North Korea News Podcast by NK News - A canceled Pyongyang marathon, a renamed community and a harsh reality in China

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy and Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) Executive Director Hanna Song join this week’s episode of the NK News Podcast.  The news roundup begins with the sudden cancellation of the Pyongyang International Marathon, before turning to Seoul’s move to adopt a new term for North Korean-born residents […]

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Each design is a conversation starter. Find yours at shop.nknews.org. Again, that's shop.m.knews.org. Hello, listeners and viewers, and welcome to the MK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O'S Wessler, and today it is Tuesday, the 10th of March, 2026. So we're drawing a little bit of a new format where we start off with a review of the week's news, and then we move into the longer interview. And so for the first part, we've got Shreyas Reddy joining us here,

to walk us through so other news stories. And then we've got Hannah Song from NKDB to talk about the latest report that NKDB launched last week. So welcome to both of you on this brand new video podcast for NK News. Thank you for being experimental guinea pigs today. Well, Shreya, so obviously the big news yesterday on Monday the 9th of March was what? The cancellation of the Kongyang Marathon. So, yeah, I think it's something that a lot of us,

Nokia watches, we're looking forward to actually getting to see foreign going back into North Korea, which is a fairly rare occurrence nowadays, far rarer than even in the past. Last year, it was one of the only times that North Korea allowed people in under a special athletes delegation. Right. Not tourism, but athletes. Exactly. Many of the participants got to participate in tourist activities.

And it allowed us a rare chance to actually see what Jiangyang looks like now from the perspective of outsiders. A rare chance for red glimpses, we might say. Yes. The North Korea watcher community. I was trying to avoid that phrase. No, no. Own it. Embrace it.

I have been called out once for overusing that in my writing. So I made a conscious effort to cut that out. Yes. Yeah. So I recall seeing somewhere it was retweeted and used in Yonap that the stated reason was due to some reasons. Yes. In fact, that it was the email that or the message that they sent to courier to us, which is the international partner.

of the Pyongyang in Trashon. Yes, in previous years before COVID, there were several tour companies going in, but the last year and this year,

Corder had the total monopoly. Yes. And they were, they sold out within, gosh, less than 24 hours after opening up

the bookings late last year, and they were taking 500 people, and all of those 500 people, I guess now be disappointed thinking, well, what do I do with my holiday time in April?

Yeah, I mean, and I think it's obviously bit of a headache for courier doors as well. They're currently busy processing refunds 500 people who definitely had their heart set on traveling to North Korea. Instead, now they're trying to figure out how to sort all the refunds while explaining to their customers.

They're not currently to explain why any of this happened other than due to some reasons. Now, Hannah, I imagine you've not been to the Pyongan International Marathon, have you? I haven't been to any marathons, Jack. As someone who works in the human rights field, how do you sort of look at the marathon? What's your thoughts on it in general? I mean, North Korea being the most isolated place in the world, I don't think it helps anybody to keep it even more isolated. But I do think it's important that visitors, tourists, marathon runners, whoever they may be going in, go in with the understanding of what they've seen is not the whole of North Korea. But I think being able to challenge the officials that they meet in a safe way, being able to ask questions.

bringing in different points of view, help even the North Korean people, even if it's just through small encounters. From my little understanding, I do believe that in the past, recently after COVID, with the recent opening, there have been issues with a growth of influences and vlogging going in. But that's important for North Korea also to be able to understand the present day, the reality that we're in. And so those moments are important, one for North Korea watches to be able to see inside North Korea, but also for North Koreans to be able to be brought out of this little cave there. One of the things I could kind of sort of were the influences and the contact with the locals.

