Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Deadly cost of slips of the tongue in N. Korea
Visitors look at cards showing words and expressions banned in North Korea at the North Korean Human Rights Museum in central Seoul, Nov. 15. Yonhap
By Jung Min-ho
New museum shows how regime controls citizens through language prohibition
North Korea’s constitution says it protects freedom of speech. But in reality, one misplaced word can cost you your life. Kim Hee-young learned this the hard way when she was young.
One day at her house, a friend of her father was talking about his experience working as a logger in Russia. Speaking to her father and another friend, he said that North Korean money was “as worthless as toilet paper” in other countries.
Soon after the friends left, she heard the wail of a siren and saw police entering the building where the man was living. The following day, she found out that the entire family including his children — around the same age as her — had completely disappeared.
“Everything, not only them but also all their belongings, vanished into thin air,” she said.
Kim is one of several North Korean escapees who shared their personal stories in regard to how the dictatorial regime suppresses the right to free speech in video messages displayed at the North Korean Human Rights Museum, which opened in central Seoul last month.
Under the title “The Echo Never Stops,” the inaugural exhibition highlights how the regime uses language prohibition as a means of shaping the way people speak and think, which ironically shows its fear of the freedom enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Witnesses say the regime also uses its language oppression as a means of dividing people so that they would trust no one but their “supreme leaders.”
In a video, Kim Bo-gyeong said she still remembers the day her father was dragged off by North Korean security officials for simply saying he was living a “tough life” while drinking with his friends.
At just 5, too young to understand why her father was being arrested, she told a woman living in the same village that she could not stop thinking about it. For some reason, the lady exaggerated what she had said and spread a rumor that the young girl was seeking to take revenge on those who took her father. Due to the accusations, the young girl was later questioned by authorities.
Visitors read materials displayed at the North Korean Human Rights Museum in central Seoul, Nov. 15. Yonhap
“The accusations could be about factual criticism or outright lies. That means anyone could be sent to a political prison camp or executed at any time based on flimsy evidence. In such an environment, people live in constant fear,” Kim Su-jin, a museum staffer, told The Korea Times. “I think what is happening in North Korea is a typical example of controlling people’s thoughts by controlling their words.”
At the museum, run by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, a Seoul-based NGO, visitors can see the words and expressions that were spoken and forever altered the lives of ordinary North Koreans. Verified by witnesses, they include legitimate criticisms of the regime and well-intended personal opinions about how the country should be run: “I do not want to defend a country that cannot even feed its own military,” “I miss my parents in China” and “We should urgently reform our (economic) system” are among the examples.
Visitors can also see the human rights group’s research materials relevant to the theme and art created by North Korean defectors.
The project of establishing a museum dedicated to North Korea’s human rights issues began in 2017. After years of delays due to budget problems, it started to gain momentum under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. A high-ranking official at the Ministry of Unification told The Korea Times that it has been in talks with human rights groups to expand the size of the museum in the near future.