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Shin Dong-hyuk's North Korean Prison Camp Lies Exposed
[Photo: The liar Sin Un Gun (aka Shin Dong-Hyok) with imperialist liar George W. Bush. Bush referred to North Korea, Iraq, and Iran as the "axis of evil" while authorizing torture and the invasion of Iraq which left over a million people dead.]
Shin Dong-hyuk's North Korean "Prison Camp" Lies Exposed
By Steven Argue
Shin Dong-hyuk (born Sin In Gun) apologized this week for lying about a number of details of his claimed life in a DPRK prison camp saying, “To those who have supported me, trusted me and believed in me all this time, I am so very grateful and at the same time so very sorry to each and every single one of you.”
Sin In Gun had described himself as “the only known person born in a North Korean prison camp that escaped and survived to tell the tale”. The supposed camp he lived in is described to sound like a brutal concentration death camp. His testimony was key evidence in UN charges of human rights violations by the DPRK. In addition, his story, written down in the bestseller "Escape From Camp 14", has been key propaganda in the west's portrait of the DPRK as a hell on Earth.
This week, the Washington Post, in reporting Sin Un Gun's changed story said, "Shin was forced to acknowledge the problems with his story after other defectors in South Korea began questioning his version of events and threatened to expose him."
Blaine Harden, who narrated Sin Un Gun's "Escape From Prison 14" said:
“In writing this book, I have sometimes struggled to trust him. He misled me in our first interview about his role in the death of his mother, and he continued to do so in more than a dozen interviews. When he changed his story, I became worried about what else he might have made up.”
The following documentary, for which I provide a link, interviews his father, stepmother, and victims of his crimes showing that Sin Un Gun lied about everything. He was not born into a prison camp. He was not in prison for the political activities of his parents, but instead for a rape he carried out himself. His father was never in a prison camp. The injuries that he claimed were the results of tortures in Prison Camp 14, were actually a result of injuries he received as a child and at work later in life.
Sin Un Gun's lies bring much into question about the west’s narrative on North Korea. The fact that one of the main witnesses who supposedly exposed human rights violations in the DPRK is a fraud does not mean that there are no human rights violations in the DPRK. It does, however, expose the propensity of the United States propagandists and supposed human rights organizations to parade a man around whose story was easily discredited from the beginning, calling into question all of their eyewitnesses.
It is well established that the South Korean government is guilty of torturing and murdering hundreds of thousands of leftists and suspected leftists. The U.S. government also murdered 5 million people to defend that capitalist dictatorship in the so-called Korean War. The United States itself is now known for torture and has an incarceration rate far higher than the DPRK while the U.S. also has police forces across the country that routinely murder people in the streets with complete impunity.
The DPRK is described by imperialist propaganda as an underdeveloped prison house run by a madman where everyone is starving. Truth is, people have not been starving in the DPRK since the 1990s when a combination of terrible weather events and an end to beneficial trade relations with the USSR caused starvation. The DPRK is in fact a relatively modern country with good housing, free socialized health care, socialist food distribution, a 99% literacy rate, and 12 years of free compulsory education (longer than in South Korea).
The DPRK has a socialist economy that has benefited the Korean workers and farmers, but is a country surrounded by a hostile and extremely deadly capitalist world that has murdered 5 million Koreans. Of course it is more complicated than that. North Korea is also ruled by an oppressive Stalinist regime (which I argue is no more brutal than the blood thirsty imperialists). With its socialist economy and overthrow of the capitalist class, the DPRK is a deformed workers state that both needs a political revolution to bring authentic workers democracy and needs to be defended from imperialist attack, economic sanctions, imperialist lies, and internal capitalist counterrevolution. This is the program promoted by the Leninist-Trotskyists of the Revolutionary Tendency for the DPRK along with the need to overthrow the brutally repressive capitalist government in South Korea, throw out 30,000 U.S. occupying troops, and overthrow the system of class exploitation in South Korea as a step towards the revolutionary unification of Korea.
-Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency
The following movie includes eyewitness testimony and exposes the lies of Sin Un Gun (aka Shin Dong-Hyok):
The Truth About Shin Dong-hyok Exposed (DPRK Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P82aad8QQW4
For more on the realities of the DPRK, read the articles on following Facebook page:
Imperialists Out of South Korea & Hands Off DPRK
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Imperialists-Out-of-South-Korea-Hands-Off-DPRK/1539740902975992
Also see:
Revolutionary Tendency on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionaryTendency
By Steven Argue
Shin Dong-hyuk (born Sin In Gun) apologized this week for lying about a number of details of his claimed life in a DPRK prison camp saying, “To those who have supported me, trusted me and believed in me all this time, I am so very grateful and at the same time so very sorry to each and every single one of you.”
Sin In Gun had described himself as “the only known person born in a North Korean prison camp that escaped and survived to tell the tale”. The supposed camp he lived in is described to sound like a brutal concentration death camp. His testimony was key evidence in UN charges of human rights violations by the DPRK. In addition, his story, written down in the bestseller "Escape From Camp 14", has been key propaganda in the west's portrait of the DPRK as a hell on Earth.
This week, the Washington Post, in reporting Sin Un Gun's changed story said, "Shin was forced to acknowledge the problems with his story after other defectors in South Korea began questioning his version of events and threatened to expose him."
Blaine Harden, who narrated Sin Un Gun's "Escape From Prison 14" said:
“In writing this book, I have sometimes struggled to trust him. He misled me in our first interview about his role in the death of his mother, and he continued to do so in more than a dozen interviews. When he changed his story, I became worried about what else he might have made up.”
