North Korea’s changing marriage culture…a choice not of love?
Marriage culture in North Korea is reportedly undergoing noticeable changes. While relationships across class lines have existed in the past, it is now common for...
North enforces crackdown during rice-planting season… Forced labor for offenders
Amid the height of the rice-planting season, an intensive crackdown is reportedly underway. Part of the regime’s broader effort to maintain social order, the season...
Women and young people targeted for “anti-socialist” fashion
Each year, as summer approaches, the regime turns its control up a notch and launches ideological campaigns about fashion and personal grooming. This year, true...
A prisoner is set free from a camp of no return… Does this signal a shift in policy?
The release of a woman from a “total control zone” labor camp, where prisoners are normally held until they die, has set her neighborhood buzzing...
The political calculation behind Kim Jong-un’s support for Chongryon
Kim Jong Un has reportedly sent over ¥287 million (approximately KRW 2.8 billion) to the pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known...
Why has Christianity become the religion of choice for most defectors?
“There’s no religious freedom in North Korea? What are you talking about—there are churches in North Korea. You know less about North Korea than I...
Locals subtly oppose Kim’s reforestation program… ‘Trees Are Planted, But They Don’t Grow’
Authorities in North Hamgyong Province are struggling to deal with the destruction of recently planted trees by local residents. Forestry officials in Hoeryong and other...
North Korea harangues people to exhibit “noble and civilized” standards
Citizens throughout North Korea this month are studying how to “thoroughly establish” noble and civilized socialist moral standards. This is the theme this month of...
Why does North Korea criminalize sex?
The regime in North Korea makes people consider their natural desires shameful. It makes us feel guilty about the desire for sex or the instinct...
Manpower shortage delays planting of this year’s spring wheat and barley
Following a directive on February 27 to agricultural institutions nationwide to complete planting by mid-March, the sowing of spring wheat and barley would appear to...
The capricious dictator
What kind of person is Kim Jong-un? As a former subject, I am genuinely curious about who he really is. But ordinary people like me...
New fence blocks well-trodden escape route into China
China is installing a formidable barbed wire fence with the latest surveillance cameras along a section of its border with North Korea that is used...
North Korean soldiers arrested after watching foreign videos
In North Korea, a person coming into contact with content deemed undesirable by the authorities, including books, images, movies, music, and other media, is considered...