Key points in this article:

• Disabled people are quarantined and exiled from Pyongyang
• Plans to execute all disabled people
• The relation between ‘the dignity in disabled people’ and ‘democratizing dictatorships’

 
You hardly see any disabled people in Pyongyang.

This is a well-known fact, and is the result of an old North Korean policy that exiles disabled people from the capital.

“Visitors to our country will evaluate us on the state of the capital city,” said Kim il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather. “Pyongyang must be a city filled only with mentally and physically healthy people”.

Disabled People Are Taken Away From Their Families

When the disabled are exiled, it also means that their family is forced to suffer this separation.

A North Korean defector who lived in Pyongyang told The Liberty Magazine about his experience. The man – who shall remain unnamed – had a sister with a disability in her leg. The family raised her well.

But one day, when their father went to work, a Worker’s Party secretary ordered him to send his disabled daughter to her relatives in the countryside. The father begged in tears to be excused, but all in vain.

He returned home and, patting his 11-year-old daughter’s head, told the family the terrible news. Then the daughter started crying that she wanted to stay with the family. But the family had to be split apart.

North Korea also gathers short stature (dwarfism) patients and quarantines them, keeping them inside a remote village in the mountains. This was carried out in response to Kim Il-sung who said, “We cannot let those genes spread”. They are forbidden to marry or have children with other healthy men and women.

Plans for Mass Execution

Exiles and quarantines are not as bad as it could have been. North Korea had originally made a plan to execute all people with disabilities. The current less severe measure was taken out of fear for their reputation in international society.

But North Korean defectors have told us that some disabled people are now being used as test subjects for chemical weapons. A former high-ranking military official and witness said that there is an island off the western coast where disabled people are locked in a glass room where scientists release poisonous gasses.

On the surface, North Korea dispatched a ‘human rights ambassador’ to the international society and continues to claim that they are unable to find funds to create facilities for the disabled because due to economic sanctions. Not only do they oppress the disabled people in their own country, they even try to use them as an excuse to get the sanctions lifted.

Foundlings in China Are Often Disabled

While China does not have a state policy that oppresses the disabled, the materialistic society generally looks at disabled people in disgust.

In 2014 there were 262 children taken to a foundling home in Guangzhou over just 2 months and had to quickly shut down. Most of these children were disabled, and the home saw that it could not handle the situation.

Japan also has foundling homes, but most of them are victims of family problems and economic difficulties, not because they are disabled.

There are very few healthy children in the Beijing government-run orphanages, a great many of them being disabled.

Also, it is said that 40% of the Chinese population are illiterate. This has partly to do with the fact that most schools do not accept disabled children, so they are unable to get an education.

The Relation Between ‘The Dignity in Disabled People’ and ‘Democratizing Dictatorships’

Materialistic and atheistic countries cannot see the dignity in disabled people. They victimize them for selfish reasons, and this attitude feeds into the origin of dictatorships: the idea of ignoring human rights for want of power.

In order to truly save the weak and look into their hearts we need to democratize those dictatorships. “Each and every person’s soul has dignity, no matter who they are.” Spreading this idea will contribute to the global pressure on dictatorial countries, bringing the people true happiness, liberty, democracy and – last but not least – faith.