Due to the fact that after the start of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine in Russia, the number of "career defectors" who openly support the enemy, but at the same time try to maintain their status and position in their homeland, has increased, the Svobodnaya Pressa requested a comment from Alexander Mostov, Chairman of the DPRK International Solidarity Group.
The full text of the commentary follows.
The experience of other countries proves that softness is inappropriate in this matter. For example, our closest neighbor, the DPRK has the problem of “defectors from the North”. The fact that some citizens of North Korea by hook or by crook flee the country, in principle, is well known. But the fact that many of them then return, because they could not get a job abroad, is practically not written by the world media.
In fact, only those who begin to actively cooperate with the South Korean and Western intelligence services are well settled in a foreign land. But this is not a guarantee of well-being. As soon as such a subject ceases to be useful, he finds himself on the street. So many defectors, realizing that they are not particularly welcome, come back. Of course, everyone is tested. If a person has previously committed a crime and fled to escape responsibility, he will first serve his term. In the same way, if he deliberately, for ideological reasons or for selfish purposes, harmed the DPRK, he will be judged, he will serve time, and then he will be released and return to his usual life.
And if a person fled, as they say, out of stupidity, and then, again, out of stupidity and weakness of will, he fell into the hook of the South Korean special services, then he, upon returning to his homeland, will have to sincerely repent, publicly admit his mistakes. Then there will be no complaints against him.
One example is the story of defector Jon Hye Song. Before fleeing to the South, she studied vocals, played several musical instruments. And she hoped that in South Korea she would act in films.
After several years of ordeal, she accidentally got to audition for one of the South Korean TV channels, and she was offered a job in a TV show in which defectors from the North told how hard it was for them to live there. Jon Hye Song agreed because she needed money, and she believed that she would become famous and be able to get a movie role.
She she had to participate in propaganda shows, and the amount of nonsense that she had to say according to the script was increasing. As a result, she could not stand it and returned back to the DPRK.
In her homeland, of course, she had to publicly admit her mistakes and express remorse for taking part in the deceitful South Korean propaganda. But she is alive and well, happy to be back. Lives with parents.
