Monday, March 29, 2010
According to the NYT, North Koreans are increasingly sharing information about their lives to South Koreans via cellphones that are smuggled across the border and distributed by South Korean human rights activists, some of whom are North Korean defectors living in South Korea. Information received from North Koreans is subsequently posted on the web. As North Korea remains nearly inaccessible to the international community, such information provides a rare lens into North Korean experiences in North Korea.
However, given Kim Jong Il’s domestic system of surveillance and forced internment for hints of defection, such communications are highly risky and may result in imprisonment or death. In fact, having learned about the relay of information by North Koreans via smuggled cellphones, Kim Jong Il’s regime has begun to more vigilantly trace cellphone usage and service within the country. The article reveals one known instance of public execution where the North Korean government tracked and found a cellphone.
Information received via cellphone includes recent descriptions of government crackdowns on emerging private enterprise (e.g., private markets) and government currency revaluations that have inflated the price of food. Both actions by the North Korean government are likely due to economic stresses created by the economic crisis. Information is said to come primarily from areas that are close to North Korea’s border with China, as the phones work on China’s cellular networks.
Click here for the full NYT article.
