A handful of North Korean sources brave arrest, imprisonment and maybe worse, all to produce the content seen on the Daily NK, a Seoul-based online news outlet.

Why do they do it?

“For 60 years the North Korean people had no opportunity to tell their story,” said Christopher Green, its manager of international affairs. “Ultimately, they want to tell their stories because that’s what human beings want to do.” 

Since its founding in late 2004, the Daily NK has published news from inside the isolated country using these sources, plus a network of defectors both in South Korea and in China.

They are not aware of any of their sources in the North having been arrested for relaying information to the site. He said one had been arrested, but there was no indication that it was related to his smuggling of information.

He discussed some of the site’s recent successes in a presentation as part of the North Korean Human Rights Speaker Series last week.

The site broke the story of harsh punishments in the wake of Kim Jong-il’s death for anyone who did not mourn, or did not mourn with sufficient enthusiasm.

It also shared the stories of magnificent buildings in Pyongyang similar to those found in Singapore, but which have killed hundreds during construction and have unfinished interiors, and an impressive-looking dam meant to supply electricity to Pyongyang which actually produces no electricity at all.

The site’s revelations also include the crash of one of North Korea’s old Soviet-made helicopters, which actually killed the North’s commerce minister. The death never made the state media. 

As evidence that these sources can generally be trusted, Green told the story of how the site had the news of the disastrous 2009 currency devaluation online just hours after it was announced in the North.

Even then, they only felt comfortable publishing after successfully cross-checking, and Green said that many stories, especially minor ones, are never used because they can’t be verified.

Much of the communication between sources in North Korea and out involves Chinese-made cellphones, but Green said that much of how they operate is not known. Since the Daily NK’s Seoul-office and its employees are easy to find, it’s probably better that way.

“I don’t have any idea who they know and I don’t really want to know,” Green said. He did say, however, that the recent upswing in market activity, which is technically illegal in the North but has helped keep much of the population alive during food shortages, has made the spread of information more possible.

“North Korea doesn’t want people to talk,” he said. “That’s why the markets are the most dangerous thing in North Korea today. Markets are the main source of information.”

Since the death of Kim Jong-il there has been a short-lived agreement in which the U.S. would supply food to the North, an arrangement quickly nixed by the regime’s failed rocket launch of April 13. Since then, the North has been as bellicose as ever, threatening Seoul and Southern media outlets with destruction and using GPS-jamming to disrupt air and sea travel.

Under Kim Jong-il’s son Jong-un, Green said, the people thus far see very little reason to think change is coming.

“They all say they hope it will come, but they’re all skeptical that it will,” he said.
The North Korean Human Rights Speaker Series organized by NKNet has taken place at the Artreon Toz every Wednesday since April 25. It concluded this week.

By Rob York (rjamesyork@heraldcorp.com)