Kim Seong Min, the founder of Free North Korea Radio, broadcasting from Seoul./ Susan Chun, CNN
‘Radio gives hope to North and South Koreans’:
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — It broadcasts only three hours a day. Its on-air reporters use fake names. And its operators don’t know for sure whether their target audience is listening.
…
Free North Korea Radio, based in Seoul, South Korea, broadcasts news of the outside world across the border. It’s illegal for North Koreans to listen to anything other than state-run radio, and all legal radios are fixed so they can play only channels approved by the government. But the founder of Free North Korea Radio, Kim Seong Min, believes that more and more North Koreans are secretly tuning in.
Kim is also a defector. A former propagandist for the North Korean army, Kim says he collected an illegal radio on one of his patrols. He was curious, so he tuned in to a South Korean broadcast.
The program centered on the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il. He says it was meant to dispel the myths surrounding the leader, including the story of Kim Jong Il’s birth. North Koreans were taught to believe that Kim Jong Il was born on Mount Paekdu, considered sacred in Korean history. But the radio program Kim heard that day said Kim Jong Il was born in the Soviet Union. Kim started to doubt everything he was taught to believe, and the more he listened, the more he was convinced that he had to leave the country.
…
