Genocides, obliterations of cities, murder of prisoners, egregious violation of international humanitarian law. These are crimes that will likely get a person tried as a war criminal.
But using a cellphone? Um. Sure… at least, that’s the case in North Korea these days.
According to The Telegraph, the Worker’s Party in North Korea, in their crazy-pants logic, have declared that anyone found using a mobile phone during the 100-day mourning period of Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, will be tried as “war criminals” and punished in accordance to those trespasses. North Koreans will also earn the “war criminal” label if they’re caught trying to cross the border to China in order to flee the abject starvation ubiquitous in North Korea. Repeat offenders, the Telegraph reported, “can expect to be executed.”
Nothing, as far as this intrepid reporter could discern, was said about the dictate on the Worker’s Party’s official Twitter account, @uriminzok, but then again, would you expect them to plaster that all over the open media? I don’t read Korean well enough (read: not at all) to understand exactly what the tweets say and I’m skeptical of Google’s translation services to accurately deliver cogent statements (that, or the tweets from the government’s account really are that looney).
Clouded the river and dropped the dog, even if it does not blur the great ocean #DPRK @uriminzok #NorthKorea
“Reform and open” cried all the morals of the condemned only to repeat the train of predecessors #NorthKorea @uriminzok #DPRK
1/2 DPRK confrontation light gotten this far in the bone marrow increased by a madman now become #DPRK @uriminzok #NorthKorea
The only thing I can parse from these tweets (which were taken from the official account that translates the tweets from the Worker’s Party’s account) is that the DPRK may have the same speech writer as Newt Gingrich.