And I think one thing that kind of stood out last year, because last year was the first time since the pandemic that North Korea had held this marathon, was we saw, I think even before the pandemic, there were a few influences, content creators who used to growing. but last year the scale was a whole other thing. Now, there are some disagreements, I think, even among those engaged in the travel business, whether or not displayed a factor in North Korea

deciding to intensify its border closures. But what we certainly did see was the ones who went to Pyongyang came away with fairly positive details or anecdotes of their interactions with the locals. And I think they're quite surprised that even the North Koreans were out there recording them. freely, which was obviously you had to take it with a degree of assault because this is Pyongyang. The people living there have a degree of privilege that others in North Korea don't.

But at the very least, it did seem like even with those limits that were set for their interactions, as Hannah said, it's not really ever going to be the full picture. At the very least, those privileged few in Pyongyang seemed to at least get a chance to see more of these outsiders coming in. It was a rare chance not just for the outside world to see what's going on there, but also for people in North Korea, or at least in Pyongyang, to see these foreigners who aren't just diplomats or Russian tourists. Okay, and we must move on. Shrears, our next story, and this is very relevant to you, is that the Unification Ministry has announced it's decided on a new name, not for the first time, to call people who were born in

North Korea, but now live in South Korea. Shres, what's the new name? So they're essentially going to be called Bukhengmen, and the idea is to call them North Korean-born citizens rather than calling them defectors or refugees or escapees. And it's something that they've mooted in the past. It's not a new idea, but it's also been the subject of debate for a very, very long time. And I think Hannah's in a better position to actually convey the perspectives of those who are most affected by it. Is Hannah? What do you think? I mean, I think, firstly, it's most important for the North Korean escapees.

And KDB will continue to use the word escapees for one. North Korean-born friends, colleagues that we have to choose however they would like to be chosen. I think it's also important to note that the legal terminology hasn't actually changed. Bukkhan itadjumin is still... Bukkhan-Ital-Jumin, which is a long... Yeah. But really do people use the word Pukkhani-Tajumin because it's... a bit of a mouthful, but the law that defines who is a North Korean escapee that receives

the support from the South Korean government, that term has not changed. It's just what the MOU have asked their departments, the HANA Center, the Korea Hanna Foundation, and how they would like people to call them moving forward. As you mentioned, Jaco, this is not the first time that this has happened. I remember 20 years ago, it was set on it. Yes. It was the term that the normally on the administration preferred. And under the same minister of unification. Yes, that is true. That's right.

It was John Gungung Young, the old boss is the same. So he's trying again. It's just him trying again. Yeah. Are there political ramifications of this? What does it mean to call them Bukhangmin rather than Talbukcha or something? So I think generally you're taking away the term of Tal, which is escape.

And so for a lot of North Koreans, a strong part of their identity is showing their resilience of having left North Korea, escaped this regime that they no longer want to affiliate with, and have now successfully resettled in South Korea. And so some in the community feel that it's dripping them of their victimhood, of their identity, which is a big part of their lives. That being said, there's also younger North Koreans who maybe don't want to be kept in that box of being a North Korean defector or escapee,

and that they, for them, they're just now South Korean citizens. They happen to have been born in North Korea, but now they live in South Korea. And so I think we're also seeing a divide within the community, but it's the more, I think, louder, older, more conservative voices

that are really upset about this new term. And I think it's also the process in which it was done, in which there was no real process. I see. It was to have done behind close but point out also that the Bukhangmen, the new term, has a resonance to the old Shihang men, which is the people who came during or just after the war or just before the war who had

lost their hometown. So they're born in the north, now live in the south. And is that a deliberate choice, do you think, to go from Shihangmin to Bukhangmin? Is that a deliberate echo? I mean, Emma, the current administration with their priorities being reconciliation, peace, and trying to have more engagement with the North Korean government. I think separated families is one of the few issues that North Korea and South Korea in the past have somewhat agreed on and have been able to have conversations from a humanitarian perspective. And that brings in the like bringing the Shinyangmin groups and the Bukhangmin, if that's the term that they're going to use, groups would maybe then try,

