Any sort of dissent against the regime is not tolerated in North Korea or Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The country's regime is so repressive that anybody from top officials to the laymen, who speak or act against the government or its supreme leader, are reportedly arrested and made to suffer in political prison camps (the regime denies existence of prison camps) for years and even executed by hanging or shooting. This brutal form of suppression has managed to stop leakage of information from the country to the outside world.
The North Korean regime tightened security along its borders with other countries to prevent its citizens from leaving the country, making sure that its internal happenings were not leaked to other countries. The introduction of economic self-reliance or Juche by its supreme leader Kim Il-sung made the country even more secluded.
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Its supreme leader Kim Il-sung turned himself into a cult figure over time through propaganda and suppression of freedom of speech. People were made to believe that their supreme leader was benevolent and that North Korea was the best and most developed country in the world. Several people, who have defected from the country, have said in documentaries and public speeches that the North Koreans are brainwashed to believe that the regime has the right to do anything, including execution for trivial mistakes.
Despite the efforts to prevent leakage of the ugly side of the country, including strict law that prohibits tourists from taking random pictures or videos, and have to be accompanied by guides who take them to select places that the state wants them to see, information from outside world keeps flowing in.
The great North Korean famine between 1994 and 1998 that reportedly killed millions of people led to thousands of people secretly escaping to China for food. Those who remained in the country started setting up black markets for livelihood though the regime prohibited it. Defectors said this led to smuggling of DVDs containing foreign movies into the country which opened up the eyes of the people that North Korea is actually not the best country in the world.
Sales of DVDs or any device that contains foreign movies is illegal in North Korea, and the regime reportedly conducts raids even today to stop it but people still watch them secretly and the flow of South Korean, Chinese and Hollywood movies into the country is said to have increased over the last few years.
Defectors have claimed that people have started realising the fact that they have been exploited by their leaders for decades and started hating them. No major revolt has happened in the last six decades of despotic rule by the Kim dynasty due to utmost repressive policy of the regime but the knot seems to have started loosening of late.
The country's current supreme leader Kim Jong Un has not only invited the wrath of the international community by conducting nuclear tests but also has become unpopular among the North Korean citizens.
It has now emerged that anti-Kim propaganda has started spreading in the country, especially in the capital city Pyongyang, which seemed like even unthinkable a few years ago. Radio Free Asia has reported that leaflets that read "Let us overthrow Kim Jong Un" and "Punish Kim Jong Un, the enemy of the people" have been spotted in the country recently, forcing the state to ban the movement of people in the roads where the flyers were found and ordering a rigorous probe, including handwriting test to find the culprits. In another report, RFA has said that Kim Jong Un has warned his high-ranking leaders against forming of unofficial alliances, either economic or political, exposing his insecurity.
Well, the North Korean regime may have succeeded in suppressing the people with its extremely repressive tactics for several decades but how long can it continue? It's just a matter of time before people's power wins.
