Religious freedom continued to decline in China this year, while Vietnam showed slight signs of improvement despite ongoing abuses, the U.S. State Department said in an annual report to American lawmakers.

Meanwhile, in Myanmar, also known as Burma, violations of religious freedoms continued unchanged in spite of progress made in political reforms, the report said.

In China, the State Department’s 2012 Religious Freedom Report said, “the government’s respect for religious freedom declined during the year, particularly in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Republic.”

In general, China’s government emphasized state control over religion, the report said, adding that the religious activities of religious adherents were restricted “when these were perceived, even potentially, to threaten state or Chinese Communist Party interests, including the Party’s concept of social stability.”

Protestants and Catholics practicing outside of state-controlled churches came in for particular scrutiny, said the report, as did members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement and smaller groups called “evil cults” by China’s government.

“Government repression, including crackdowns at monasteries and nunneries, resulted in the loss of life, arbitrary detentions, and torture,” said the report.

The U.S. Secretary of State has designated China as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) since 1999, with the designation most recently renewed in August 2011.

Countries of Particular Concern

Countries of Particular Concern are countries “that are considered to commit ‘particularly severe violations of religious freedom,’ and whose records call for the U.S. government to take certain actions under the terms of the [International Religious Freedom] Act,” said the report.

Burma, or Myanmar, also designated a CPC since 1999 with that status renewed in 2011, saw “considerable” movement in political reform during 2012, “but the trend in the government’s respect for religious freedom did not change significantly during the year,” the State Department report said.

The report noted especially that local officials in the country’s Rakhine state took part in ethnic violence targeting Rakhine’s Muslim community last year.

Overall, Myanmar authorities “subjected religious activities and organizations to restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and assembly,” the report said, adding that the government  promoted Theravada Buddhism over other religions, “particularly among certain ethnic minority populations.”

In Vietnam, though abuses of religious freedom—involving arrests, detentions, and convictions—were  reported during the year, “the government also showed signs of progress,” said the report.

“It registered new congregations, permitted the expansion of charitable activities, and allowed large-scale worship services with more than 100,000 participants.”

Problems remain

“Other problems remained, [though], especially at the provincial and village levels, including slow or denied approval of registration for some groups. Some Christian groups also reported harassment or administrative obstacles when they tried to hold Christmas services,” the report said.

The State Department included Vietnam on its list of Countries of Particular Concern in 2004 but removed it from the blacklist two years later and has since ignored repeated calls by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedoms (USCIRF) to reinstate the country’s designation.

“The Vietnamese government is still using vague national security laws to suppress independent Buddhists, Protestants, Hoa Hao, and Cao Dai activities,” USCIRF chair Katrina Lantos Swett told RFA in April.

“And they are definitely working to stop the growth of ethnic minority Protestantism and Catholicism through discrimination, instances of violence, and repeated episodes of forced renunciations of faith.”

“It’s still a very concerning situation, and one that we believe does merit CPC designation,” Swett said.

Lax enforcement

In Laos, “the trend in the government’s respect for religious freedom did not change significantly during the year,” the State Department’s report said.

“Officials respected the constitutional rights of members of most religious groups to worship, albeit within constraints imposed by the government.”

But local officials were sometimes lax in their enforcement of laws protecting religious freedom, said the report.

“District and local authorities in some of the country’s 17 provinces continued to be suspicious of non-Buddhist religious groups and occasionally displayed intolerance for minority religious groups.”

This was especially true in the case of Protestant congregations, “whether or not officially recognized,” the report said.

Contrasting cases

Meanwhile, in Cambodia, “there were few reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice,” though Buddhism is the country’s state religion, said the report.

“[Cambodia’s] constitution and other laws and policies protect religious freedom and, in practice, the government generally respected religious freedom.”

By contrast, the government of North Korea “severely restricted religious activity, except for some officially recognized groups it tightly supervised,” according to the State Department report.

“Reports by refugees, defectors, missionaries, and nongovernmental organizations (NGO) indicated that the authorities arrested and subjected to harsh penalties persons engaged in religious proselytizing and those in unauthorized contact with foreigners or missionaries.”

Reports of arrests and punishments  during 2012 were difficult to verify, though, “[D]ue to the country’s inaccessibility and the inability of foreigners to gain timely information,” the report said.

North Korea fired two projectiles into the ocean Monday, according to South Korean officials, defying warnings from the United Nations to refrain from escalating regional tensions after a series of launches over the weekend.

The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) confirmed the firings from two locations on North Korea’s east coast, Agence France-Presse reported, adding that it was unclear whether the tests involved guided missiles or rockets from multiple launchers.

“North Korea launched two projectiles on Monday—one in the morning and the other in the afternoon," a JCS spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Monday’s launches were the sixth by North Korea in three days, after firing three missiles on Saturday and one on Sunday, all of which fell into the Sea of Japan—also known as the East Sea.