The following documentary, for which I provide a link, interviews his father, stepmother, and victims of his crimes showing that Sin Un Gun lied about everything. He was not born into a prison camp. He was not in prison for the political activities of his parents, but instead for a rape he carried out himself. His father was never in a prison camp. The injuries that he claimed were the results of tortures in Prison Camp 14, were actually a result of injuries he received as a child and at work later in life.
Sin Un Gun's lies bring much into question about the west’s narrative on North Korea. The fact that one of the main witnesses who supposedly exposed human rights violations in the DPRK is a fraud does not mean that there are no human rights violations in the DPRK. It does, however, expose the propensity of the United States propagandists and supposed human rights organizations to parade a man around whose story was easily discredited from the beginning, calling into question all of their eyewitnesses.
It is well established that the South Korean government is guilty of torturing and murdering hundreds of thousands of leftists and suspected leftists. The U.S. government also murdered 5 million people to defend that capitalist dictatorship in the so-called Korean War. The United States itself is now known for torture and has an incarceration rate far higher than the DPRK while the U.S. also has police forces across the country that routinely murder people in the streets with complete impunity.
The DPRK is described by imperialist propaganda as an underdeveloped prison house run by a madman where everyone is starving. Truth is, people have not been starving in the DPRK since the 1990s when a combination of terrible weather events and an end to beneficial trade relations with the USSR caused starvation. The DPRK is in fact a relatively modern country with good housing, free socialized health care, socialist food distribution, a 99% literacy rate, and 12 years of free compulsory education (longer than in South Korea).
The DPRK has a socialist economy that has benefited the Korean workers and farmers, but is a country surrounded by a hostile and extremely deadly capitalist world that has murdered 5 million Koreans. Of course it is more complicated than that. North Korea is also ruled by an oppressive Stalinist regime (which I argue is no more brutal than the blood thirsty imperialists). With its socialist economy and overthrow of the capitalist class, the DPRK is a deformed workers state that both needs a political revolution to bring authentic workers democracy and needs to be defended from imperialist attack, economic sanctions, imperialist lies, and internal capitalist counterrevolution. This is the program promoted by the Leninist-Trotskyists of the Revolutionary Tendency for the DPRK along with the need to overthrow the brutally repressive capitalist government in South Korea, throw out 30,000 U.S. occupying troops, and overthrow the system of class exploitation in South Korea as a step towards the revolutionary unification of Korea.
-Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency
The following movie includes eyewitness testimony and exposes the lies of Sin Un Gun (aka Shin Dong-Hyok):
The Truth About Shin Dong-hyok Exposed (DPRK Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P82aad8QQW4
For more on the realities of the DPRK, read the articles on following Facebook page:
Imperialists Out of South Korea & Hands Off DPRK
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Imperialists-Out-of-South-Korea-Hands-Off-DPRK/1539740902975992
Also see:
Revolutionary Tendency on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionaryTendency
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Just wonder: you say, they are a repressive Stalinist state, right? ANd you also say, they never, ever put innocent people in prison? Right?
Russian says, "you also say, they never, ever put innocent people in prison? Right?"
No, I never said that. I said Sin Un Gun (aka Shin Dong-Hyok) was not innocent and his stories of mistreatment were a lie.
No, I never said that. I said Sin Un Gun (aka Shin Dong-Hyok) was not innocent and his stories of mistreatment were a lie.
In fact, in the article I state:
"The fact that one of the main witnesses who supposedly exposed human rights violations in the DPRK is a fraud does not mean that there are no human rights violations in the DPRK."
"Russian", why are you wasting my time without even reading my article?
"The fact that one of the main witnesses who supposedly exposed human rights violations in the DPRK is a fraud does not mean that there are no human rights violations in the DPRK."
"Russian", why are you wasting my time without even reading my article?
Sorry, I missed it. I was unnecessarily inflamed, largely because (due to my own life, my wife's family background and other things) I have some understanding of how common North Koreans live. Arguably, better understanding than 99.99% of people living outside North Korea. For a common people, it is a pure hell, even though until recently the majority there did not know that things could be different. So, I saw your article as an attempt to side with greater evil of semi-fascist, semi-feudal North Korean system against much lesser evil of US capitalism. I am still afraid it was indeed the case. It is understandable: you live in the US, you see the bad side of your society, you feel sympathy with those who are trumped and underprivileged and discriminated. Unfortunately, you (perhaps - I do not know much about you), and many your friends do not understand that often the radical leftists praise countries/regimes which are really bad for those unlucky to live there. Common people, above all. These regimes, safely distant from your californias and virginias present the leftists with what they (wrongly!!!) perceive a good alternative to what they, with some reasons, hate and what to change. This is why I sometimes feel unjustified outbursts hatred for people like you, but such my feelings are certainly stupid. So, irrespectively of whether you belong to the group I despise, I would like to apologize, but also repeat what seems to be self-evident to me: Obama is better than Nixon, and Nixon is better than Franco, and Franco is better than Hitler. And if you start praising kimilsungs and stalins and polpots, just because they happen to be enemies of people with whom you fight, think twice. Might be a good realpoltik, but not a good moral position. And I wish you good success in your attempts to make the US better.
You continue to be incorrect in your characterizations of what I wrote as well as what life is like in the DPRK and the challenges faced by the DPRK as a result of continuing U.S. imperialist aggression. My writing is to give the truth of North Korea, which has significant problems, but is not a hell on Earth. You, along with the entire western corporate media, seem to be able to ignore the horrors of life under imperialism and capitalism. Here is a photo of a mother who hanged herself and her two children in imperialist controlled capitalist India because they could not get enough to eat. This kind of hunger and desperation is not the reality in North Korea, not since the 1990s when a combination of lack of spare parts for tractors and a lack of fuel combined with the economic blockade and terrible weather events to create a terrible famine. There has been no famine in the DPRK for many years now.
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