Alex Gladstein: How to Free North Korea
8 December, 2015
North Korea is the world's most closed society. The average citizen has no way of even accessing the internet, and leaving the country is illegal. Any opinion critical of the government is forbidden, and there are concentration camps filled with hundreds of thousands of people who have spoken out against the regime. Propaganda is the only truth. However, the rule of Kim Jong-un is starting to crumble. Over the past 15 years, outside information and culture has leaked into North Korea, smuggled through the land border with China, broadcast over shortwave radio, and floated in by hydrogen balloon. Today, the average young North Korean consumes foreign media on flash drives and on DVDs, and the addiction is growing. Learn how soap operas and films are leading an information revolution in the world's last totalitarian state, and learn how you can get involved in the struggle for a free North Korea.
About HRF:
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. HRF unites people in the common cause of defending human rights and promoting liberal democracy. Our mission is to ensure that freedom is both preserved and promoted around the world. We seek, in particular, to sustain the struggle for liberty in those areas where it is most under threat. Each year, HRF produces the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway, an event now in its eighth year and described by the BBC and Financial Times as the "Davos for dissidents."
About Alex Gladstein:
Alex is Chief Strategy Officer at the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. He also serves as VP of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum, and coordinates HRF's North Korea initiative. Alex's writing and views on dissidents and dictators have appeared in TIME, NPR, The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, ABC, Foreign Policy, Ars Technica, The Daily Beast, NBC, and The Wall Street Journal. He has spoken about HRF's work at MIT, the School of Visual Arts, and the European Parliament. Before joining HRF, he served as a foreign policy advisor in the British Parliament. Alex is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University where he majored in international relations and Middle Eastern studies.