Escape From Camp 14 Download Pdf

Book Review: Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden

Number of Pages: 172

Genre: Biography

Synopsis: The heart wrenching New York Times bestseller about the only known person born inside a North Korean prison camp to have escaped.

Personal Review:

North Korea as a country is referred to as the world's bigge s t open prison by UN due to the systematic and gross human rights violations that take place there. It's a totalitarian state with the most tightly controlled media in the world, this is why "nobody" knows anything about North Korea (well, except what the govt wants you to know)

Camp 14 (and others like it) is a political prison with hard labour where people (or their family members, if by some miracle the offender escapes) who are considered enemies of the state are sent to. A person can be sent for "crimes" as little as watching a movie that isn't from the state media, speaking against the corrupt practices of the government, using the internet, trying to defect or escape North Korea. Once sent there, its for life in most cases.

Prisoners are occasionally matched and given the "privilege" to consummate such union on very special occasions. Anyone caught having sex with his/her matched partner on days outside the granted few days in a year is severely punished, or killed in extreme cases; and children from such union automatically become prisoners themselves.

This was the story of Shin In Geun who was born in Camp 14 to a life of suffering, snitching, a constant struggle for survival and knowing nothing about the world outside the camp. For him, the camp was all there is to life until he met another prisoner named Park who will spark his curiosity for life outside the camp, leading him to plot and successfully execute an escape on 2 Jan 2005 . He in the days following escaped to South Korea, and later to the West (United States). Till this day, Shin is the only known person born in the camp to have successfully escaped.

I remember getting curious about North Korea for the firsg time after watching "The Interview" a 2014 movie, and though I didn't immediately act on this curiousity, the storyline stayed with me. Sometime this year, I stumbled on this YouTube video about North and South Korea https://youtu.be/AJUSIWSaQX4 "Escape from Camp 14" was one of the books recommended in the description bar and I knew immediately, I'd love to read it.

Feels like reading a real life season of prison break only this time, the inhuman treatment is still someone's reality. There's so much to say about this book but I'd rather you read it for yourself. Was so glued I read it in one day, which is the shortest period I've ever read a book that isn't poetry.

P.S: According to sources on IG, Shin is now married and welcomed a child in 2017.

Updated: With recent events of post #EndSars protest and how government is hell bent on regulating social media, I can't help but fear we are edging fast towards the North Korean system of government. A system with no regards whatsoever for the rule of law, a system where those at the helm of affairs determine what is wrong what isn't, a system where any form of criticism is seen as an opposition that needs to be "destroyed" by whatever means possible.

Source: https://medium.com/@LazyBookJunkie/book-review-escape-from-camp-14-by-blaine-harden-9c18d6e83ae7

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