North Korean Human Rights : The Greatest Challenge Facing Humanity

North Korea has evolved into a totalitarian regime characterized by dynastic succession, theocratic governance, and dictatorship since the Korean War. The entire region has operated solely for the survival and perpetuation of the Workers' Party of North Korea and its leaders—Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un. The cognition and thought processes of the populace are meticulously manipulated by the central power, and any dissenting thought is swiftly eradicated through both physical and psychological means.

The most terrifying aspect of North Korea's power-based human rights violations is the deliberate manipulation of the collective cognitive framework of its citizens for malicious purposes. This manipulation of collective thought can incite both collective and physical actions dictated by the manipulator's intentions, potentially leading to catastrophic outcomes such as war and mass genocide. Most alarmingly, the world that individuals perceive as human beings is intentionally distorted, annihilating their sense of life; this constitutes the gravest facet of the human rights violations perpetrated by the North Korean leadership.

All structures of human rights violations in North Korea ultimately serve to maintain, strengthen, and perpetuate the power of the Kim dynasty. Those who engage in thoughts or actions counter to this regime are labeled as traitors and subversives, and the central authority ensures they are thoroughly controlled to prevent any proximity to dissenting thought. As a result, North Korea stands as the largest prison on Earth, physically isolating its populace from external information and committing atrocities that are more efficient than those witnessed during the era of Nazism.

Those who defy the regime or attempt to escape are indiscriminately eliminated, with the distribution of survival resources such as food being determined and applied based on their loyalty to the central party as defined by the ruling authority. This loyalty-based hierarchical system is enforced through collective punishment. Such a rigid structure of power-based human rights violations has collectively stripped the humanity of the people in the northern region of the Korean Peninsula, rendering North Korea a living hell on Earth.

Key terms associated with the issue of human rights in North Korea include the right to life, individual dignity and freedom, the rights of suspects and detainees, freedom of belief and expression, the right to assembly and association, political participation rights, the right to survival, the right to health, labor rights, educational rights, property rights, the freedom of residence and housing rights, the right to marriage and family, political prison camps, forced abortions, collective punishment, biomedical experiments, and public executions.

The system of power-based human rights violations in North Korea has been perpetuated through three generations of dynastic succession, becoming a system that cannot be altered by the will of the current leader. It is a system that has been accumulated and designed for expansion, with inertia attached to its actions. This has resulted in a structure that has been increasingly solidified and optimized for the survival of the current leader. North Korea has thus become a region entirely detached from human society, diverging significantly from international norms.

North Korean troops are being deployed to the Ukraine war, and the world is trembling at the prospect of an escalation. Over ten thousand soldiers have been sent. Recent actions by the North Korean regime suggest a strong reaction to the potential collapse of ideological control due to the exposure of internal members to external information, leading to public executions of residents who come into contact with outside information. In this context, these ten thousand soldiers, having acquired knowledge of the internal systems and secrets of the North Korean military, are receiving food rations in Russia while being exposed to foreign cultures.

Due to this precarious situation, it is highly likely that the North Korean leadership will not allow these soldiers to return alive, even if they survive the war. Keeping them from leaking military secrets and preventing individuals who have interacted with foreign cultures from re-entering North Korea would be seen as a safe judgment for maintaining the regime. The possibility of treating them as casualties and eliminating them, either directly or indirectly, in Russia is a cost-effective and efficient decision for regime preservation. Essentially, this would mean “paying” for technology and resources from Russia with human lives.

Recent reports indicate that the North Korean leadership has separated the families of the deployed soldiers. It is likely that the families of soldiers within North Korea have no right to know about the deployments, and any attempt to raise issues regarding this matter could lead to immediate isolation in political prison camps or even execution. The South Korean film "Secretly Greatly"(2013) depicts such soldiers as "salmon." Just as salmon are born in the sea, return upstream to spawn, and ultimately perish, the fate of North Korean soldiers is likened to that of salmon. In the film, the families of infiltrators are shown to be imprisoned in political prison camps or executed immediately upon deployment. We stand on the brink of such tragic events. We must do everything possible to prevent this catastrophe together.

Throughout history, humanity has overcome adversity through hope and benevolent strength derived from universal values. We must remember that the long-standing human rights issues in North Korea, which are more horrific than those of Nazism, are not merely a problem confined to the Korean Peninsula; they represent one of the greatest challenges that humanity faces together as a collective problem that we must resolve. There is an urgent need to pioneer new pathways and practices, applying fresh perspectives and innovative technologies from a new generation, to break through the largest physical and psychological prison in the world—the North Korean regime—and to rescue its people. Solidarity in this effort is essential.