Liberty in North Korea hosted guest speaker Seol Song Ah, a defector from North Korea, in Nau Hall Tuesday night. Seol spoke to students and LiNK members of her experience in North Korea, and spoke about human rights violations, business, media censorship and standards of living.
LiNK President David Choi, a fourth-year College student, said the organization raises awareness and holds fundraisers to support the people affected by the North Korean dictatorship.
“It’s a national organization that seeks to put people over politics,” Choi said.
North Korea is often discussed in a political context, ignoring the refugees who are victims of the regime, Choi said, and LiNK tries to address the North Korean people’s crisis.
Seol, who escaped from North Korea through China in 2008, has since earned a college degree in South Korea and worked as a writer and reporter. At the LiNK event, she gave a brief introduction and then took questions from students through a translator.
Seol described the hardships of life in North Korea, saying women were most often the victims of abuse. The elites of society and government officials could go into marketplaces and beat workers or steal products with no repercussions, she said.
Exposure to outside news sources was very limited, she said. Only relatively wealthy people could afford radios to get news broadcasts, and even then, the government designed them to only received state-sponsored transmissions.
However, people would tamper with the radios in order to receive broadcasts like Voice of America or Radio Free Asia. Outside news was like a drug for North Koreans, she said.
Seol worked as a businesswoman and was eventually allowed to make business trips to China, where she escaped from the country. She said business in North Korea was very different, because it does not have a capitalist system.
Most goods in the North Korean market were Chinese or Russian, but North Koreans developed a taste for products from elsewhere. Seol said Choco-Pies became a popular food, and were even given to some workers as extra payment.
Seol also commented briefly on the detainment of third-year Commerce student Otto Warmbier by the North Korean government. She said he is likely being held in a separate prison for foreigners — different from most North Korean prisons — with milder conditions meant for showing the outside world.
Choi also commented on Warmbier’s detainment.
“We hope and pray for the best for him,” Choi said.
Correction: This article previously identified David Choi as Daniel Choi.
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