DailyNK interviews a man who was born and raised in Camp No.14, which holds around 50,000 political prisoners and their family members. North Korea is the only state in the world where collective punishment are applied to young children as well. Be sure to read this interview and to stay tuned on how he managed to escape.

Japan is not known for its North Korean refugee community. However, another wave of defection is taking place, as North Koreans living in Japan are switching allegiances to the South (Via. Japan Probe)

June 29 (Bloomberg) — Kim Jong Il no longer supports the government of North Korea.

Kim is a 66-year-old businessman who owns a shoe factory in Kobe, Japan. In 1997, he resolved to switch his citizenship to South Korea from North Korea after deciding that “I could no longer support a government that allowed children to starve to death.'’

Since then, thousands of North Korean residents in Japan have made the same decision. And that is bad news for the other Kim Jong Il — the one, no relation to the businessman, who has ruled North Korea since 1994.

For the last four decades, Japan’s North Korean residents have sent billions of yen in money and goods back home to their relatives and the Pyongyang regime. As more and more of them switch their allegiance to South Korea, they are choking off the flow of resources to an isolated and impoverished country already coping with trade sanctions.

While there is no way of knowing exactly how much they have sent, Katsumi Sato, director of the Modern Korea Institute in Tokyo, estimated that in the early 1990s, the annual total was some 60 billion yen ($600 million) in money and supplies.

“The cash and goods sent from Japan in the late 1980s were bigger than their national budget,'’ Sato said. “It was North Korea’s lifeline.'’

These Koreans switch for many reason, from being North Korean becoming unconscionable to becoming inconvenient. As a result, the combination of defections, sanctions, and a stagnant economy is quickly drying up remittances to North Korea. I guess when given the choice between free society and authoritarian society, most opted for the former.

In Korea during June, there are two anniversary. One you hear all the time but who knows what was achieved. The other, you probably never heard of it (Via. ROK Drop). But its been 5 years and it still highlights that many people are still in denial of the North Korean regime.