North Korea Executes Captain For Hearing U.S. Broadcasts
By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Authorities in North Korea have publicly executed the owner of a fishing fleet for secretly listening to broadcasts by U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) and other media outlets, Worthy News learned Friday.
RFA cited well-informed sources as saying the man was recently executed by firing squad in front of some 100 boat captains and fisheries executives.
The fishing boat captain had reportedly confessed that he listened to RFA for more than 15 years. He began tuning in to foreign broadcasters while serving in the military.
RFA said the captain was betrayed by a “resentful crewman” at his base in the northeastern port city of Chongjin.
“In mid-October, a captain of a fishing boat from Chongjin was executed by firing squad, on charges of listening to Radio Free Asia regularly over a long period of time,” a law enforcement official from North Hamgyong province told RFA’s Korean Service Wednesday.
“We know that the captain’s surname was Choi, and he was in his 40s. He was working out of a fishery base affiliated with the Central Party’s Bureau 39,” the official said.
SECRET ORGANIZATION
The source referred to the secret organization tasked with acquiring hard currency and maintaining a slush fund for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“Choi was the owner of a fleet of over 50 ships. During an investigation by the provincial security department, Captain Choi confessed to listening to RFA broadcasts since the age of 24, when he was serving in the military as a radio operator,” added the source, whose name wasn’t revealed.
Isolated Communist-ruled North Korea goes to extraordinary lengths to stop its population from accessing outside information, with strict punishment for violators. However, the open sea allows fishermen and merchant mariners to hear foreign broadcasts banned at home.
“We know that the provincial security department defined his crime as an attempt of ‘subversion against the party.’ They publicly shot him at the base in front of 100 other captains and managers of the facility’s fish processing plants. They also dismissed or discharged party officials, the base’s administration, and the security officers who allowed Choi to work at sea,” said the source.
Another source, a resident of the province, confirmed to RFA that news of Choi’s execution spread among the public. RFA broadcasts six hours of Korean-language programming daily into North Korea over short wave radio from transmitters located about 1,900 miles away in the Northern Mariana Islands and medium wave transmitters in South Korea.
The late captain was listening while catching fish for the government of North Korea’s strongman Kim Jong Un.
North Korea’s leadership reportedly ordered fishermen to increase catches amid food shortages and to raise cash due to international sanctions over its nuclear weapons program.
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