Our main agenda at North Korea Reform Radio, based on my experiences in North Korea and all that I’ve learned here in the South, is to try and influence North Korea’s elite population, the intellectuals, the University students, and the leadership. That is why our broadcasting is focused on delivering news on how North Korea can reform and liberalize itself. We want to share the vision, methods, wisdom and courage that would make it possible.
Our programs also deal with issues like leadership, reform, and liberalization so that North Korean elite officers and leaders can have a more objective, critical, and globalized view of what North Korea is like today. By doing this, we equip them with the capabilities to change the future. We do something called, “The Current Affairs Talk” as one of our core programs as well as a leadership program.
We also offer a program called, “Reform and Liberalization of Socialism.” For this program, we share the biographies of figures like former President Park Chung-hee of South Korea or Deng Xiaoping of China. We would also share things like China’s history or Germany’s unification experience. We also describe the daily lives of defectors in South Korea.
[Park Chung-hee (1917 – 1979) was a South Korean general and politician. After a military coup, he served as South Korea’s president from 1963 until his assassination in 1979. His 18-year rule brought about unprecedented economic growth, but also cracked down on civil liberties and political freedom. Deng Xiaoping (1904 – 1997) led the People’s Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997. He was a reformer who eschewed some communist doctrines in favor of a market-based economy.]
Up until February 25 [2014], we aired our programs for four hours a day. One program from 11 PM to 1 AM and another program from 10 PM to 12 AM. Now that our budget has been cut, starting today we are only able to air our programs for an hour each day. We have been airing our programs for six years and three months now. At the end of each program, we always disclose our website address, our phone number, and our fax number.
Since 2010, listeners from China and Russia would occasionally contact us and ask us for help for their escape. When that happens, we assist them. On November 21, 2013, two people from North Korea called us asking for help. They had been listening to our programs for the last five years, and asked us to help them escape. So, we sent guides and helped them cross over.
It’s not easy to collect feedback from our North Korean listeners of course, but based on what I‘ve heard so far, I think our programs are having a positive impact for change in North Korea.
Kim Seung-chul is the founder of North Korea Reform Radio and a passionate advocate for freedom of information. Kim grew up in North Korea where all media is completely controlled by the regime. Desperate for alternative sources of information, he would listen to illegal foreign radio broadcasts targeted at North Koreans. As a result of his exposure to independent media, Kim started questioning his country’s totalitarian system.
Trained as a civil engineer, Kim was selected to work on an international construction project in Siberia. He was amazed at how people in Russia’s most isolated region still had access to basic necessities that were unavailable to many in North Korea. Kim decided to escape and start a new life in South Korea. Once there, he launched shortwave radio programming that targets North Korea’s elite who Kim believes will lead the country’s liberalization. Remembering his own experiences with foreign radio, Kim made it his mission to deliver alternative sources of information to his people and inspire change. As such, North Korea Reform Radio delivers news and programming on leadership, reform, and liberalization that offers elites different perspectives on North Korean society and political philosophy.
North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is a country of 23 million people in northeast Asia, ruled by Communist dictator Kim Jong-Un. His deceased predecessors—father, Kim Jong-Il, and grandfather, Kim Il-Sung – respectively retain the titles of “Eternal President” and “The Great Leader.”
The Korean War began in 1950, when Kim Il-Sung, backed by the Soviet Union and China, attacked South Korea. The conflict ended in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty, and the border between the two Koreas remains tense and heavily militarized.
Kim Il-Sung employed harsh tactics to consolidate his power and propagated an extreme personality cult that has been continued by his successors. A blend of communist doctrine, state terror, xenophobia and hyper-nationalism has given North Korea its unique ideology. Despite some recent openings, North Korea remains largely isolated from the rest of the world.
With the end of Soviet communism and withdrawal of economic support, North Korea’s economy collapsed in the 1990s. A massive famine, aggravated by the regime’s indifference, killed as many as 2 million people between 1994 and 1998. While conditions have improved, even today, North Korea faces problems of malnutrition and insufficient access to food.
Tensions between North and South Korea remain high. In 2010, North Korea sank a South Korean naval vessel, killing 46 sailors and attacked a South Korean island, killing four civilians. North Korea has developed and tested nuclear weapons in contravention of several international agreements. The country withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 in order to test ballistic missiles and eventually a nuclear device. Multilateral negotiations have so far failed to constrain North Korea’s arms buildup and nuclear program.
North Korea is among the world’s most repressive states, engaging in widespread and systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, torture, forced abortion, arbitrary detention, and denial of the rights of expression, association, assembly, and religion. The government pervasively regulates all aspects of the lives of its citizens, each of whom is categorized as “core,” “wavering,” or “hostile,” according to the history of his or her family’s relationship with the regime. Access to housing, employment, education, and other social and economic goods depend heavily on these security classifications. The government determines where each citizen will live, and travel within the country is strictly limited.
Emigration is prohibited. Refugees who have escaped to China have frequently been forcibly returned to North Korea where they are imprisoned, subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, and sometimes executed. The government operates a network of forced labor camps for an estimated 120,000 political prisoners. While persons convicted of ordinary crimes serve fixed sentences, those convicted of political crimes are confined indefinitely. Punishment is extended to three generations – the offender’s parents, siblings, and children are also incarcerated, as a way to pressure North Koreans to conform. Political offenders are often denied food, clothing, and medical care, and many die in prison.
Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report classifies North Korea as “not free” and as one of nine nations whose lack of political rights and civil liberties are considered the “worst of the worst.”
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