Thai Police Arrest 19 North Korean Refugees

[Dork]

Only the USA claims that he is the "Lord of War" he did not comment any crime inside Thailand and per international law you can only extradite him to either his home country or a country where he committed crime.

Sure NK isn't a nice country, but our thinking is influenced what propaganda is telling us. What would you think about the USA when you hear NK propaganda about the US president is proud to select victims to be killed without trial, even own citizen and that without any proof that they did something wrong.

I really don't know for NK, but it happens that I know some people from Iran (one is Atheist and Manager of a big state enterprise) and the difference between real life in Iran and what the propaganda makes us believe couldn't be bigger. For NK it might or might not be the same.

I've read accounts from people who have lived in a North Korean gulag for 10 years. Specifically "The Aquariums of Pyongyang" by Kang Chol-Hwan as well as other reading. I've done a lot of reasearch on the place. You only have to see a satellite photograph of DPRK at night to make this point. There's nowhere in the world as densely populated as North Korea that is totally black at night. No electrical light, where there should be.

That's just one of a thousand examples I could give. They have no internet access, mobile phones, everything they see and hear is manipulated for them to be indoctrinated into the largest cult in the world. There's no other description for it. It's also the only hereditary communist country to have ever existed. They don't just go after dissenters, they go after their entire families too.

The only good thing I have to say about DPRK is that they allegedly have the highest literacy rate in the world. Something like 99%. Only really so they can be sure that all their citizens are indoctrinated as young and as quickly as possible.

No foreign journalists, doctors, government empoyees are ever allowed to be alone in that country. Anywhere. Ever. For any reason. Everything that's ever been seen of DPKR is only what their government allows you to see. There's some images somewhere from a Swedish eye doctor that managed to sneak some photos of real DPKR and it's like looking into a world from 100 years ago. There is evidence to back this up, not to mention the plethora of satellite photos available to be found from Google to back all this up.

You do realise Jong-Il is alleged to be responsible for the death of over 2 million of his own people through starvation in the world's only case of starvation (out of wartime) in a country that can easily feed itself, that I can think of. That's one tenth of the population.

For you to say that it's all propaganda in the face of all of this is really very laughable. Now onto your point about Iran...

Iran? What the country that allows female drivers, unpoliced internet use and smartphones? I know Iran has its fair share of problems and their government can be brutal but I know they do have moderates there and those voices do get heard or I wouldn't know about them.

Extradition and dealing with refugees are not the same thing, however you want to try and spin it. It's a very irrelevant comparison.

As for Russia's standpoint on Bout, taken from Wikipedia....

"On 18 November 2010, shortly after Bout's extradition to the United States, Russian President Medvedev's aide Sergei Eduardovich Prikhodko claimed that Russia had "nothing to hide" in Bout's criminal case stating, "it is in our interest that the investigation ... be brought to completion, and [bout] should answer all the questions the American justice system has."

Russia are whiter than white too, aren't they? I still laugh when I hear about Putin's 107% ballot victory in Chechnya. Now that IS impressive!

I've lived and worked with a Russian for 6 years and it was he who brought this to my attention.

You drawing a comparison to these two incidents is totally ridiculous, I don't change that perspective in any way and there's nothing you can say to make me change my mind.

First of all, I never said that North Korea is in any way good or successful. But the only fact is not having light in the night. Everything else can be believed or not. Read all the horror stories about Cuba.....99% were just not true. Read all the horror story about Gaddafi, 99 % are proven to be fake. Read the stories about Iraqs weapons of mass destruction and Uranium imports....100 % not true.

Now we have North Korea and everything we hear should be 100 % true? A lot people have been there on holidays already. All report that everything is controlled, you can't make freely photos, the country is poor, but no one say terrible scared people, no one saw starving people.

As well I recall East Germany....All the horror stories. They got a friend 3 times trying to escape to the west. He tells now the freedom isn't much better than the old system.

I am not sure if the North Korean refuges know how it is to stay in the slums in free Philippines or in Jakarta. Or even in New York in Winter. Or some South American, Cariban countries. In North Korea like every hardcore communist country you have housing, job and medical care, contraception.

If I would be a woman I would prefer NK over Saudi Arabia or now free Afghanistan or Iraq.

I've spent 5 days in Pyongyang. Though I had 2 DPRK minders watching over me (& 2 colleagues) we weren't tourists and as such managed to escape their clutches a couple of times. The reactions we got from strangers on the street were unlike any I have ever experienced, anywhere.

I'm sorry h90, but in this case ManInSurat is telling it the way it is.

It isn't propaganda, it really is that bad - or worse.

[Dork]

I find it ridiculous that they fine them here in Thailand considering they're from North Korea.

Yes it sounds a bit silly but actually it is just part of the standard procedure for DPRK refugees arriving in Thailand. The Thai authorities are relatively sympathetic to them and I think the fine in is the order of THB1000 which is paid by the NGO's involved in getting them to South Korea.

[ManInSurat]

I find it ridiculous that they fine them here in Thailand considering they're from North Korea.

Yes it sounds a bit silly but actually it is just part of the standard procedure for DPRK refugees arriving in Thailand. The Thai authorities are relatively sympathetic to them and I think the fine in is the order of THB1000 which is paid by the NGO's involved in getting them to South Korea.

That's very interesting. I'm impressed to hear it's so low and seemingly just paying service to bureaucracy. There has to be some financial impact of having to accomodate them and asking for $30 from an NGO for them to have safe passage to a new unopressed life if totally fine with me.

I just wish more people were able to receive and understand the message north of the border.

