Free North Korea

Since the end of the World War II the Korean Peninsula has been divided into the South and the North.

North Korea has been isolated for decades from the rest of the world because of the choices of the country's leaders to impose the communist law and to establish an ideology of self-reliance, mainly as a result of their leader's mistrustment to the Soviet Union after the disaster of the Korean war.

The country has failed to adapt itself to the global economic and ideological changes, due to the fear of the North Korean governmental elite of ending up similarly to the communist dictator regimes in eastern europe in 1990. Due to this fact, the North Korean regime has used every means to strengthen its control on its people and to keep them away from any influence from the outside world. This is necessary for them and they try to achieve this at any costs.

People have no individual freedom: it is overwhelmingly clear that the government of North Korea controls virtually all activities within the nation. Citizens are not allowed to freely speak their minds and the government detains those who criticize the regime.

The only radio, television, and news organizations that are deemed legal are those operated by the government. The media universally praise the administration of Kim Jong-Il, who remains the unelected leader of the country. A number of human rights organizations and governments have condemned North Korea's human rights record, including Amnesty International and the United Nations.

Criticism of the government and its leaders is strictly curtailed and making such statements can be cause for arrest and consignment to one of North Korea's "re-education" camps. The government distributes all radio and television sets; citizens are forbidden to alter them to make it possible to receive broadcasts from other nations, and doing so carries draconian penalties.In addition, the media is said to make false claims, and the use of the United States as a scapegoat is common. All media is strictly controlled by the government.

The national media dedicates a large portion of its resources toward political propaganda and promoting the personality cult of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.For instance, the North Korean media claims that the United States started the Korean War, which Soviet archives show to have started with a premeditated invasion from the north.

In its 2006 country report on North Korea, Freedom House stated that, "North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship and one of the most restrictive countries in the world. Every aspect of social, political, and economic life is tightly controlled by the state. The regime denies North Koreans all basic rights, subjects tens of thousands of political prisoners to brutal conditions, and maintains a largely isolationist foreign policy."

North Korea's government is said to routinely detain, torture and imprison thousands of individuals who are either dissidents or alleged saboteurs. The administration of Kim Jong-il maintains that it does not do any of these things. Many refugees have come forward and recounted stories which describe conditions within the country. The government is accused of employing political prison camps, believed to hold as many as 200,000 inmates, including children whose only crime is having "class enemies" for relatives. There have been widespread reports from North Korean refugees of abortion, infanticide, and famine in these prison camps. Extreme physical abuse is common (beatings often result in death).

Famine struck North Korea in the mid-1990s, set off by unprecedented floods and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As late as 2000, there were frequent reports from certain sources (such as the UN) of famine in all parts of North Korea except Pyongyang. North Korean citizens ran increasingly desperate risks to escape from the country, mainly into China.North Korea has not yet resumed its food self-sufficiency and relies on external food aid from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. n the spring of 2005, the World Food Program reported that famine conditions were in imminent danger of returning to North Korea.

Usually citizens cannot freely travel around the country or go abroad. Only the political élite may own vehicles and the government limits access to fuel and other forms of transportation. (Satellite photos of North Korea show an almost complete lack of vehicles on the roads.) Forced resettlement of citizens and families, especially as punishment for political reasons, is said to be routine.Only the most politically reliable and healthiest citizens are allowed to live in Pyongyang. Those who are suspected of sedition, or have family members suspected of it, are removed from the city; similar conditions affect those who are physically or mentally disabled in some way. This can be a significant method of coercion as food and housing are said to be much better in the capital city.

North Korea's society is highly stratified by class, according to a citizen's family and political background.Refugees International, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Amnesty International have all accused North Korea of discriminating against those in "hostile" classes in the distribution of basic necessities, including food. In some "closed" areas that contained a higher concentration of "hostile" class members, the government appears to have prevented the delivery of significant amounts of food aid.

On March 22, 2006, the Associated Press reported from South Korea that a North Korean doctor who defected, Ri Kwang-chol, has claimed that babies born with physical defects are rapidly put to death and buried.A United Nations report also mentions how disabled people are allegedly "rounded up" and sent to "special camps."

North Korea claims to possess nuclear weapons, and the CIA asserts that it has a substantial arsenal of chemical weapons. North Korea was a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but withdrew in 2003, citing the failure of the United States to fulfill its end of the Agreed Framework, a 1994 agreement between the states to limit North Korea's nuclear ambitions, begin normalization of relations, and help North Korea supply some energy needs through nuclear reactors.

On October 9, 2006, the North Korean government issued an announcement that it had successfully conducted a nuclear test for the first time.

The country is believed to possess a substantial arsenal of chemical weapons. It reportedly acquired the technology necessary to produce tabun and mustard gas as early as the 1950s,[17] and now possesses a full arsenal of nerve agents and other advanced varieties, with the means to launch them in artillery shells.[citation needed] North Korea has expended considerable resources on equipping its army with chemical-protection equipment.[citation needed] South Korea, however, has not felt the need to take such measures.

North Korea's ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction to a hypothetical target is somewhat limited by its missile technology. As of 2005, North Korea's total range with its No Dong missiles is only 1,300 km, enough to reach South Korea, Japan, and parts of Russia, and China, but not the mainland United States or Europe--although they could potentially reach US islands in the Pacific Ocean such as the Northern Mariana Islands and possibly even the state of Hawaii.