North Korean Lives Matter

But not really.

See here:

 

YOON Mee-hyang, #comfortwomen exploiter who used old victims & stole their, gov't, corp & donors' funds, has yet to be questioned by prosecutors 2 mo into scandal. She's protected by Moon. Park escaped #DPRK murder attempt, harassed by police lately, & now this. #Revictimization https://t.co/lUQiJFqLU0

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) July 8, 2020

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No reporter pursued the allegations that the Ningpo 12 were tricked into defecting more doggedly than Choe Sang-hun, the New York Times's Seoul Bureau Chief. Choe wrote no less than four stories based primarily on Heo's claims all of which broadly gave credence to the claim that the 13 did not defect of their own free will, and were heavily biased toward Minbyun. Choe has been reporting from Korea for decades from a consistently left-leaning, anti-anti-North Korean point of view, but he also has a history of loose fact-checking. In 2000, he shared a Pulitzer Prize with Charles Hanley of the Associated Press for reporting on the No Gun Ri incident, through that reporting was later discredited in part by evidence that some of the alleged eyewitnesses weren't there. More recently, Choe cited a parody tweet by @DPRKNews as an actual statement of the North Korean government. ...

The common themes in Choe's reporting were to tell the parts of the story that made the South Korean government look evil, but to gloss over the parts of the story that made the North Korean government look evil; to repeat the claims that made Minbyun look like saviors, but leave out the facts that made them look like unethical interlopers; to be piercingly skeptical of Park Geun-hye and the NIS, but to reveal no skepticism about Heo's shaky story, or about how Minbyun was clearly catering it to the press, apparently including himself. He reported breathlessly on the initiation of investigations, but went silent about the outcomes of those same investigations when they undercut the improbable narrative he had chosen to believe.

(Sidebar: what?! The New York Times covered for a communist regime? Impossible!) 

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According to one study, North Korean workers in Russia oftentimes do not receive a work contract; do not have access to electricity or running water in employee housing; work for a minimum wage for 12-20 hour days— 30% of which is “given to the North Korean government, after which living and food expenses [are] also deducted from their income”; and do not have access to the financial assistance that is supposed to be provided by employers in the case of death or illness, as the North Korean government pockets these restitution funds. Additionally, although some North Koreans are exposed to information that counters disinformation from the regime and may motivate them to consider escape, these workers’ relatives back home are essentially held hostage to prevent defection. 

Good luck with that:

A federal commission is calling on the U.S. to push for greater respect for human rights in North Korea, in exchange for a freeze on their nuclear program and not full denuclearization.

Curiouser and curiouser:

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon was found dead in Seoul around at the start of Friday, hours after he was reported missing, police said.

A police search team found his body in the forested hills of Mount Bukak near his official residence minutes after Thursday midnight. He's presumed to have taken his own life.

Police plan to investigate the exact cause of his death.

Park had reportedly faced a probe into allegations of sexual offense against his former female assistant. She filed a formal complaint with police against Park, 65, on Wednesday over unwanted "physical contact" and "inappropriate" phone messages from him in a possible "MeToo" case. 
 according to a source.

 

(Kamsahamnida)