinghoffer are basically blogs. Klinghoffer's piece is a rant, concluding:

Clearly, there is no price too high for the Seoul appeasers... One day, I am sure, they will be asked to explain their shameful behavior. All one can hope is that it will be sooner, not later.

Weber is an editor for The Week, so his piece is a better source, but it is a comment rather than a news report. Overall, the sources are not very good, but they are the main sources turned up by a Google search for "North Korean Holocaust", which is probably why they found their way into the article. Of course, the UN Commission of Inquiry compared North Korea's human rights record to the crimes of the Nazis, but the article mentions that elsewhere. And that's different from a "North Korean Holocaust". The Holocaust was systematic genocide. I don't think that's what is being alleged. Certainly, Shin never claimed to have witnessed that. Part of the reason that these writers talk about the Holocaust in the hope of invoking the Genocide Convention and get some kind of UN intervention. It's sloganeering, rather than an honest assessment of the situation.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:57, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree, Jack Upland, we should not treat claims like that as factual. They could represent a significant point of view (WP:YESPOV) though. It's certainly not something we should have in the lead. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:10, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
I don't think any of the sources are significant, as I've indicated. Furthermore, despite what the text says, none of the sources actually uses the phrase "North Korean Holocaust", except Klinghoffer (and only in the heading). Weber actually says: "In terms of racial/ethnic profiling and sheer numbers, then, the DPRK doesn't match the horrors of the Holocaust." In fact, the text seems to be designed to create a neologism, the North Korean Holocaust (which as I pointed out in July redirects here).--Jack Upland (talk) 07:37, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
I have been studying North Korean human rights for a while, and I had never heard "North Korean Holocaust". I had heard and read about comparisons to it, and there are differences. Probably one of the most authoritative reports on human rights in the DPRK is the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In its 300+ pages, the word "holocaust" is not used. It does say that hundreds of thousands of people have died due to intentional deprivation of food. That is horrendous, but different from the systematized killing industry developed in Nazi Germany with the intention of eliminating an entire race. The regime-led violations of Human rights in NK are apalling, but using excessively biased words on the article actually taint it as less credible, even if the underlying motive for including those words in an honest one. So I think that more nuanced language should be used. (talk) user:Al83tito 03:10, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
I have removed the sentence. We still have a redirect from "North Korean Holocaust". I find this a bit problematic, but it might not be worse the effort to try to get it deleted.--Jack Upland (talk) 20:43, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Now that this has been corrected, should the POV tag on top of the article be removed? (talk) user:Al83tito 05:10, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I think there are other issues.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:15, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I believe that Wikipedia policies are that NPOV can be disputed, if it is talked about in the Talk page. Just issuing a blanket POV challenge without explaining why, does not conform to wikipedia policies. So the person(s) who believe the article is not neutral should specify more reasons (since the one that was mentioned - holocaust- has been apparently resolved), or the tag is removed. Note that I am not saying that the article is not perfect NPOV, since I have not recently gone through it in detail, but that an editor has to argue their reasons for challenging the presumed NPOV. Thank you. talk) user:Al83tito 16:00, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I listed some issues earlier this year - now archived.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

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Pro-western Bias

It seems (as on nearly all NK Wikipedia articles) that the sources used here saying these serious accusations against North Korea, are heavily Western biased. Where are the references to what other countries such as Russia, China, India, Argentina, etc. believe about human rights in NK? There was a small edit I did a couple days ago that was reverted here, claiming that the organizations mentioned (Amnesty, UN, Human Rights Watch, etc.) are global organizations. That might be true in some way, however, these are ALL based and heavily organized in the US and UK/Europe, which are all western lands. There has been criticism of these groups from other non-western nations, as can be seen even on the Wiki article Criticism_of_Amnesty_International for example, that says there is a pro-western bias. (There are also countries that say they have an anti-western bias too). All this needs to be taken into account, and the sources carefully validated and checked for neutrality, which I can't do right now. Eric Schiefelbein (talk) 08:01, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, the United Nations is global. According to Wikipedia, Amnesty International is London-based, and has relatively few members in Africa, Asia, or Russia. Human Rights Watch is based on donations, not membership, and receives 75% of its financial support from North America, and 25% from Europe. It has been accused, including by its founder, of being biased towards the USA and Israel. In any case, it is odd to describe the UN and the EU as groups along with AI and HRW. The sentence needs to be rewritten for that reason alone. It is also an odd collection. Why the UN and the EU? Why not the US? If we are going to say these organisations are biased against North Korea, we need a source which says that. But for general questions of neutrality and accuracy, have a look at my comments in Archive 1.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:52, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Requested Merger

I am requesting that content from Political repression in North Korea be merged to this article. The political repression article needs major cleanup, but I think that there is content in there that can be helpful. Taewangkorea (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I can see that there is a topic overlap, but the content seems to be very different. A merger might be difficult to do. I'm neutral about whether you should go ahead.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:54, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Overlap is there, but the political repression page clearly has enough content to be its own stand-alone article. Im against merging the articles. PrimalBlueWolf (talk) 16:03, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Is the section "Media and organizations" unsuitable for this article?

