Harsh life of those who live across the border in North Korea

JAYNE Dowle may be fascinated by North Korea (Yorkshire Post, December 22), but if she cared to ask some of the North Koreans living in Bolton, Liverpool or London what life is really like in their country she would be horrified.

The North Koreans are not free to leave the country. If they get a visa to go to China, they have to return to North Korea at the end of their permitted stay. If they attempt to travel to another country they would be arrested, questioned and detained, and eventually deported back to North Korea – where they would be re-arrested and sent to a political prison camp.

The border between North and South Korea is mined and guarded day and night. Anyone attempting to cross from the north to the south would almost certainly be killed, just as hundreds of Germans were killed while attempting to cross the border between East and West Germany.

For Jayne Dowle to suggest that the North Korea World Cup football team “trotted obediently back home again to (face) a six-hour public dressing down” in 2010 “when they got knocked out in the group stages” is ridiculous.

If any of the squad had attempted to seek asylum in another country and not return home, the families of each “deserting footballer” would have been rounded up (irrespective of age) and sent to prison.

The fact is that North Korea is in the grip of an oppressive dictatorship which controls people’s lives by a combination of fear and brainwashing. Those who could tell the world about North Korea – the defectors who live in South Korea for example – are hardly ever interviewed by Western journalists.

Instead of waiting for an opportunity to go to Pyongyang, perhaps Jayne Dowle should go to Seoul.