Fiona
Bruce MP celebrates announcement that BBC World Service will broadcast into
North Korea
Following
a long campaign Fiona Bruce MP, Co-Chair of the APPG on North Korea, celebrating
the news that the BBC World Service will extend its broadcast into North Korea.
Speaking on the
announcement Fiona Bruce said
“The news of a BBC World Service for the
people of North Korea is something I and other MPs in the All Party Parliamentary
Group concerned about Human Rights in North Korea have been campaigning on for
years. It is a hugely positive step, and a great win for all those who have
consistently campaigned for this. It is heartening that the BBC has listened to
these calls, after initially saying this was neither technically nor financially
possible. We had a number of meetings with them in Parliament explaining the
importance of breaking down what is called the information blockade in North
Korea so that the oppressed people of North Korea can hear from other media and
information sources rather than exclusively from their own dictatorial
leadership..”
North
Korea is considered the most persecuted country on earth; as documented in the
recent UN Commission of Inquiry chaired by Mr Justice Kirby – pressing for this
was an earlier successful campaign by this All Party Group - hundreds of
thousands of North Koreans are incarcerated today in concentration camps, many
for speaking even briefly in opposition to their government. Torture is routine
such as electrocuting people, summary execution, chemical experiments on people
and literally working people to death – North Korea’s lack of any regard for
human rights has been called sui generis – in a category of its own.
Fiona Bruce said “Many
people ask my why I campaign in Parliament for the freedom of the people in
North Korea. The answer is that they are far and away the most oppressed people
on earth in our generation with their treatment, from their own Government on a
parallel with the holocaust.”
The
BBC’s example of unfettered free speech, and the picture of an outside world,
which the BBC can broadcast to oppressed societies across the world is
unparalleled, as is respect for the BBC, and has had real impact in helping
societies move towards democracy.
Fiona Bruce said “As
we have heard from testimonies of those who lived in the Soviet Union, East
Germany, Romania and Burma – broadcasting into those countries - when they were
closed and people there living under oppressive leadership - from the BBC
encouraged and inspired millions during their darkest days to understand what a
free society looks like, and educated many for future leadership and prompted
brave individuals to challenge their dictatorial governments.
Over recent years
advancements in new technologies mean that increasingly the information
blockade in North Korea which has enabled the Government there to keep a
stranglehold on their people’s understanding and thought-processes is cracking
as evidenced in the book “How the information underground is transforming a closed
society” written by Jieun Baek, which I had the privilege of launching very
recently in the House of Commons – and broadcasting by the BBC has the
potential to make this crack a huge fissure – let us hope it is the beginning
of the end of over sixty years of suffering for the North Korean people.”