despite the fact that I know NK News has spoken about this a lot where North Korea has clearly showed they're not interested in unification and looking at the Korean peninsula as a whole anymore, it's a reminder to North Korea that actually our people are one and there is the separation. So let's talk about it. It does seem like since this term in law has not changed, that it leaves the door open for possible further changes by the next administration of the one after that. And our last story from the news this week is Australia is that Minister John Dongyang, the old unification minister who's now, again, the current unification is that, he's got some

thoughts on a peace declaration? Yeah, not really a new idea, to be honest. Most progressive administrations in South Korea tend to pursue that in somewhere the other, and Hong has certainly been part of enough progressive administrations here that it's a fairly old one. And I think so what their plan is, and is very much consistent with President E. Jamang's policies, is to try and pursue a peace declaration to transition Korea from an armistice. system to a formal peace regime. Of course, this doesn't quite take into account that North Korea currently has no interest in dealing with South Korea and formalizing such a system. But still, South Korea said it will pursue this system and pursue an end of war declaration formally ending

the Korean War, which technically has been going on since 1950. Would the United Nations command have to sign on to this? I mean, how do you change from an armistice system, which is run by the United Nations command, I mean, the military is not under South Korean or North Green jurisdiction. How does that work? I mean, yeah, they will have to at least get the UN command, the US, on board for this, because that Amherst Treaty was not just signed by the two careers. It was, there were other parties. Well, South Korea didn't sign anyway. That's true. So if anything, they absolutely need to get the US and the UN command on board with this. But there are other factors as well that this is very very.

much a political play in line with E.J. Mianne's vision of essentially moving toward an era of peaceful coexistence on the current peninsula, as the administration puts it. They've kind of torn down that focus on unification no matter what. I think there's some realism there that perhaps that isn't something that will happen anytime soon. So at the very least, he's pushing for peaceful coexistence through this new peace regime as they put it. but also trying to promote exchanges in cooperation, which, again, doesn't quite work if North Korea hasn't willing, but that hasn't really stopped them from promoting this idea.

And this new work plan, apart from introducing all these other changes and pushing for a new peace regime, it's built around the idea of promoting exchanges and cooperation, having a new Korean Peninsula peace plan that revolves around these things. Hannah, what are your North Korean friends saying about, former North Korean friends? What kind of friends saying about this? I mean, peace for who, right? It's giving Trump's board of peace.

What does peace mean? And who doesn't want peace? Symbolically, that's what I think we are all hoping they will be on the peninsula in this region, in the world. But as from a human rights perspective, peace without actually. addressing human rights issues without justice is only a short-term solution. You're going to have issues coming up again and again, not even from just the Korean War in itself, even if that's where we start from. There are now only from the 80 POWs that were caught that managed to escape North Korea

and successfully come to South Korea. There are now only six of them surviving, and NKDB provides support to them. with work with through working with the Ministry of Defense in South Korea and many of them are still trying to seek justice for that that both the North and South

Korean government have not willing to address. Not to mention the 25 million North Korean people that are still living under clearly not a peaceful regime. And so I think those are the important questions to be asking of of course we want peace. Who does not

who would say no to peace? But what are the concrete measures that are going to be taken to ensure that this is lasting piece, that this is not just another piece of paper. Briefly, shows, did Minister Chong Dong Yong give any indication that there are built-in steps and procedures, as Hannah alluded to this down? Well, so the work plan itself was focused on a lot of other details related to exchange, exchanges and cooperation.

The humanitarian aspects and the human rights aspects took a bit of a vaccine. They did say they would continue promoting certain areas. And Hannah mentioned separated families earlier, for example, and detainees. And, well, they mentioned very briefly about strengthening support for defectors, but they didn't really outline any specifics at all. And at the moment, it certainly seems that it's more focused on promoting economic exchanges. I think they talk about creating peace economic zones. again, use of that word piece without really explaining on how that plays into anything and came up with some more, I think, tried to recycle a lot of old ideas, sometimes in the same old way, for example,

saying we want to reconnect train lines from Seoul to Beijing via Pyongyang, sometimes with slightly new ones, for example, saying North Korea has lots of mineral deposits, we want to promote trade with them, but hold, I think, the payment transfer process in escrow through blockchain technology for monitoring, which I think it's, again, an old idea, but with a new twist. It does sound like more thought has been given to economic peace. Exactly. To give in human peace. Very much.

