In the winter months, as the Truman River begins to freeze over, one would expect the locals to be going ice skating or making snowmen around the lake edges. Instead, in North Korea, the freeze over of the lake provides an escape route to China for a different life. For the second time in his life, in 2004 Lee Jun made the life-threatening journey, only this time Lee wasn't rushing his family across the border in an attempt to escape the mass famine in which killed millions of North Koreans in the 1990s.
Hidden away inside his jacket pocket was a flash drive holding videos and photographic footage Jun took under the title of Rimjin – Gang’s first undercover ‘citizen journalist’
Amongst the imagery files contained a photo of a female merchant handling money in a market in Chongjin. Without context, this image seems tedious and doesn’t show anything of interest, not worth a lifetime of imprisonment or even death. For smuggling information into the outside world, Koreans are subjected to indefinite terms in prison or in the case of disobeying the idolised ‘extreme’, this could result in death, but this does not disrupt Rimjin-Gang’s aspirations.
Rimjin Gang was given the title of North Korea's Fist magazine, written by North Koreans. Most of the headlines written by this organisation barely get published in the western publications broadcasting in North Korea.
Launched in 2007, Rimjin Gang was said to be the first independent publication program produced directly from the North Korean people (Asian Politics & policy 2012 p. 273). A photo from 2009 took notice of a 23-year-old homeless woman suffering after the failed economic and currency reforms, where a Rimjin-Gang editor, Kim - Dong - Cheol discusses how the woman had lost her parents, leaving her no choice but to live on the street. In due course, she was found dead in the late months of October. (Kim Dong-Cheol 2011).
Just to give you an idea of the media freedom of North Korea, having Kim Jong-un as the leader since 2012, the totalitarian routine maintains the country's ignorance, carrying a ranking of absolutely last out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. The inclusion of smartphones being ruled by the government provides them with total control over the domestic internet. This means something as simple as an online search engine based outside of the country can see you being sent to a concentration camp.
The only permitted news source across the region is the Korean Central News Agency. The North Korean government displays malicious control over the information available to residents, that's why having citizen journalists is so important for the country. It provides the rest of the world an insight into the corrupt, ill-natured control displayed in this country.
References
Chiu, J., 2021. North Korea's Citizen Journalism. [online] The Nation. Available at: <https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/north-koreas-citizen-journalism/> [Accessed 26 August 2021].
Mortensen, A., 2021. Voices in Danger: North Korea is no place for citizen journalists, but. [online] The Independent. Available at: <https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/voices-danger-north-korea-no-place-citizen-journalists-hasn-t-stopped-ishimaru-jiro-9825462.html> [Accessed 26 August 2021].
RSF. 2021. North Korea : Full control of information | Reporters without borders. [online] Available at: <https://rsf.org/en/north-korea> [Accessed 26 August 2021].
Suzy, K., 2021. Understanding North Korea: Rimjin-gang Citizen Journalists Out to Cure the “Sick Man of Asia”?. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49597234_Understanding_North_Korea_Rimjin-gang_Citizen_Journalists_Out_to_Cure_the_Sick_Man_of_Asia> [Accessed 26 August 2021].
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