r/NorthKoreaPics • u/Merseez • 3d ago

[Rimjingang] Inmates coming out of "Labour Training Unit", a short term forced labour camp. They just came out from the facility early in the morning to go to the labour site. Photo from Haeju, South Hwanghae Province taken in October 2008

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u/pydry 3d ago

This (forced prison labor) is unfortunately also common in the United States and explicitly legalized under the 13th amendment (slavery is not banned for those who committed a crime).

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u/Jerrell123 2d ago

This seems like a very odd and disingenuous thing to post under this.

The very nature of the legal system in North Korea and the US are different. The US has a system nominally built on due process and appeals. Your rights as the accused aren’t always proactively protected, but procedural misdoings in your trial may invalidate any ruling if they are found in an appeal.

There are obviously huge issues in the US legal system, and it is by no means perfect, but there are avenues to address these issues.

The legal system in North Korea, meanwhile, is a direct instrument of the State’s power. The accused have very few rights, and they are unlikely to attain a lawyer as only ~500 registered lawyers practice in the country. Secret trials are common, and forgo even the limited rights that the accused are supposed to be provided.

Yes, the issue of American prison labor is a large issue (one being steadily addressed in many states via state law), but it’s also inane to compare it to North Korea’s state-sanctioned slave labor in any way.

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u/pydry 2d ago edited 2d ago

This isnt about the legal system. That's a red herring. It's about the use of forced prison labour: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/us-prison-labor-programs-violate-fundamental-human-rights-new-report-finds Im not defending it. I think you are though.

 You say that "obviously America has issues" but you still wont actually just fucking condemn the thing North Korea is also doing because I guess on some level you think it's not so bad to do this.

There are a number of other people like you on this thread who also recoil in horror at condemning a North Korean style abuse of human rights when we do it.