Thank you, Shraz. That's what we're going to end, the newest wrap up, and then I'm going to continue talking to Hannah about their most recent reports. I will see you again very soon. Thank you. So, MKDB last week, you launched your most recent report, the machinery behind the forced repatriation of North Koreans in China. People can download it free of charge, all in English, 300 plus pages at en. n.n.kdb.org. It sounds daunting, but the listeners who may not be familiar with the issue,

what exactly is a forced repatriation of North Koreans from China, and why is it being such a long-standing human rights concern? Right. So of the 34,000, almost 35,000 North Korean escapees that have successfully escaped and resettled in South Korea, the majority of them 90% plus, have come through China and Southeast Asia rather than coming from North Korea directly to South Korea. As that is the usual route that is taken, it's all the concern of many North Korean human rights activists has been the safe passageway of North Koreans to be able to come to South Korea. What's been difficult, and this is again, as you mentioned, not a new issue. This has been from

since the beginning of North Koreans fleeing en masse since Ardivis, yeah. Is that because China does not recognize North Koreans as refugees, they see them as illegal economic migrants. What they will do is they will forcibly, they will detain them, the local police will detain them, send them to the border guards next to North Korea, and then they will be sent back to the DPRK to North Korea, where then they are firstly questioned by the Ministry of State Security, which is more the intelligence side, security side of North Korea's police. And then they will determine, were you trying to leave North Korea to come to South Korea? Were you in China to have any contact with missionaries, Christian groups?

Were you in China to work? Where you're trading? So depending on all these different reasons, the level of punishment will differ. in North Korea. And because so many of the North Koreans that we meet have gone through this experience of being caught in China and being sent back, we started looking into this a little bit more of, I mean, of our 80,000 plus cases in our database, 20% of those cases happen in China. And so something that we say in KDB is trying to have accountability, resolve all of the North Korean human race issues is such a daunting task.

It cannot be done. But if you can even try and address 20%, the issues that the people that we meet are facing, that's at least one step forward. Your new report argues that this process of forced repatriation, it's not random, it's not ad hoc. It operates as a structured system involving multiple agencies in both China and North Korea working together.

So what's the most important thing that people should understand about how organized this system is? Right. I mean, the history between China and North Korea obviously goes back even before the Korean War. And you can see in my colleagues did a fantastic job of analyzing all of the treaties that China and North Korea have signed since the 1950s until present. And then specifically focusing on those that deal with border relations. And then also, I think they compared it with the treaties that China has. with other neighboring countries, with Myanmar, with Vietnam, to see what the differences it are. And I think what's quite interesting to know is that in 2018, China went through a big internal restructuring of their military and police. And so in the past, it had been the local police security officials, the local police, public security officials. that would be the ones that would perhaps receive a call from somebody locally in a province in China saying, I think there's an illegal North Korean woman here.

They would go to that person's house, detain them, take them in for questioning once it's clear that they are from North Korea, then they are transferred to the border security military guards. Even after this restructuring in 2018, they still managed to make sure that there would be agents, that are involved in making sure that North Koreans are sent back to the DPRK. And so it's clear that this is something that they took into consideration, even in this mass restructuring. Yeah, there's a priority. Right.

I think that's an clear argument that we're making here. In the past, when we've spoken about forced repatriation, and as you mentioned, this is not a new issue, we've only been really looking at it from the horrific human rights violations that they experienced was there back in North Korea. and been just looking at North Korea's responsibility. The COI report in 2014 really focused on the crimes against humanity in North Korea. Yes.

