2005년 3월에 미국의 국제인권단체인 프리덤하우스가 발표한 '최악중의 최악국가(또는 영토)'엔 10개국이 선정되었다.
 버마, 쿠바, 리비아, 북한, 사우디 아라비아, 수단, 시리아, 투르크메니스탄, 체첸(러시아), 티벳(중국).
 
 이 최악국가들은 192개 국가와 14개 지역에서 뽑혔다. 이 10개중에서도 최악을 하나 꼽으라면 단연 북한이 선정될 것이다. 10개국중 북한이 보유한 20만 명 규모의 강제수용소를 가진 나라는 없고 먹고살기 위하여 탈출한 죄가 사형에 해당하는 곳도 없다.
 
 세계에서 가장 높은 수준의 IQ를 가진 한민족을 이 지경으로 만든 김정일도 나쁘지만 자유와 풍요를 누리면서도 그 김정일에 추종, 굴종한 자들이 권력의 핵심부에 들어가 있는 한국도 참으로 큰 일이다. 인권탄압부문에서 챔피언인 정권과 손잡고 대한민국에서 지금 반역적 상황을 조성하고 있는 자들이 입만 열면 인권이요 민주, 개혁이다. 이런 자들을 억제할 수 없는 사회는 자위능력이 없다고 보아야 한다. 한국사회가 그런 자위능력을 갖추기 위해, 즉 바이러스에 대한 면역력을 만들기 위해 이렇게 열이 나고 있는 모양이다.
 
 아래 글은 프리덤하우스가 발표한 '최악중의 최악국가' 보고서의 서문이다.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
 THE WORST
 OF THE WORST
 
 THE WORLD’S
 MOST REPRESSIVE SOCIETIES
 2005
 
 A Special Report to the 61st Session of the
 United Nations Commission on Human Rights
 Geneva, 2005
 
 Freedom House
 
 
 Introduction
 
 Freedom House has prepared this overview report in conjunction with the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. We present our findings on countries and territories that represent the worst environments for political rights and civil liberties.
 The reports are excerpted from the Freedom House survey Freedom in the World 2005, which surveys political rights and civil liberties in 192 countries and 14 major territories. The ratings and accompanying essays are based on events from
 December 1, 2003 through November 30, 2004. The 18 countries and 3 territories profiled in this report are drawn from the total of 49 countries-a quarter of the world's total-and 9 territories that are considered to be Not Free
 and whose citizens endure systematic and pervasive human rights violations.
 Included in this report are eight countries judged to have the worst records:
 Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and Turkmenistan.
 Also included are two territories, Chechnya and Tibet, whose inhabitants suffer intense repression. These states and regions received the Freedom House survey's lowest rating: 7 for political rights and 7 for civil liberties. Within these entities, state control over daily life is pervasive and wide-ranging, independent organizations and political opposition are banned or suppressed, and fear of retribution for independent thought and action is part of daily life. In the case
 of Chechnya, the rating in large measure reflects the fallout of a vicious conflict that in the last 11 years has disrupted normal life and resulted in some 200,000
 deaths.
 The report also includes ten further countries near the bottom of Freedom House's list of the most repressive: Belarus, China, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea,
 Haiti, Laos, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. The territory of Western Sahara is also included in this group. While these states scored slightly better than the "worst of the worst," they offer very limited scope for private
 discussion while severely suppressing opposition political activity, impeding independent organizing, and censoring or punishing criticism of the state.
 
 Introduction
 
 The World’s Most Repressive Regimes
 
 Massive human rights violations take place in nearly every part of the world. This year's roster of the "most repressive" includes countries from the Americas, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and East Asia; they represent a wide array
 of cultures and levels of economic development. This report from Freedom House to the United Nations focuses on states and regions that have seen some of the world's most severe repression and most systematic and brutal violations
 of human dignity. Our report seeks to focus the attention of the Commission on states and territories that deserve investigation and condemnation for their widespread violations.
 The fundamental violations of rights presented in this report are all the more alarming because they stand in sharp contrast to the significant expansion of
 human liberty over the last three decades.
 
