North Korea announces criminal amnesty

Yahoo – AFP, 14 July 2015

North Korean people raise their fists during an anti-US rally at Kim Il-Sung

stadium in Pyongyang on June 25, 2015 (AFP Photo)

North Korea, whose notorious prison camps have been condemned by global rights groups, announced Tuesday an amnesty for convicted criminals to coincide with the 70th anniversary of independence from Japanese colonial rule.

The pardons will take effect on August 1, the North's official KCNA news agency said, without specifying the number of criminals to be covered by the amnesty order.

Pardons will be extended to those "convicted of crimes against the country and its people", the news agency said, without elaborating.

Estimates of North Korea's prison population vary, but rights groups put it at around 200,000 men, women and children -- mostly held for political and not criminal reasons.

A comprehensive report published last year by a UN commission concluded that conditions in normal North Korean prisons were often every bit as harsh as those in the political gulag.

Many inmates are imprisoned without trial or any kind of due process, the report said, adding that beatings and sexual abuse of prisoners was commonplace.

KCNA said practical measures would be taken to "help the released people settle down" to a new life and work.

North Korea is currently holding four South Koreans charged with spying or illegal entry. None of them are expected to be included in the amnesty.

North Korea regularly offers pardons on major anniversaries -- most recently in 2012 to mark the 100th and 70th birth anniversaries respectively of late leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.

As well as the end of Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula, this year also marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the North's ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

Pedestrians walking on a street beside the Yalu river in Dandong,

Liaoning province, April 2013. (File photo/CNS)

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa, Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

“…  I want you to watch some countries. I don't have a clock [this statement is Kryon telling us that there is no time frame on his side of the veil, only potentials]. I'll just tell you, it's imminent [in Spirit's timing, this could mean as soon as a decade]. I want you to watch some countries carefully for changes. You're going to be seeing changes that are obvious, and some that are not obvious [covert or assumptive]. But the obvious ones you will see sooner than not - Cuba, Korea [North], Iran, of course, and Venezuela. I want you to watch what happens when they start to realize that they don't have any more allies on Earth! Even their brothers who used to support them in their hatred of some are saying, "Well, perhaps not anymore. It doesn't seem to be supporting us anymore." Watch the synchronicities that are occurring. The leaders who have either died or are going to in the next year or so will take with them the old ways. Watch what happens to those who take their place, and remember these meetings where I described these potentials to you. …”