Mr. Jung Gwang Il, a North Korean defector and activist, and Founder and Executive Director of No Chain [The Association of North Korean Political Victims & Their Families), will be participating in a panel session titled “Using Technology to Help Liberate North Korea” at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Conferences & Festivals in Austin, Texas, on Monday, March 14, from 5 to 6pm
According to a news release, Mr. Jung will join distinguished human rights activist Thor Halvorssen, President of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), Peter Hirschberg, Chairman of The City Innovate Foundation, and Ms. Yeonmi Park, North Korean defector and activist, and author of “In Order to Live”, in this important panel session.
“We are very excited and very honored to have Mr. Jung join this great panel to discuss ways technology and media can help open the minds of the North Korean people, who are living in a country that is basically a huge political prison camp,” said Henry Song, the North America Director for No Chain.
“Kim Jong-un and his regime lackeys can do all they can do to try to shut the entire population off from the outside world, but they are failing miserably, thanks to the work of organizations like No Chain and other defector organizations, and with the help and collaboration from human rights organizations like HRF; we see from the brave testimony of Ms. Yeonmi Park and others like her, who had their propagandized worldview as brainwashed by the regime, shattered to pieces when she and others saw and accessed materials from the outside world that were banned by the regime.”
He added, “This will be a great way for the SXSW audience to get involved and help with the North Korean human rights issue.”
South by Southwest (SXSW) is a world-famous annual festival showcasing film, interactive media, music, and conferences that takes place in Austin, Texas, United States. This year will mark the 30th year that SXSW has been in existence. For more information, please visit www.sxsw.com.
About Mr. Jung Gwang Il. He is a North Korean defector and former political prisoner who founded No Chain, an organization based in South Korea that smuggles information into North Korea.
After serving in the military and trade sectors for most of his young life in North Korea, Jung was arrested for espionage by the North Korean State Security Department in 1998 and sentenced to work at the Yodok Political Prison Camp in 2000, where he was incarcerated for three years.
Jung has testified about the abuses in North Korea in front of the European Union and U.S. Congress and was a key resource for the UN Commission of Inquiry's investigation into North Korea's human rights violations.
About North Korea: It is the world's most isolated and closed society. Any opinion critical of the government is banned, and dissidents are sent to concentration camps. Immigration and emigration are forbidden; the postal system reads and censors all mail; citizens cannot access the Internet. However, over the past 15 years, news and culture from the outside world have leaked into the country. Today North Koreans receive knowledge through illegal radio broadcasts and the smuggling of flash drives loaded with TV shows and other media. Join this conversation to learn how technology is leading an information revolution in the struggle for a free North Korea.
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