Defending the DPRK's Public Executions
I'm going to go out on a limb and do just that with this post, although I detest North Korea's régime and have many qualms about the death penalty.
Over at le Marmot there is discussion of this issue: CNN shows North Korean execution video. I saw the report in question; it showed grainy footage of three condemned men meeting their deaths by firing squad.
The report said the men were accused of trafficking, but went on to say that they were perhaps genuinely helping people escape to China, for profit or for political reasons. The latter may be the case, and if so, their execution is a tragedy and the men died at worst as shrewd entrepreneurs and at best as noble patriots.
But it may also be the case that the men were indeed traffickers, contributing to a huge human rights problem in the PRC-DPRK border regions, as this article indicates: North Korea: Trafficking in women and forced labour.
Would not the mood created by the story be the opposite if it were known that these men were selling women into sexual slavery? Inhuman circumstances bring out either the best or worst in human nature, and we can see both in operation along the PRC-DPRK border.
Much of the outcry seems to be about the fact that the executions were public, that this is in itself barbaric. Yet, if the state is going to execute people in the name of the public, should it not do so publicly?
Anti-death penalty activist Austin Sarat answers this question better than I ever could:
I'm going to go out on a limb and do just that with this post, although I detest North Korea's régime and have many qualms about the death penalty.
Over at le Marmot there is discussion of this issue: CNN shows North Korean execution video. I saw the report in question; it showed grainy footage of three condemned men meeting their deaths by firing squad.
The report said the men were accused of trafficking, but went on to say that they were perhaps genuinely helping people escape to China, for profit or for political reasons. The latter may be the case, and if so, their execution is a tragedy and the men died at worst as shrewd entrepreneurs and at best as noble patriots.
But it may also be the case that the men were indeed traffickers, contributing to a huge human rights problem in the PRC-DPRK border regions, as this article indicates: North Korea: Trafficking in women and forced labour.
Would not the mood created by the story be the opposite if it were known that these men were selling women into sexual slavery? Inhuman circumstances bring out either the best or worst in human nature, and we can see both in operation along the PRC-DPRK border.
Much of the outcry seems to be about the fact that the executions were public, that this is in itself barbaric. Yet, if the state is going to execute people in the name of the public, should it not do so publicly?
Anti-death penalty activist Austin Sarat answers this question better than I ever could:
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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