Kim Seong-min is a

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...

activist and is the director of

Free North Korea Radio The Free North Korea Radio () is an independent radio broadcaster based in Seoul, South Korea. The station is run primarily by North Korean refugees and defectors and frequently broadcasts short-wave transmissions of news and information to the gen ...

Life in North Korea

Kim Seong-min was born in Chagang,

but was raised in

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

and is the son of a poet. He attended Kim Hyung-jik College of Education until being commissioned as a propaganda writer with the 620th Training Camp Art Propaganda Unit.

Defection to South Korea

Kim Seong-min's uncle lived abroad, and when one of his letters to his uncle was intercepted by North Korean authorities, Kim was accused of espionage. He was sentenced to death in 1997. He jumped from a moving train to avoid execution and then escaped over the North Korean border. He arrived in South Korea in 1999.

Free North Korea Radio

In 2004, Kim helped found

with

Suzanne Scholte Suzanne Scholte (born 1959, Connecticut) is an American human rights activist and congressional candidate. She is the president of the Defense Forum Foundation. She is also the Vice Co-Chair of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and ...

. Free North Korea Radio has since been awarded by

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...

their "Prize for Press Freedom" and the "Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award” from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Kim was motivated to begin broadcasting news and information into North Korea in part after listening to KBS programming, which used honorifics to refer to

Kim Jong-il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

. He said, "This was not the way radio stations should be referring to Kim Jong-il if they were trying to subvert the listeners." At the same time, South Korea stopped broadcasting into North Korea. Kim said, "We realized it could be, and should be, up to us North Korean defectors to start broadcasts into North Korea." Among its programs, Free North Korea Radio broadcasts local North Korean news supplied by a series of freelance journalists inside North Korea. In 2007, its secret reporters in North Korea were all arrested. Their whereabouts are currently unknown, and Kim told the ''Independent'' that their arrests "devastated" him. "The stress of knowing that could happen again is very hard to bear." In 2006, Kim met George W. Bush and was honored by the Bush administration. His interview is a permanent feature of the George W. Bush Institute Freedom Collection.

Security threats

Kim Seong-min lives with 24-hour police protection due to being one of the highest priority targets for assassination by the North Korean government, along with

Park Sang-hak Park Sang-hak is a North Korean democracy activist and is the chairman of Fighters for a Free North Korea. Park Sang-hak is a hard-line anti-communist who is also in solidarity with the conservative movement in South Korea. Life in North Kor ...

References

External links

Freedom Collection » Interviews » Kim Seong Min
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Freedom Collection Freedom Collection is a digital repository sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Southern Methodist University's campus in Dallas, Texas. The collection documents major players in human rights and ...

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English-language website''
Radio gives hope to North and South Koreans - CNN.com
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CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

Radio gives hope to North and South Koreans'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Seong-min North Korean human rights activists North Korean defectors Living people Democracy activists 20th-century North Korean people 21st-century South Korean people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Chagang Province