A gulag, as defined by Dictionary.com, is any prison or detention camp, especially for political prisoners. For the longest time the United States has suspected North Korea to be operating camps, such as the 20th century Russian gulags, within their country. North Korea officials have denied this allegation for years, but what this article shows is, sound evidence, that they do indeed exist.
When I came across this article, I quickly skimmed through it. What caught my attention was that these possible 200,000 individuals are thought to be put in camps with no real charge or trial. The article states that the inmates are alleged to have a wrong way of thinking towards the government. To me this is crazy. I mean, most Americans know that the, social and governmental, conditions in North Korea are not the greatest, but to basically enslave individuals because they don’t support the way the government is working is just plain, absurd.
The input from escapees was another way this article was interesting. Many of these individuals confessed about the living conditions being absolutely terrible. Common things reported were: forced malnutrition, mating, abortion, and labor along with other terrible living conditions. Interviewed escapees talked about how, often times, the poor living conditions led to inmates turning to violence which only made things worse.
Sometimes I find myself forgetting about how privileged we are, as Americans, to live in such a wonderful country. We get caught up in so many little things that we forget about all the freedoms we are blessed with here in the United States. We have the right to believe what we want. To have an opinion that we can expressed in certain ways. Reading this article and thinking about what these people are going through, just because they believe the government could work a different way, has reemphasized that fact that we are extremely lucky to live in, “The Land of the Free.”
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