More and more North Korean youth are dodging mandatory military service, because ruling party membership and all its perks are no longer as automatic for those who finish lengthy stints in the armed forces, sources in the country told RFA
In Worth Less Than an Animal: Abuses and Due Process Violations in Pretrial Detention in North Korea, Lim Ok Kyung, one of the former detainees, described extremely harsh conditions when she was arrested in 2014 for having appliances smuggled from China in her house
North Korea has arrested 20 “phone brokers” who arrange calls and money transfers from outside the country in a nationwide crackdown on illegal mobile phone users, sources familiar with the cases told RFA
With food security and malnutrition already a serious problem under normal conditions in North Korea, the government appears to be showing no tolerance for those who would use the crisis as an opportunity to boost prices
A vast transportation lockdown meant to contain the spread of the coronavirus in China is forcing many North Korean refugees to suspend their escape to freedom. That is leaving many would-be defectors stranded in a country that has long sent them back home to certain punishment. The development comes as the number of North Korean defectors to South Korea has already dramatically slowed
The executions of the two women took place in March in North Hamgyong’s Chongjin city, and were aimed at forcing officials to stop patronizing fortune tellers and engaging in other “superstitious” behavior, according to two sources who spoke to RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity