By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent
Defectors fleeing North Korea are routinely
sentenced to death as the government attempts
to shut its people away from the world. Here one
woman tells her story.
The North Korea that the government hides from
the outside world is characterised by food
shortages, indoctrination, military paranoia and
labour camps where thousands toil to stay alive;
locked up for showing even the slightest dissent.
Attempting to escape the country is a capital
offence. The regime is determined to keep its
iron grip on the population.
Defectors send messages home revealing that the
outside world is not determined to crush North
Korea and that people do not need to live in a
twilight of perpetual shortages.
The North Korean regime hides its people from
the outside world
Some do make it, accepting they will never see
their families again.
They spend their lives living as anonymously as
possible; a picture of them in the south on any
type of media would condemn their families at
home to instant imprisonment.
In North Korea punishment lasts three
generations. A husband and wife, their children
and their grandchildren will all be punished, will
all be locked up in the camps.
Lee Hyeonseo escaped with her entire family so
is happy to speak out.
Speaking in a drop in centre for North Koreans at
a Seoul university she said: "A family would
completely be sent to a prison camp if they found
out their family are in South Korea; it is a little
problem if they are in China but it is a different
thing if they are in South Korea.
"People in the north don't know the truth about
what is going on as they can't hear or see
anything about the wider world.
"They don't know about human rights or the
suffering. They live in a virtual prison."
The journey to South Korea is difficult, long and
dangerous. They cross to China. If they are
arrested there they are sent back to certain
death.
They then make their way through Laos,
Cambodia or Vietnam heading for Thailand
where they present themselves to a South
Korean embassy and apply for asylum.
Miss Lee said: "It is very hard and long and very
difficult."
She will not give any details of how she bribed
her way out, but she did it for herself and her
family and she certainly had no money.
The current crisis is about the regime holding on
to power according to Miss Lee.
She said: "He (Kim Jong Un) needs to do
something to show the people that he is
protecting our country. The people are told it
was started by the US or other countries.
"This is good propaganda for him that is why he
is doing this it is all absurd."
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