Dear fellow editors. Thank you to all those who have contributed to this article. I think there are several parts that need refinement. One such part I want to highlight now is the "Media and organizations" section. There are numerous organizations working on human rights in NK, and there are dozens of publications on the topic. Given that, it seems that the inclusion criteria for the items listed in that section is haphazard and wildly incomplete. Actually, a whole article could be devoted to that section. And, one does exist that covers a part of it: List of fact-finding reports on human rights in North Korea. I don't see the section "Media and organizations" serving a clear purpose here. So either a clear inclusion criteria is spelled out, and followed, or if not I think it'd be better to remove the section altogether. Thank you.Al83tito (talk) 17:55, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Citizens cannot leave the country?

From the lead:

Since citizens cannot freely leave the country, it is mainly from stories of refugees and defectors that the nation's human rights record has been constructed.

This is a profoundly illogical sentence. Citizens can leave the country. Transport in North Korea shows there are airports, sea ports, railways, and roads leading out of the country. Recent events showed there were many North Koreans living in Malaysia. Yes, it says "freely leave", but what difference does that make? It is not only "refugees" and "defectors" who leave North Korea, so the rider makes no sense. Also, what is the difference between "refugees" and "defectors"?--Jack Upland (talk) 10:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The fact that it says "freely leave" does make a difference. Citizens can leave the country, but it's not legal to do so. Leaving the country has been made illegal by law (check articles 62 and 233 of North Korea's criminal code). Crossing the border to South Korea specifically is referred to as defecting, which is punished more harshly, so there is a meaningful difference. This also means that, since, for the average North Korean, there is no legal option to leave the country, they usually must bribe officials and hire a broker to cross the border. Not only does it cost a lot of money (meaning that it won't be accessible to most, since poverty is a huge challenge in North Korea), but it also exposes those who choose that option to further risks of abuse, especially women (I'm quoting this report from the United Nations, paragraph VI.II). On top of all that, even after leaving North Korea, the threat of exposing their family back at home to punishment can still be a deterrent for many. These are the main points, and there are many more reasons why leaving North Korea isn't easy, but this is by far enough to say they cannot "freely leave", and to justify this quote from the lead. Icylittlething (talk) 13:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

NPOV

At the moment neither competing lead sentence is neutral.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:58, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I'd argue that the current introduction to the article is extremely biased in favor of North Korea. For many reasons, detailed in this very article, in Political repression in North Korea, and just about everywhere that isn't North Korea, human rights there are not respected at all. It's a secret to no one that it is one of the most authoritarian and oppressive regimes in the world. Therefore, introducing the article with a sentence that gives the impression that North Korea respects human rights is supporting a point of view which is in extreme minority, and defended only by said oppressive regime, who's bound to have a biased view on the topic. Furthermore, it creates a false middle ground, by making it look like there's an ongoing debate between the point of view of North Korea and the United States (which would also be biased against North Korea), when there is in fact a vast amount of proof of the repeated violations of human rights in North Korea. This devalues the assertions of Amnesty International and the United States, which are mentioned right after. I contend that this leading sentence should be erased, or replaced, and that sentences that hold this point of view only belong in the paragraph "Position of the DPRK". Icylittlething (talk) 13:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
What, in your opinion, would be "neutral"? Giving equal weight to fringe opinions in the lead is not neutral. In fact, I see no issue whatsoever with the lead as it is now. Bring up specifics so that a discussion can actually take place. WP Ludicer (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
Actually, you know what? I don't see any legitimate dispute here. I'm removing the tag now. WP Ludicer (talk) 13:01, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Persecution of christians in North Korea which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:07, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Non-currency

This article contains inter alia the statement that the last annual UN resolution on the subject was passed in 2011 (!) If no one is interested in keeping this article up to date, I suggest removing refs like this. In the particular case, if the text were changed to 'repeated resolutions' it would convey the sense and not be subject to this problem. The precise voting on the resolution in any particular year is hardly a significant piece of information, in context. Chrismorey (talk) 10:53, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

'Number of victims' section

This seems to be in the wrong article. While denying access to food is a human rights violation, N Korea's regular famines are a by-product of juche and the command economy, not an attack on human rights per se. Chrismorey (talk) 11:08, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Unnecessary

This article is unnecessary, there are no human rights in North Korea. 47.212.242.220 (talk) 03:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

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