Mick Hartley

As with so many stories coming out of North Korea, it's impossible to verify this report. From what we know about the Dear Leader's regime, though, and the obsession with genetic and racial purity, it's all too plausible. And it would explain the noticeable lack of disabled people seen on the streets of Pyongyang (via):

Free North Korea Radio, run by North Korean defectors, reported last Tuesday on the murderous acts toward disabled children by the country's own government.  Disabled children who are born in the city of Pyongyang are taken into government run hospitals and are suffocated to death by smothering wet towel over their face.

According to North Korean policy, there cannot be any citizen with disability in Pyongyang. If one is born with defects, it must be taken care of immediately. In many cases, it means death to that individual. For some time now, the policy comes directly from leader Kim Jong Il authorizing the North Korean government to obtain babies with disability and dispose of them through suffocation.

Free North Korea Radio confirmed a story about one sailor, a captain of trade ships in Nampo port, who had to give up his grandson 8 years ago because of the gruesome policy.  He received a threat from the city after  his newborn grandson was born disabled.

The grandfather sailor spoke about the threats given by officials.  "Give up your grandson, or you don't get to live in Pyongyang. We will give you a week to decide," recalled the sailor.  "I was afraid that if I didn't decide, I would be persecuted as a traitor who disobeyed Kim Jong Il, and then be excommunicated to a wasteland. I had no choice. I had to give up my grandson."…

He continued, "although we turned over our grandson as the government asked us to, we were still marked as a genetically defective family that gives births to disabled babies.  We had everything North Korean society wanted from us – foundation, education. We were still eventually excommunicated. They test you on how to answer to foreigners' questions if you're trading overseas.  One of the things they teach you is that Pyongyang has no disabled people at all."

This is not the first time we've heard these stories.

Related: the practice of forced abortions on pregnant returnees, to preserve the racial hygiene of the pure-blooded nation.