Group welcomes speaker on #Korea.  On Thursday 13 November, the group was pleased to welcome a Korean speaker as part of our activities to keep the problems in North Korea in the limelight.  Bona Shin is a member of a large community of Koreans who live in London, the largest such community in Europe.  There are thought to be around 32,000 living in the UK and 691 of whom from North Korea.

Other speakers have mentioned the difference between Pyongyang and the rest of the country.  People who live in Pyongyang are the elite and they are reasonably well fed by North Korean standards.  It is the rural areas which are impoverished and where people struggle to survive.  She said there are no disabled people in the capital either: they are all moved out to the rural areas.

She mentioned the propaganda initiative recently where the North Korean embassy hosted an art exhibition.  Developments in the last week or so at the UN where there are attempts to get the regime and Kim Jong un indicted for crimes against humanity.

There are reports of the infamous Yodok camp being closed and prisoners being moved to Camp 14 or Camp 16 as part of the propaganda by the North but this cannot be confirmed at the time of writing.  Bilateral talks may begin with the EU on the question of human rights.

There are still survivors from the Korean war which Britain contributed large troop numbers second only to the USA.  There is a British Korean Veteran Association