The Marmot’s Hole

Please, for the love of God, leave the hash at home. South Korean spooks, with a shit load of time on their hands since DJ freed them from tracking down North Korean spies, and Gyeonggi Provincial police put out arrest warrants for two Americans — one of whom was a 47-year-old English teacher — for smuggling in W2.5 billion in hash and trying to sell it in Pyeongtaek. Arrest warrant have also been asked for two others — including some 23-year-old Russian chick — for buying the stuff. What’s interesting is that the goods may have entered the country through Osan Air Base. NIS and U.S. military officials are looking into it.

Well, if it means anything to the guys, foreigners are apparently well treated in Korean prisons. Too well, in fact — a Korean ex-con recently released from a Daejeon prison after serving 20 years for murder has submitted a petition to the nation’s human rights watchdog complaining that foreign prisoners were treated better than Korean ones. Koreans were fed rice that was 80 percent rice and 20 percent barley, while foreigners were fed 100 percent rice, he claimed. Foreigners got more expensive food in the prison cafeteria, and the menu available for foreigners included pulgogi, cheese and ham, while the food Koreans ate was hard to even look at. Foreigners also got to buy cheese and tuna fish, while Koreans were not allowed to buy food like that, no matter how much money they had. Lastly, 20 percent of the foreign prisoners were sent out to work in outside factories, while Korean prisoners couldn’t even dream of this, he said.

The Justice Ministry is refuting claims of discrimination, however, saying that foreigners were given different food because they come from different food cultures — it asked, “would it be right to give Muslim prisoners pork?” They also pointed out that foreigners were given jobs so they could pay for their plane tickets home upon release. The ministry added that it had a duty to help “poor, struggling foreign prisoners.” Kind of ironic, given that it’s the Justice Ministry, and the Department of Immigration in particular, that tops most foreign workers’ shit list. They might be dicks when you’re free, but they apparently turn into big softies once you land in the pen.

PS: Not that I feel terribly bad for guys who smuggled W2.5 billion worth of hash into the country, and I truly hope they get the long prison terms they deserve (assuming they actually did what the NIS and the cops say they did), but was it really necessary to use the full name of one of the guys in the press report?