Both the 67th article of North Korea’s constitution and the most recent report Pyongyang submitted to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Universal Periodic Review (UPR) claim that all of the country’s citizens enjoy the right to free expression. The reality, however, is that as a one-man dictatorship and a society that discourages individual thought, there is no such right.

The North Korean propaganda authorities have unfettered control over the nation’s propaganda policies. Information media is tightly controlled of course, but artistic creativity and mainstream culture are victims of state policy too. The North Korean media exists purely to glorify and propagandize at the Kim family’s behest, limiting the potential of citizens as it follows the Party’s unique ten principles for the establishment of totalitarian dictatorship. The reality is that North Korea oppresses its citizens’ freedom of expression at every level.

Generally speaking, freedom of expression means the right to air one’s thoughts or opinions freely in public and the freedom to engage with accurate information reflecting the social and political situation of the time. In other words, it includes the right to know. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, enshrine the inalienable right to freedom of expression for every living person.

The acquisition of accurate knowledge and information is essential in order to participate in the democratic process, and as such the freedom to exchange ideas and concepts with others, and to seek truth, are universal rights which fall under this wider umbrella of freedom of expression. In today’s world, freedom to acquire information and engage new-age media has become a core element of free speech.

In the late 1990s, North Korean citizens began defecting in their thousands in order to escape a devastating famine, while many more who remained began to take more of an interest in the outside world to try to escape the isolation of their country. As a result, when information from the outside world started trickling in more quickly at the start of the 21st century, the authorities began to perceive a threat to the system, and now continually mobilize many of the agencies of state to conduct inspections, crackdowns and punishments aimed at reasserting the government’s control over the spread of information.

In more desperate attempts to prevent the entry of outside information, the government has even installed electronics radars and GPS scramblers in some of its border regions. Punishment for spreading outside information is now enshrined in Article 195 of the country’s criminal code.

Citizen access to outside information is essentially blocked off at source. Televisions, radios, newspapers and magazines function as tools of state propaganda. The information people are able to access through the media is limited to the glorification of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il: the leader’s movements, including onsite guidance and military inspections, Party information and features on model businesses and distinguished persons.

Database for North Korean Human Rights recently conducted a survey of 1,486 defectors who entered South Korea in 2011 to investigate the current flow of information into North Korea. The results show that the most common methods of accessing outside information for people living in regional parts of North Korea are digital media such as CDs and DVDs (37.2%), verbal communication (22.4%), foreign radio broadcasts (14.1%) and television (11.6%). Other responses included mobile phones, USB media and smuggled goods. Meanwhile, propaganda pamphlets, the old mainstay of getting information in, was not common at only 5.9%, perhaps a sign that modern electronic devices are more effective.

So, digital media is currently the preferred way for North Korean citizens to access foreign information. Many people are fond of mobile phones; however, the results of the survey indicate that they are still infrequently used. Mobile phones are not easy to come by, so this is unsurprising. The survey revealed also that modern devices such as mobile phones and USB devices are more likely to be used by those between 20 and 49.

It should be noted that 56.2% of respondents were from North Hamkyung Province, while 22.6% were from Yangkang Province, both border areas. South Hamkyung Province came in next at 7.7%, while South Pyongan Province recorded just 4.8%. Unsurprisingly given the geography, foreign radio broadcasts and digital media were most common in Hamkyung and Yangkang, while pamphlets were more likely to be accessed by those in Gangwon Province.

Asked what effect they believed the entry of outside information had on regional citizens while they lived in North Korea, the highest response was ‘admiration for foreign societies’ at 44%, while 32.8% said that it gave people the desire to defect. This admiration of the outside world and desire to defect began to increase starting with the famine in 1997, a trend that has continued into the 21st century. The responses reflect the fact that the entry of outside information forces people to compare their own lives with what they see outside, and that this may have a strong impact on discontent at the system.

The rate of possession for various media also throws up some interesting results. Of the 1,486 respondents, 630 owned televisions (42.4%) and 246 had radios (16.6%), while the most popular item was a CD player, with 756 people (50.9%) owning one. Most respondents revealed that these devices are purchased from the market or from traders elsewhere. Digital disc media is often borrowed from friends.

Asked what they were using their media to access, television viewers answered that they watched dramas and news from Chinese broadcasters or South Korean channel KBS. Radio listeners were inspired by their curiosity towards South Korea and to learn more about international current affairs, tuning into news, educational programs and music. Disc media were primarily accessed out of curiosity, for fun, or to see the progress of the outside world, with viewers predominantly watching movies and dramas.

As mentioned earlier, a common point identified by respondents was that after accessing foreign media, their admiration of the outside world and thoughts of defecting increased. The government knows this, and in 2004, as the flow of information started to reach worrying levels, it created what is known as ‘Gruppa 109’, a department which handles inspections and seizures of electronic devices and recorded media.

One of the more noteworthy findings is that illegally accessing foreign radio broadcasts most often leads to being sent to a political prison, while digital media and illegal television access are said to be punished with imprisonment at re-education camps, labor camps or detention facilities, or internal exile.

It is against this stunning backdrop of repression that new leader Kim Jong Eun has shown signs of wanting to change North Korea; however, if crackdowns and punishments for importing outside information reveal anything, it is that there is not likely to be progress in the field of free expression any time soon.

* The viewpoints expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.