 In that period, dozens of states have
 shed tyranny and embraced democratic rule and respect for basic civil liberties. There has also been growing public support around the world for the values of liberal democracy including multiparty competition, the rule of law, freedom of
 association, freedom of speech, the rights of minorities, and other fundamental, universally valid human rights. According to our global survey Freedom in the World, (whose findings can be accessed online at www.freedomhouse.org) at the
 beginning of 2005, of the 192 countries in the world, 89 (46 percent) are Free and can be said to respect a broad array of basic human rights and political freedoms. An additional 54 (28 percent) are Partly Free, with some abridgments of basic rights and weak enforcement of the rule of law. In all, 2.8 billion people-44 percent of the world's population-live in Free states in which a broad array of political rights are protected.
 There is also growing evidence that most countries that have made measured and sustainable progress in long-term economic development are also states that respect democratic practices. This should hardly be surprising as competitive,
 multiparty democracy provides for the rotation of power, government transparency, independent civic monitoring, and free media.
 
 These in turn promote improved governance and impede massive corruption and cronyism, conditions that are prevalent in settings where political power is not subject to
 civic and political checks and balances.
 The expansion of democratic governance over the last several decades has important implications for the United Nations and other international organizations. Today, states that respect basic freedoms and the rule of law have
 greater potential than ever before to positively influence global and regional institutions. But they can only achieve that potential within international bodies.
 
 Introduction
 
 Nowhere is the need for international democratic cooperation more essential than in Geneva at the UN Commission on Human Rights.
 In 2002, Freedom House and the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations sponsored an Independent Task Force on the United Nations that recommended the establishment of a democracy caucus at the UN to promote the values of human rights and democracy and to ensure that countries committed to respect
 for these fundamental principles occupy leadership positions within the UN system. We therefore strongly applaud the creation of a UN Democracy Caucus under the leadership of Chile. We hope that this year the Democracy Caucus
 can play an important role in placing under scrutiny and criticism the rights practices of many of the countries identified in this report as among the "worst of the worst" in their rights practices. By focusing on specific countries with the worst records in terms of rights, the UN Democracy Caucus can contribute to reinvigorating UN human rights system, which many observers believe is suffering a crisis of credibility as a result of it past record of inaction against gross human
 rights violators.
 Freedom House distributes this information about the "most repressive" societies in the hope that it will spur the UN Commission on Human Rights and the UN Democracy Caucus to condemn and take determined and principled action
 to improve the deplorable rights situation in these countries. We express our support for the courageous human rights defenders engaged in struggles for dignity and freedom, who work at great risk to hasten the day when dictatorships will give way to genuine pluralism, democracy, and the rule of law.
 Jennifer Windsor
 Executive Director
 Freedom House
 March 2005
 ----------------------------------
 North Korea
 Political Rights: 7
 Civil Liberties: 7
 Status: Not Free
 