All of us who watch, monitor North Korea now more than ever, I think it's clear that North Korea has been able to continue its patterns of systemic human rights violations because of the support of Russia and China, namely. And so what is the responsibility of China in this case? but it's not enough to just say that it's all on North Korea. Now, your report identifies specific institutions. We've already mentioned as routes, and even individual Chinese officials involved in arrests and deportations have been named.

So how significant is that level of detail for understanding how the system actually operates? So we've always had different discussions on how we can hold North Koreans accountable for these crimes. Recently, there have been more discussions on Magninsky-style sanctions, human rights sanctions, on North Korean officials. They've always been somewhat symbolic in the sense that North Korean state security officials aren't traveling. They aren't really, they have assets abroad that sanctions won't really impact them. Chinese officials do have assets abroad. They do travel. And also, administrations like the U.S. or the EU have had a history of.

naming Chinese officials responsible for different other human rights issues pertaining to, for example, the Uyghurs. And so seeing that we have, seeing that we, there is a history and a president of different governments holding Chinese officials accountable, but not yet for the forced repatriation of North Koreans back to North Korea, which amounts to crimes against humanity. What NKGB will be doing is putting together dossiers, lists of information of these individuals or institutions, and sharing them with different relevant governments. Just on that point, what kinds of evidence and documentation are you relying on to link specific named Chinese individuals to these operations that forced repatriation of North Korean escopies or refugees?

So first, you need evidence that human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity have actually taken places. those institutions. And so those, that type of evidence comes from the interviews that we do from the victims themselves. And you've got, if I remember correctly, but this report is based on interviews with 100 escopies and former officials of North Korea covering the last 25 years of such cases. So the 100 North Korean escapees was for this specific report, but we also have 8,000 cases in our database. So then, but then you also need information about why that this institution is responsible. And so that's where these treaties and the open source information that my colleagues analyze come into play, where you can clearly state how this institution

was responsible at this stage of this repatriation. The most difficult thing is then, of course, naming specific individuals who are working at that time. And for sanctions to be effective, they also have to be in office at present. And so this information is not in the, our report at the moment because once you have our report up, it's difficult to continue to update it. What we will have is a new platform that is released in a few weeks that will have dossiers and that will continue to be updated for people to be able to access. Now, what's the risk to you and to NKDB in putting these names out there of Chinese officials? I mean, for example, would you be hesitant about traveling to China, Hong Kong, Macau, would you

fly a Chinese airline again at the near future? I mean, I think I've always been quite hesitant working in the North Korea field to do any of those that you mentioned. But what is a growing concern, of course, is that in recent years, China's been a huge player in transnational repression. So you see it with Hong Kong activists

or Taiwanese activists where the Uyghurs who are also maybe living overseas, where despite the fact that they're no longer in Chinese territory, the Chinese government party officials will continue to harass them, have different types of repression. So we're very familiar with cyber attacks from North Korea, but also now I think another added layer is, of course, different types of repression from the Chinese side.

And they, of course, have a lot more power. and an army of resources to be able to do that. Wow. Your report also examines what happens once North Koreans are sent back by forced repatriation to North Korea. Based on the testimonial interviews that you've collected, what are the most common punishments that North Koreans face after they return? So, as I mentioned, it really depends on how they were caught and also in what Yeah, which circumstance.

So if you are a woman who was maybe caught working or maybe and have not been in China for very long, you can try and convince the officials who are interrogating you that you were just there for a short amount of time. You were never planning to leave North Korea. You're always going to come back. In that case, it's most likely that you'll be sent to a labour training house, which is of course still horrendous, six months to a year of hard labor. And of course, during the process of being sent to that labor training camp, you're put into different types of detention facilities, police holding camps along that process.

And also the lack of food and sanitation that is provided in those facilities are horrendous. But that's almost the best case scenario. If you are caught in a group, it's almost clear that you were trying to go to South Korea, especially if you have men in the group as well. And maybe children as well, I imagine that. And in those cases, there are some cases that we hear where you're sent to political prison camps, because as you're familiar with, trying to escape the motherland and the fatherland is seem to be the most heinous treasonous act that you can conduct in North Korea.

