North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. AP.
New York: In an attempt to improve the image of the US and South Korea to North Koreans, the United states has decided to invest USD 50 million over next five years to bring information about the outside world into North Korea. US President Joe Biden signed the Otto Warmbier Countering North Korean Censorship and Surveillance Act into law in late December as part of a broader annual defense spending package.
Why the act?
This act is named after the US student who was arrested in 2016 in Pyongyang on a charge of subversion and was sentenced to 15 years in prison for stealing a poster. The youngster was released in June 2017 in a vegetative state and six days later, died in a hospital in Ohio.
The act is designed to counter the Pyongyang’s all-pervasive censorship and surveillance of its citizens.
What does the act entail?
Under the act, funds will be funnelled to the US Agency for Global Media, which serves to promote the US government, broadcasting and disseminating information to the world.
In an interaction with DW, Dan Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, said: “It is interesting to me as the US now seems to be more willing to operate in the ‘gray zone’ that other countries have been exploiting for some time now, with info-warfare now just one of the coercive measures being brought to bear while still staying under the thresholds that would trigger a conventional conflict.”
As per reports, the programme will focus on additional radio programming into the North as well as the development of “internet freedom tools”.
It has been designed to help users circumvent limitations placed on free access to the digital world by the North Korean government.
North Korea limitations on foreign media
Eujin Kim, who fled the country with her mother and sister in the 1900s due to food shortages in North Korea, said getting information into the country would encourage criticism from the regime, but could be dangerous.
In recent months, Pyongyang has increased crackdown on anyone caught listening to foreign radio broadcasts or watching films or television programs that have been brought into the country illegally.
Meanwhile, Seoul-based Daily NK news outlet recently reported that citizens of the country are being ordered to attend screenings of government propaganda movies showing public humiliation and punishment of those who have been caught watching foreign films.
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