 Overview:
 North Korea's foreign relations continued in 2004 to center around the rest of
 the world's efforts to engage the isolated Asian nation in talks about its selfproclaimed
 nuclear weapons program. No real progress on the issue had been
 made as of late 2004, as several rounds of talks held throughout the year produced
 empty promises. In September, a huge explosion suspected of being a nuclear
 test was reported.
 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the northern
 part of the Korea Peninsula in 1948 following three years of post-World War II
 Soviet occupation. At independence, North Korea's uncontested ruler was Kim
 Il-sung, a former Soviet army officer who claimed to be a guerrilla hero in the
 struggle against Japan, which had annexed Korea as a colony in 1910. North
 Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 in an attempt to reunify the peninsula
 under Communist rule. Drawing in China and the United States, the ensuing
 three-year conflict killed as many as two million people and ended with a
 ceasefire rather than a peace treaty. Since then, the two Koreas have been on a
 continuous war footing, and the border remains one of the most heavily militarized
 places in the world.
 Kim Il-sung solidified his power base during the Cold War, purging rivals,
 throwing thousands of political prisoners into labor camps, and fostering a
 Stalinist personality cult that promoted him as North Korea's "Dear Leader."
 The end of the Cold War, however, brought North Korea's command economy
 to the brink of collapse, as Pyongyang lost crucial Soviet and East Bloc subsidies
 and preferential trade deals.
 North Korea
 56 The World’s Most Repressive Regimes
 Kim's death in 1994 ushered in even more uncertainty. Under his son, the
 reclusive Kim Jong-il, the regime has maintained its rigid political control but
 has taken modest steps to free up North Korea's centrally planned economy.
 During the initial years of Kim Jong-il's rule, the situation grew even bleaker as
 natural disasters, economic mismanagement, and restrictions on the flow of
 information combined to kill an estimated one to two million North Koreans
 between 1995 and 1997, according to the U.S. State Department.
 The threat of acute famine has receded thanks in part to foreign food aid, but a
 2002 UN study found that more than half the population suffers from
 malnutrition. Moreover, North Korea's state-run health system has all but
 collapsed, hospitals lack adequate medicine and equipment, and clean water is
 in short supply because of electricity and chlorine shortages.
 Against this backdrop, the economic reforms launched in July 2002 have made
 life tougher for ordinary North Koreans by igniting inflation and increasing
 unemployment. While the regime eased price controls, many of the promised
 salary raises designed to offset the higher prices have not materialized. The
 government has given factories more autonomy and has also allowed farmers to
 set up small markets in cities, something it has quietly tolerated for decades in
 the countryside. These markets now sell consumer goods as well as food. There
 is no expectation, however, of more far-reaching market reforms. The regime is
 adamantly opposed to any measures that would grant North Koreans significantly
 greater control over their daily lives, for fear of undermining its tight grip on
 power.
 In September 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush signed the North Korean
 Humanitarian Act of 2004, which bans non-humanitarian assistance to North
 Korea due to the country's dismal human rights record. North Korea criticized
 the bill the following month, claiming that it "will pose a bigger obstacle at the
 six-party talks to solve nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula".
 Tension over North Korea's nuclear weapons program was renewed in October
 2002, when Pyongyang admitted to having a nuclear weapons program, and
 has remained unabated since then. In December 2002, North Korea threw out
 international inspectors monitoring its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. In 2003,
 Pyongyang not only made a series of boasts about its alleged nuclear capabilities
 and threatened to test a nuclear weapon, but also pulled out of the Nuclear
 Non-Proliferation Treaty.
 North Korea
 Freedom House 57
 International observers' worst fears seemed confirmed in September 2004 when
 a huge explosion was reported within the country. The North Korean foreign
 minister subsequently said that the explosion was merely the demolition of a
 mountain for a power project, not a nuclear test. Many analysts believe, however,
 that the greatest threat posed by North Korea is not an actual nuclear bomb, but
 the country's potential to sell plutonium to rogue states or terrorists for hard
 cash. In September 2004, North Korea postponed indefinitely the latest round
 of six-nation talks (including South Korea, the United States, Russia, China,
 and Japan) on the issue. No new date for the talks had been set as of November
 2004, but North Korea did issue a statement in that month indicating that it
 would be "quite possible" to resolve the conflict if the US agreed to co-operate
 the with Communist regime rather than trying to destroy the entire system. The
 statement, the first since the re-election of U.S. President Bush in early November,
 was seen as something of a conciliatory gesture.
 Political Rights and Civil Liberties:
 North Korea is a dictatorship and one of the most tightly controlled countries in
 the world. The regime denies North Koreans even the most basic rights, holds
 tens of thousands of political prisoners under brutal conditions, and controls
 nearly every facet of social, political, and economic life.
 Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader since 1997, and a handful of elites from
 the Korean Worker's Party (KWP) rule by decree, although little is known about
 the regime's inner workings. Kim is formally general secretary of the KWP,
 supreme commander of North Korea's 1.1 million-strong army, and chairman
 of the National Defense Commission. This last post has been the "highest office
 of state" since the office of president was abolished in 1998. North Korea's
 parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly, is a rubber-stamp institution and
 meets only a few days each year. Parliamentary and local assembly elections were
 held in 1990, 1998, and, most recently, in August 2004. The elections were
 not free, and in the most recent elections, the Central Election Committee
 reported that Kim received 100 percent of the vote of his constituency. The
 government has created a few minority parties for the sake of appearances, but
 they do not fulfill any real electoral role.
 North Koreans are subjected to intense political and ideological indoctrination.
 According to the U.S. State Department's human rights report for 2003, released
 in February 2004, "the cult of personality of Kim Jong Il and his father and the
 North Korea
 58 The World’s Most Repressive Regimes
 official juche ideology has declined somewhat, but remained an important
 ideological underpinning of the regime, approaching the level of a state religion."
 Juche refers to a national ideology of self-reliance (the country is totally dependent
 on foreign aid); it is imparted to citizens through the school system, the statecontrolled
 media, and work and neighborhood associations.
 North Korea was not ranked by Transparency International in its 2004
 Corruption Perceptions Index.
 Press freedom does not exist in any sense. The KWP controls all cultural and
 media activities, and practices extensive censorship. Foreign media broadcasts
 are banned.
 The "freedom of religious belief" guaranteed by the constitution does not exist
 in practice. Persons practicing unauthorized religious activity are subject to
 harsh punishment. Academic freedom is likewise nonexistent.
 Although the constitution guarantees equal treatment to all citizens, the
 government maintains a highly developed system of official discrimination.
 Individuals are accorded security ratings, termed either "core," "wavering," or
 "hostile" in terms of their loyalty to the regime. Nearly all facets of life, including
 employment and educational opportunities, residence, access to medical facilities,
 and severity of punishment in case of legal infractions, are determined by the
 rating. The government rates its subjects on the basis of the reports of a huge
 network of informers. It monitors all correspondence and communication, and
 can subject entire communities to security checks.
 The law bans independent civic, human rights, and social welfare groups.
 Unauthorized public meetings are forbidden, and there are no known associations
 or organizations other than those created by the government. The government
 controls all labor unions. Strikes, collective bargaining, and other basic organizedlabor
 activities are illegal.
 North Korea does not have an independent judiciary and does not acknowledge
 individual rights, emphasizing instead "socialist norms of life" and a "collective
 spirit." Little information is available about specific criminal justice practices, as
 outside observers are generally not tolerated. Security forces are known to commit
 the most serious human rights abuses. Reports of arbitrary detentions,
 disappearances, and extrajudicial killings are common; torture is widespread
 and severe. The crimes for which capital punishment is the mandatory penalty
 are so broadly defined-"opposing socialism," for example-as to render them
 North Korea
 Freedom House 59
 effectively "subjective criteria" rather than actual crimes, in the words of the UN
 Human Rights Committee. Starvation, torture, and execution in prisons are
 common, and because the government prohibits live births in prisons, forced
 abortions and infanticide are standard practices. The government engages in
 collective punishment, whereby an entire family can be imprisoned if one member
 of the family is accused of a crime. The regime also runs a network of "reeducation
 through labor" camps that are notorious for their brutal and degrading
 treatment of inmates. In November 2004, refugees fleeing the country reported
 the occurrence of systematic medical and scientific experimentation on political
 prisoners.
 Freedom of movement does not exist. Although internal travel rules have been
 relaxed to the extent that citizens are now allowed to travel beyond their home
 village, this means little in practice because very few citizens have had any means
 of transportation. Permission to enter Pyongyang is tightly controlled. Exit visas
 are issued only to officials and some artists, athletes, academics, and religious
 figures. Emigration is illegal, and defection and attempted defection are capital
 crimes.
 Despite recent market reforms, North Korea's economy remains centrally
 planned. The government assigns all jobs, prohibits private property, and directs
 and controls nearly all economic activity. Besides being grossly mismanaged, the
 economy is hobbled by creaking infrastructure, shortages of energy and raw
 materials, and an inability to borrow on world markets or from multilateral
 banks because of sanctions and a past foreign debt default.
 Little is known about how problems such as domestic violence or workplace
 discrimination may affect North Korean women. There were widespread reports
 of trafficking of women and girls among the tens of thousands of North Koreans
 who have recently crossed into China.