North Korea - Kim regime expands secret prison camp for women forcibly returned from China

Fox News
The communist regime in North Korea has been expanding space for women in its notorious prison labor camps to accommodate the number of Koreans forcibly returned from China, where they had sought the economic means to survive.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

The atrocities that await inmates in the North Korean gulag include forced labor, savage beatings, starvation, episodic executions and other crimes against humanity, according to a new report by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (CHRNK), a Washington-based non-profit group.

The most recent changes in North Korea’s remote and extensive secret prison network is documented in The Hidden Gulag IV, an update of the Committee’s decade-long examination of the North Korean system, published on Friday. The report is buttressed by a separate analysis of satellite photographs and based on interviews with inmates who endured stays in the horrific system and subsequently escaped to South Korea after their release.

The Kim regime steadfastly denies the existence of any and all of the camps.

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Sudan woman faces death penalty for apostasy for marrying a Christian man

Al Jazeera

Court gives Mariam Yahya until Thursday to abandon her Christian religion or face death sentence.

A Sudanese court has given a 27-year-old woman until Thursday to abandon her Christian faith or face a death sentence, judicial sources have said.

Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag, who was born to a Muslim father, was charged with apostasy, as well as adultery, for marrying a Christian man, something prohibited for Muslim women to do and which makes the marriage void.

The human rights group, Amnesty International, said Ishag was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother's religion, because her Muslim father was absent.

Ibrahim's case was the first of its kind to be heard in Sudan, the Reuters news agency reported. A final ruling will be announced on Thursday.

Sudanese rights activists sharply condemned the accusations and called on the Sudanese government to respect freedom of faith.

"The details of this case expose the regime's blatant interference in the personal life of Sudanese citizens," Sudan Change Now Movement, a youth group, said in a statement.

Western embassies in Khartoum also expressed "deep concern" over the case.

"We call upon the government of Sudan to respect the right to freedom of religion, including one's right to change one's faith or beliefs," the embassies of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands said in a joint statement.

The embassies urged Sudanese legal authorities "to approach Ms Mariam's case with justice and compassion that is in keeping with the values of the Sudanese people".

Speaking to the AFP news agency, Ahmed Bilal Osman, Sudan's Information minister, said: "It's not only Sudan. In Saudi Arabia, in all the Muslim countries, it is not allowed at all for a Muslim to change his religion."

President Omar al-Bashir's government is facing a huge economic and political challenge after the 2011 secession of South Sudan, which was Sudan's main source of oil.

A decision by Bashir last year to cut subsidies and impose austerity measures prompted violent protests in which dozens were killed and hundreds were injured.

Yemen: Execution of female death row inmate postponed

Yemen Times
The appealed court hearing of a woman in Ibb who had been sentenced to death in a self-defense case has been postponed until the end of December due to the resignation of the judge presiding over the case.

Raja Al-Hakami, 29, was imprisoned in October 2010 for shooting a 37-year-old man she said was trying to enter her home.

After the woman was initially sentenced to 2 years in prison and ordered to pay the victim's family an undetermined amount of money, the family appealed the decision. Al-Hakami was then sentenced to death by the Appeals Court.

Her case has drawn the attention of human rights activists, many of whom gathered outside the courtroom on Monday as the Appeals Court judge resigned, saying he wanted to uphold the death sentence.

Under increasing pressure from activist groups in June, including the Ibb branch of HOOD, the National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedom, the Supreme Court in Ibb overturned the women's death sentence and returned the case to the Appeals Court.

"Executing Al-Hakmi is executing the dignity of all Yemeni women," said Mohammed Al-Moalmi, who gathered outside the courtroom to advocate for Al-Hakimi's case.

Abdulla Hassan Al-Mosawa, the lawyer representing the victim's family, also withdrew from the case this week.

"The victim's relatives insisted I continue, but I withdrew because my role was over after the first [Court of] Appeal's verdict," he said.

Faisel Al-Humaidi, the head of HOOD in Ibb and 1 of the 4 lawyers defending Al-Hakami, is optimistic that the Appeals Court will not uphold the death penalty for their client, calling her trial "unfair" and a "clear case of self defense."

"The law stipulates that if any person attacks you inside your house, you have the right...to defend yourself," Al-Humaidi said. "Yet the judge [in this case] did not rule in accordance."

Ameen Al-Hakami, Raja's brother, said at the time of shooting, Raja was living with their 80-year-old father.

Al-Hakami has been in Ibb Central Prison since Oct. 20, 2010.