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Yeon-mi Park (also stylized as Yeonmi Park) is a North Korean defector currently in South Korea. She is known for being a speaker and activist for the cause of North Korean refugees.
Biography
Park was born in 1993 in North Korea and when she was very young her mother stressed the importance of not doing anything that would cause trouble with the North Korean authorities. She has reported that when she was nine years old she was invited to watch the regime execute her best friend's mother for selling bootleg DVDs. In 2002 her father was arrested for illegal trading and in 2007, her sister Eun-mi smuggled both Park and their mother out of North Korea into China, with their father remaining behind to minimize the risk of detection. After their escape they were unable to locate Eun-mi and were unable to find anyone to help them, with Park stating that one person demanded that she have sex with him in exchange for safety. Park's mother instead offered herself in her daughter's place and Park stated that she was present during the rape. After two years of hiding in China, Park and her mother escaped to Mongolia and eventually made their way to South Korea.
Park has stated that she sees the 1997 film Titanic as a great influence on her life, as it caused her to draw stark comparisons to her life within the regime and the lives of the film characters.
Activism
Since escaping, Park has written and spoken publicly about her life in North Korea, having written for the Washington Post, spoken at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and been interviewed by the BBC and The Guardian. She is also a media fellow at Freedom Factory Co, a free market think tank in South Korea, and is a participant in the Jangmadang Tour organized by Liberty in North Korea over the time period September 25 - December 9, 2014. Park has also been outspoken about tourism in North Korea, as they are encouraged to bow to statues of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung, which she sees as " the regime’s propaganda by allowing themselves to be portrayed as if they too love and obey the leader.”
Criticism
Park has been criticized on two fronts. Some people, including Swiss-born businessman Felix Abt, who has lived and worked in North Korea for seven years, have questioned the veracity of her account of life, claiming it to be highly exaggerated. Park responded by claiming that her statement according to which every morning at riversides in North Korea dead bodies can be seen floating that Abt took issue with occurred as the result of a misunderstanding by a journalist of what she said.
Michael Bassett, a North Korea analyst, claimed that Park was a liar, a spinstress, and a spokesperson being fed a narrative meant to bolster the case for sanctions against the country, and that Park wants to promote the idea that North Korea is still in the 1990's. Park responded by calling Bassett childish and impossible to engage in productive conversation.
See also
References
- Jacobs, Harrison (April 10, 2014). "North Korean Defector Explains What It Was Like To Grow Up Thinking Kim Jong-il Was 'A God'". Retrieved November 1, 2014.
- ^ Crocker, Lizzie (October 31, 2014). "How 'Titanic 'Helped This Brave Young Woman Escape North Korea's Totalitarian State". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Yeonmi Park on her escape from brutal North Korea". BBC News. October 28, 2014. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
- ^ Phillips, Tom. "Escape from North Korea: 'How I escaped horrors of life under Kim Jong-il'". Telegraph. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
- Jaafari, Shirin (October 10, 2014). "She risked her life to defect from North Korea — now she wants the world to hear her story". Public Radio International. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - Park, Yeon-mi; Shearlaw, Maeve (October 29, 2014). "The North Korean defector who continues to defy regime – live Q&A as it happened". The Guardian. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - "Tours". Liberty in North Korea. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
- Thompson, Nathan A. "The Ethics of Taking a Trip to North Korea as a Tourist". NBC News. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
- ^ Power, John (October 29, 2014). "North Korea: Defectors and Their Skeptics". Retrieved November 1, 2014.
External links
- North Korea Today: Featuring Casey and Yeonmi
- Yeon-mi Park: The hopes of North Korea’s ‘Black Market Generation’ at The Washington Post