How a North Korean defector’s poems were considered ‘more grievous than murder’
Depictions of daily struggles in North Korea landed idealistic poet in jail for three years before his dramatic escape
To hear North Korean defector Do Myung-hak tell it, his fall from grace as a poet to that of a political prisoner was down to nothing more than his passion for his countrymen and a betraying friend.
Do, 52, who said he could not help but feel constant sorrow for his fellow citizens before he fled to South Korea, was locked up because he privately wrote about struggles in the North and showed it to a close friend, who, in a cinema-like twist, turned out to be a spy for the authoritarian regime.
The festival showcased three films: Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story, about a Japanese girl who was abducted by North Korea when she was 13; 48m, about the life-or-death distance defectors have to travel when they try to flee the country; and Victory, about 24 defectors seeking justice at the United Nations.