Leaving DPRK is gambling not only with your own life, but the lives of your loved ones too. Can you imagine being in that predicment? How horrific.

Amazing you've been, it's something I've always wanted to do.

Nice to have an informed opinion for a change instead of people just making things up without doing any research.

[belg]

no 30 day tourist visa on arrival for these persons ???? directly put into jail , nice ...land of smiles, if you have money

[Nisa]

no 30 day tourist visa on arrival for these persons ???? directly put into jail , nice ...land of smiles, if you have money

Unreal, any other country would immediately issue visas to anyone caught sneaking across the border and put them up in a hotel while they verified who they were. Amazing Thailand

[ManInSurat]

no 30 day tourist visa on arrival for these persons ???? directly put into jail , nice ...land of smiles, if you have money

What are you talking about? If they'd been taken in by China, they would have been repatriated and be either exectued or sent with their family to a gulag (which for the research I have done from people that have lived in them) is a worse fate.

It may not be an ideal scenario, but knowing they're en route to a drastically improved life where their liberty is not curtailed in South Korea, where people speak their language, where there are many familial ties separated abruptly by the 38th parallel in 1948.

Should Thailand change its stance and take them all in, house them, feed them, give them documentation? Put them up in the Sheraton? Remember this is Thailand we're talking about not the Netherlands. If I turned up at the airport with no money for a return ticket and destitute Thailand would not put me up at their expense. No one else gets afforded that privilege here. There's multiple cases I can cite of homeless farangs just wandering streets. Where's the bed and board for them? If the police did deal with such people they'd have to place them in the IDC after a local holding cell.

Or should they, expediently, be moved onto a country where their families are, that they can communicate with and where there's a growing population of similar defectors looking to rebuild new lives?

Seeing as you seem to be the expert here on how they're dealt with and where they have to stay, what amenities they're entitled to, what their liberties are... why don't you impart on us your knowledge.

I'm geuninely interested to know about what happens to them when they're processed.

I'd presume they'd have to go to the IDC. By no means the nicest place to stay in the world, but they're not there forever and they'll be the ones processed through there the fastest. They will be fed and their chance of dying is 0.

I've said it before already, Sino-Thai relations are much closer than with most other countries in the world, for very obvious reasons, I'd say at least 50% of the people living in my moo ban have Chinese blood in one form or another. They could follow the Chinese so easily on this policy, but they've chosen not to.

Thailand has form in treating ethnic minorities from Burma badly. The Rohingyas that were left to die on a powerless boat? Shall we return to that mentality?

You're right, I don't have that kind of problem entering the country, but that's not my fault. I didn't choose where I was born. Totally irrelevant.

Edited June 23, 2012 by ManInSurat

[ManInSurat]

no 30 day tourist visa on arrival for these persons ???? directly put into jail , nice ...land of smiles, if you have money

Unreal, any other country would immediately issue visas to anyone caught sneaking across the border and put them up in a hotel while they verified who they were. Amazing Thailand

Total rubbish.

I don't know why you bother as you know I always back up what I say with sources.

China and Russia repatriate them, which are the only other borders aside from the DMZ that DPRK has. They are sent to gulags 100% of the time and there's many cases where people are executed immediately. When they're known as being a defector their family is round up and sent to the gulag with them or executed.

I suppose you'd rather they do this then? Repatriation leads to death. (Asia Times)

"No one denies the punishments are unnecessarily severe: for the crime of crossing the border to obtain a bag of rice to feed their family, a North Korean caught in China faces repatriation, certain prison and, in the case of several known individuals, death."

Children sent back as criminals. (Amnesty International.)

"It was also deeply concerned by reports that children (and their families) returning or forcibly returned back to North Korea were considered by the North Korea government not as victims but as perpetrators of a crime."

When you sit and think for a moment that children often make this journey, it really hits it home. I could not, on behalf of my country, in good conscience send a child back to their death. No one should be allowed to do that.

Thailand has no land border with DPRK and it's indicated they made it down the Mekhong attempting to hit a country that would treat them favorably. Thailand was that country. That's not a phrase I'm used to hearing often, that Thai Gov't intervention has saved people lives. Whatever their motivation.

You must be trolling as anyone with a brain wouldn't make that statement without doing any research first. It's disappointing.

If you're here to mess around again, I'll take my leave and not bother posting on anything you interact with. It's the ultimate exercise in futility and you're starting to make me not want to bother.

Edited June 23, 2012 by ManInSurat

[Dork]

no 30 day tourist visa on arrival for these persons ???? directly put into jail , nice ...land of smiles, if you have money

They are never locked up. I'm no apologist for the Thai government but seeking to attack Thailand for their treatment of DPRK refugees is barking up the wrong tree.

Remember that they have had to clandestinely pass through 2 other countries before they reach what they consider the safety of Thailand.

[ManInSurat]

no 30 day tourist visa on arrival for these persons ???? directly put into jail , nice ...land of smiles, if you have money

They are never locked up. I'm no apologist for the Thai government but seeking to attack Thailand for their treatment of DPRK refugees is barking up the wrong tree.

Remember that they have had to clandestinely pass through 2 other countries before they reach what they consider the safety of Thailand.

Not all cases are like this, but....

You know what really blows my mind? They're starved by a government who doesn't care and isn't trying to help them and in desperation they try to escape to feed their family. They gamble. If they lose they die and possibly members of their family die too at the hands of the their own compatriots and government or through the lack of food.

If they win, there's a high probablity people will still die or be incarcerated.

Can you even contemplate being in that position? It's so messed up. So sad.

Edited June 23, 2012 by ManInSurat