Korean Peninsula

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for raising this important subject. I would certainly echo the very appropriate comments from my noble friend Lady Williams. As I want to talk about freedom of expression, I draw attention to my media interests in the register.

The words of President Franklin D Roosevelt in his address to Congress in 1941 are probably some of his best known. It seems appropriate to talk about an American President in a stirring speech to Congress on a day like this. He looked forward to a world in which there were four fundamental freedoms. The first of these was freedom of expression, in his words “everywhere in the world”. For the benighted people of North Korea this most fundamental of human rights does not exist in any way and is not in prospect in any way. While South Korea has a relatively free press with near universal internet use—indeed it is one of the most connected in the entire world—North Korea remains the most repressive and isolated media environment in the world.

The regime owns all media, attempts to regulate all communication and ruthlessly limits access to information. Both Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists based in Washington place it right at the bottom of the international press freedom leagues, languishing alongside Eritrea.

All information is distributed by the Government across radio and TV, which deliver a centrally composed message bombarding the population with flattering reports about their leaders, and never mentioning the economic hardship, the famine or the malnutrition—which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford mentioned— all of which blight the country.

Radio and TV sets are supplied pre-tuned to government stations, and radios must be registered with the police. Neighbourhood officials—I use the word advisedly—verify the government seals. Tampering with a set can result in the perpetrator being sent to a concentration camp. Under the penal code, listening to foreign broadcasts or reading so-called dissident publications are “crimes against the state” that carry terrible punishments including hard labour or, in some circumstances, the death penalty. According to Freedom House, the international free speech watchdog, in 2010 alone more than 1,000 people were arrested for possessing or watching foreign films acquired on the black market.

There is no such thing, of course, as independent journalism. Journalism students are taught to adhere to a strict hierarchy, with news simply defined as championing socialism and denouncing imperialism. Ideological training takes place once a week for journalists for the duration of their career. Even then, despite these remarkable controls, there is a danger. According to one author, Ashlee Male:

“A mere typing error can result in a journalist being taken to … a ‘revolutionisation' camp’”,

for re-education. One such journalist, Song Keum-chul, was sent to a concentration camp a number of years ago and has never been heard of again.

As we have heard, any form of contact with the outside world is rigorously controlled. Mobile phone use was permitted only in 2008, having been banned in 2004, but most of the 1.5 million mobile phones—and that is a tiny number in a country of 24 million—are in the hands of the country’s political, commercial and military elite. North Korea’s full connection to the internet occurred only in 2010, but for ordinary citizens web access is available only through a nationwide intranet that does not link to foreign sites.

All this means that North Korea is totally isolated. As Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, said after a recent visit to the country—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton:

“As the world becomes increasingly connected, the North Korean decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world … It will make it harder for them to catch up economically”.

That seems to be the crucial point, because freedom of expression is the foundation stone for economic growth.

The only glimmer of light is that very tiny cracks in this repressive regime are reportedly beginning to appear. A study released by InterMedia in Washington last year, entitled A Quiet Opening, finds that access to external media through bootlegged TV and smuggled foreign DVDs is becoming more commonplace in the countryside outside Pyongyang, despite the risks that we have heard about from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. There is a little more mobile access through the use of smuggled mobile phones. The report concludes:

“Despite the incredibly low starting point, important changes in the information environment in North Korean society are underway”.

In Japan, an organisation called Asia Press is training journalists and providing them with video cameras to record daily life in North Korea. The images are loaded on to memory sticks and then smuggled out through the porous border with China into Japan for wider broadcast. These are admittedly tiny cracks, but I hope that the national media—and we have heard about the role of the BBC World Service today—with encouragement from our Government and international organisations can nurse and expand on them in years to come. For every dam burst, a tiny crack is always the starting point.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, said, the flow of information in a country like this is absolutely crucial and we should do anything we can to encourage it. I ask my noble friend to ensure that the issue of free expression continues to be at the top of our human rights agenda for the tragic people of North Korea, for they deserve no less than that.