korean unification studies

I can’t wait to read this new magazine! According to AFP, Asia Press has sent North Koreans trained in journalism in China back to North Korea to report undercover in the country. The result, a Korean language magazine called “Rimjingang“.

From AFP:

A North Korean defector Tuesday announced the launch of a magazine carrying undercover reporting by citizens of the hardline communist state.

Some reporters for the bi-monthly Rimjingangare refugees who returned home after being trained in neighbouring China in journalism skills, said chief editor Choi Jin-I.

Choi, who settled in South Korea in 1999, is producing the magazine with the help of Asia Press, a Tokyo-based network for independent regional journalists…

The team is led by Lee Jun (an alias), a refugee who was recruited by Asia Press in 2002 while living in China, said Jiro Ishimaru, the representative of Asia Press’s office in Osaka.

After being trained as a journalist, Lee returned to his homeland by reporting himself to North Korean authorities. After being released from an unspecified detention facility, he started reporting and filming to spread the reality of the country to the world, Ishimaru said.

“Lee and other members were selected as our reporters only after we confirmed their strong will to report exactly what’s going on in North Korea,” he told a press conference.

Ishimaru gave no details of what punishment Lee faced after reporting to Pyongyang authorities and returning home. People who report their departure from the country and return home voluntarily sometimes escape severe punishment.

Some of the magazine’s reporters were trained in China and returned to their country, while other were recruited inside North Korea, said Ishimaru.

“Rimjingang is based on what they have reported,” he said, showing reporters footage shot secretly in late August of bustling legal and illegal markets in Pyongyang.

He said Asia Press had decided to set up the team because people outside the country face limits in approaching the core of its problems.

“I am most concerned about their security,” Ishimaru said, adding it was very risky for his team to cover news and send it out of North Korea.

Choi, 48, described Rimjingang as the first magazine in which North Koreans express their opinions freely without state censorship.

Japanese tabloid style reporting on North Korea coming to South Korea. This is so cool!