Claimsmakers

Poverty in North Korea is definitely one of social problems in the world. But when we wonder who the claimsmakers of this issue are, there is not answer for it, because there are not really any people claiming about this in North Korea.

The reason is because freedom of expression is highly limited in North Korea. According to the World Press Freedom Index Rankings, North Korea is always listed at the bottom and from 2002 and 2006. North Korea was listed the worst in the world. All media outlets are strictly owned by the North Korean government. TV and radio can only receive the government frequencies and they often covers false claims attacking the Western world, Christianity, United States, Japan and South Korea. As well known, the government is cult of personality and uses mass media to create a heroic image of Kim Jong-ill.

In addition to freedom of expression, there is no freedom of the press or religion, no free election, and no respect for fundamental human rights.

According to defectors from North Korea, there are political prisons and it is reported that 150,000 to 200,000 people are prisoned right now. Prisoners get terrible physical punishment, harsh and manual labor, forced to be a living test or training to be a spy to foreign countries. It is not rare to get death penalty without any juries and die of disease or poverty in prison. It is impossible for the citizens to claim the corruption and people having inaccurate media even do not notice that their situation in poverty is corrupted.


So in this strict regulated condition, people in North Korea are not able to claim about poverty. If they become against the government, they are simply sent to the prison and get punishment.

These human right abuses in North Korea is discussed in United Nations and they report that, “Every aspect of social, political, and economic life is tightly controlled by the state. The regime denies North Koreans all basic rights, subjects tens of thousands of political prisoners to brutal conditions, and maintains a largely isolationist foreign policy.”

But it is difficult for other countries to control foreign country and even if other nations claim about the poverty in North Korea, that does not have much power to solve the problem.