And so because that is such a very political crime that they've committed, they may be sent to a political prison camp. The majority of the cases that we have seen are where they are sent to kuh hassle, re-education, a prison camp. And there they will spend maybe three to six years doing hard labor. And a lot of these cases are when a lot of the women are the ones that have been trafficked and have been in China for quite a few years. I think what was quite so difficult to hear is that a lot of these women, when they ended up going to China, was not because they were trying to. to flee the country or because they were trying to come to South Korea, but that they themselves were also tricked and then trafficked and sold to Chinese men.

And so for them to then be punished for the situation in which they weren't able to make a lot of these choices, I think is always the most difficult to hear about. What kinds of cases are it most likely to lead to an execution? Or does that generally not happen in the cases of forced repatriation? So in North Korea, they have things called Shibam game, which is like a test or maybe something to show other North Koreans. Exactly, to make an example of someone. And so there are periods in which they want to crack down even more on defections or human trafficking. And so we have heard of executions in the cases in which maybe the brokers that are helping people defect and are then court also in China as well.

or during the period in which they are, again, trying to really reinforce the message that you're not going to make it if you try to leave North Korea. There may be public executions. But to be transparent, they haven't been as many public executions in recent days. And we do believe that is because, especially after the COI report came out, and also the growing use of satellite imagery to try and monitor and document cases. of human rights violations. North Korea is looking for ways in which they can have less evidence of these grave crimes being committed. What do you hope happens next as a result of your research and report?

So we're calling for accountability on both the Chinese and North Korean side. But for us, accountability, I think is important to know that it's not just criminal judicial accountability. There are political ways of holding these Chinese officials accountable. Trump is going to meet potentially Xi Jinping in a few weeks. The US administration have had hearings about the forced repatriation issue.

We're hoping that amongst the many human rights issues that are happening in China, this is one that is raised as well. But also from a non-judicial accountability perspective is that in KDB we provide psychosocial services. We're the only human rights organization that have in-house counselors and social workers. And what is very clear from the hundreds and thousands of interviews that we have done is that

the process of forced repatriation leaves such long-lasting forms of trauma that many of the North Koreans who come to South Korea still sometimes struggle to meet people of authority or be in public places because it reminds them of the time in which they were court in China. And so providing psychosocial support, I think, is really important and it's something that is overlooked a lot for the victims. Last question for you, Hannah, looking ahead, what are the biggest unanswered questions for you about the treatment of North Korean escapies in China that you still need to address or look into? So there have been situations in which China has allowed the safe passageway of North Koreans. And I think that's important to know that China has. has done that in the past. China has, I don't think we're asking China to accept them as refugees.

We're just asking them to let them be able to come through China. I mean, the big question at the moment, though, is that are even North Koreans even able to go to China at this point? Since 2020, until now, for the past five, six years, the North Korean escapees that are coming into South Korea are not the ones that have come out of North Korea recently. The ones that have come out of North Korea recently have come directly by a boat over the DAPE, over land. And so the usual route is completely blocked. And that is a huge concern for North Koreans themselves, but also for us who continue to monitor the situation,

a huge way that we've been able to gather so much data and document in the past is because we've been able to interview North Korean escapees, but the ones that are coming into South Korea now are either North Korea's from a very different demographic, in like a really small number, less than 50 over the past five years compared to the 2000, almost 3,000 we used to have, or their North Korean women who have been in China for 20 plus years. So their memories of North Korea are from a very different time. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Well, thank you very much, Hannah, for coming on the show today and telling us about your new report, which again is called the machinery behind the forced repatriation of North Koreans in China. People can find it. on your website at en for English.mkdb, the database of corygiven rights.org, en.mkdb.org. Thanks, and we'll see you again soon. Thanks, Jekko.

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