We're excited to announce that Toronto will be hosting North America's first North Korean Human Rights Film Festival (NKHRFF). From July 6th-8th at Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Ave) in downtown Toronto, NKHRFF will be screening several films dealing with the real life human rights crisis in North Korea as well as bringing in several guest speakers. Although our movie will not be finished in time to be screened at this event, we look forward to working together next year. For tickets and more information on NKHRFF as well as information on their exciting new campaign, please visit their website and Facebook page. 

President Thein Sein of Myanmar has assured South Korea that they will no longer buy conventional arms from North Korea. President Sein acknowledged that his country has bought weapons from North Korea in the last twenty years or so. US officials have been concerned about the possibility of an illicit weapons trade between Myanmar and North Korea.

"I urged President Thein Sein not to do any trade with North Korea that violates international regulations," said South Korean President Lee Myung-bak at a press conference in Yangon.

Lee was the first South Korean president to visit Myanmar since a bombing attributed to North Korean agents killed 17 South Koreans in Yangon in 1983.

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North Korea, to a large degree, maintains complete control over its own people. In a country where individuals lack many of the rights and freedoms we take for granted, most North Koreans have to also worry about not starving to death every day. Anyone who complains about this or shows any kind of public dissatisfaction with their life are likely to be sent to labour camps, many for their whole life.

Shin Dong-hyuk never got to experience life in North Korea prior to living in a 'total-control zone' concentration camp. This was because he was born in this camp, essentially bred by the guards who allowed two prisoners to sleep together for a few days as a reward for good work. 

For more than twenty years, Shin Dong-hyuk grew up in this camp not knowing about the rest of the world. Much of his life is detailed in "Escape from Camp 14," a new book written by acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden. In his early twenties, Shin Dong-hyuk managed to escape this concentration camp, becoming one of few to have escaped from a 'total-control zone' camp and live to tell about it. 

CBC Radio today was able to interview both Shin Dong-hyuk and Blaine Harden. You can check out the interview here. 

While they don't have the latest season of Mad Men, North Koreans are getting more access to foreign media. A recent study shows almost half of the surveyed North Korean defectors said they'd seen foreign DVDs, TV, radio, Chinese cellphones, computers and USB drives making their way into the DPRK. 

With the exponentially growing power of technology in the battle for freedom of information and communication, it might just yet help loosen the North Korean government's chokehold on its people. 

While the study doesn't infer the foreign media having an impact on the North Korean peoples' perception of their own country, it suggests an increasing sympathy in their view of South Koreans and Americans. 

One North Korean defector told researchers, "…in the South Korean dramas, there is fighting and I think that is realistic. There is also poverty, but in North Korea they only show you good things."

Read the article here.

North Korea and the US surprised the world on Wednesday when they simultaneously announced the DPRK’s nuclear policy change.  North Korea has decided to suspend nuclear 'activities,' as in, no more uranium enrichment or long-range missile testing. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said this is a “modest first step” but also “a reminder that the world is transforming around us”.  

Transforming around us for sure - but what does this mean for actual North Koreans?  Well - if they stick to their word, the US might once again bring food aid to the DPRK.  Which, of course is amazing news for the hundreds of thousands of starving North Koreans!  Maybe Kim Jong-un wont be such a bad guy?  Maybe the rotten leadership in North Korea will turn over a new leaf... 

The US and the DPRK are finalizing details on how to deliver a proposed package of 240,000 metric tonnes of food aid to North Korea.  Let's hope it gets there.  In 2009 the US ceased their food aid after monitoring and transparency issues arose.  Let's hope this time it sticks - let's hope the starving get fed...let's hope.

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Listed under the public web platform « Fife replay » which will redirect users towards the trailer of our webdocumentary “The Defector”!

What awful inspiration.  After his wife and child died, Heo Tae-seop wasn’t afraid anymore.  He was ready to flee North Korea.  

Check out more of Heo’s story in The Defector: Escape from North Korea later this year.

  Heo arrived in Toronto last May.  Just one of the 83 North Korean refugees Canada accepted in 2011.  

“I am 48 years-old, but in Canada I feel like I am a 1 year-old baby because I don’t know anything about Toronto or this country” Heo said.  

He hopes to share his story with the world and recently helped organize a photo exhibition that sheds light on the grim reality of life within the DPRK. 

Heo, alongside many aid organizations in Toronto hope this exhibit will gain awareness for the cause and in turn will help influence politicians to pressure North Korea to close prison camps and to start respecting its people. 

Politicians are speaking out. 

After Kim Jong-il’s death last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said “we urge North Korea to close this sad chapter in its history and to work once more towards promoting the well-being of its people and stability on the Korean peninsula."

   Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said, "It is past due for North Korea to change its ways and for those who lead it to meet the real needs of the North Korean people."

Lets hope for the sake of North Korea that the message does spread and that change will come.  

Check out the full article here.