I sometimes am kind of amused when I read some news articles, like today there is an article in the Daily Mail (UK) that is about North Korea and its leader. It points out the amazing amount of people executed and the incredible ways these executions are carried out.
For example there was a military leader who was executed with an anti aircraft missile (I think it was supposedly Kim's uncle), I originally read this saying the execution took place in front of a full crowd national stadium. Of course this means that missile should have taken a good part of the stands along with spectators with it, so I guess somebody noticed this because the stadium isn't mentioned.
The article also made me remember of a North Korean opera singer a few years back who was executed for some petty offense and this was held as true until she appeared in a North Korean presentation in some Asian country. Then the North Korean national football team was held and sentenced to years of hard labor after a disastrous 2010 world cup performance. This was also held as true until a few weeks later the national team's captain was back in training at his team in Europe, and most of the players were in the following Asian cup qualifiers.
North Korea is a closed place, any news you hear about it is probably false, mostly propaganda from South Korean agencies, you know if no one gets in or out, how can you know what is happening there? Don't think I agree with the Korean government, it is actually a family dictatorship and I think it has been around far too long, I also don't doubt crimes, human rights abuses and other nasty episodes have happened, but just let's not make stories about them, remember the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Irak, hundreds of thousands have died because of this lie and are still dying and the real culprits, the ones who lied about the WMD are still living great lives with no accountability.
Dictators are bad, probably evil and should be made to pay for their crimes, but do we have to lie about them? I think just presenting the truth would be just as damning and it would be the honest thing to do.
By the way the Daily Mail article did what it was supposed to do, it heated up the comments with people howling about this dictator and the presented crimes, I think people should read more and not take everything at face value, even though frankly, it is hard to get news from North Korea. I used to listen to Radio Pyongyang when I was a DXer and Kim Il Sung was the dear leader, one of the worst radio stations back then, lousy signal and pure propaganda. I did write requesting a QSL, got the answer back two years later it included a book about Pyongyang and another about Juche, Kim Il Sung's philosophy.