Some reports referred to the launched projectiles as missiles.

The two projectiles fired on Monday followed similar trajectories as the four previous launches over the weekend, officials at both the JCS and South Korean Defense Ministry said.

The weekend launches had drawn condemnation from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who warned Sunday of a “dangerous escalation” on the Korean Peninsula and urged Pyongyang to refrain from further actions.

Ban called for North Korea to return to negotiations in order to lower tensions in the region, which he said had heightened the risk of dangerous miscalculation.

South’s reaction

South Korea on Monday urged North Korea to stop firing missiles, saying that the launchings were raising tensions, regardless of whether they were intended to test new weapons or to demonstrate Pyongyang’s firepower.

The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday quoted an information bulletin by Pyongyang’s Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea which angrily responded to criticism of what it called a “regular military exercise to bolster up the country's defense capability.”

It dismissed calls to end its launches as “another unpardonable challenge to [North Korea] and an undisguised provocation driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme phase.”

North Korea has accused South Korea and the U.S. of escalating tensions on the peninsula following a series of small- and large-scale joint military drills in recent months which have featured nuclear-capable B2 stealth bombers and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.

Routine launch?

Test launches of short-range missiles by North Korea are fairly routine. The North last launched two such missiles into the sea in March.

Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, told RFA’s Korean Service that the recent launches were “nothing unusual.”

“The North Koreans have done it many times in the past, and are likely to do it again and again,” he said.

“Like any military force, the North Korean armed forces need to test their weapons and train their soldiers.”

He said that short-range missiles with conventional warheads “do not constitute any significant threat” and that the tests were likely not an attempt to draw attention from Washington or Seoul.

“If they need more tension, they are likely to resort to their old tactics of tension-building: bellicose rhetoric and, perhaps, long-range missile launches and nuclear tests,” Lankov said.

“Frankly, this seems to be much ado about nothing.”

Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket in December and conducted its third nuclear test in February.

Both tests were in violation of international sanctions that ban North Korea from developing missile or nuclear technology, prompting the U.N. Security Council to adopt even tougher measures against the country in March.

Pyongyang began issuing vitriolic war rhetoric after the new sanctions were imposed, raising ominous prospects of a nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula.

Earlier launches

North Korea has launched five long-range missiles or rockets over the past seven years and last December placed a satellite in orbit.

Pyongyang claimed the satellite was part of peaceful research, but critics said the launch amounted to a banned ballistic missile test that marked a major advance for the North's illicit nuclear weapons program.

Following Monday’s launches, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called for the full implementation of relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions against its ally North Korea and called for dialogue in order to maintain peace and stability on the peninsula.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference on Monday that North Korea had not “formally” breached any U.N. Security Council resolutions by test-firing short-range missiles over the last few days.

But he urged calm for the region and called for the resumption of aid-for-disarmament talks between the two Koreas, United States, China, Russia and Japan.

North Korea on Saturday launched three short-range guided missiles into the sea, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Defense, in defiance of international sanctions and efforts to bring the rogue nation to the table for talks.

The ministry detected two launches in the morning, followed by another in the afternoon, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported, quoting an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The missiles launched may be a modified anti-ship missile or the KN-02 surface-to-surface missile derived from the Soviet era SS-21 that has a range of about 120 kilometers (75 miles)," the Seoul official said.

He said that judging by the trajectory and distance traveled, the missiles were neither medium- or long-range, adding that they were fired in a northeasterly direction, away from South Korean waters.

In April, North Korea deployed two intermediate-range missiles along its east coast in what was seen as a response to joint South Korean-U.S. military exercises, but they were recalled earlier this month after the operations ended.

The intermediate-range missiles, known as Musudan, are believed to have a range of up to 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) and may be capable of striking the U.S. Pacific island of Guam.

"All missiles launched fell into the sea," the South Korean Defense Ministry official said of Saturday’s firing, adding that it was likely part of a military exercise or a missile test.

The launches could also be a show of force for the U.S., which last week docked the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in South Korea’s port city of Busan. The North had referred to the carrier’s port call as “a fresh tinderbox to escalate the tension and ignite a nuclear war.”

Routine launch?

Test launches of short-range missiles by North Korea are fairly routine. The North last launched two such missiles into the sea in March.

But tensions have been high on the Korean Peninsula since Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket in December and conducted its third nuclear test in February.

Both tests were in violation of international sanctions that ban North Korea from developing missile or nuclear technology, prompting the U.N. Security Council to adopt even tougher measures against the country in March.

Pyongyang began issuing vitriolic war rhetoric after the new sanctions were imposed, raising ominous prospects of a nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea has launched five long-range missiles or rockets over the past seven years and last December placed a satellite in orbit.

Pyongyang claimed the satellite was part of peaceful research, but critics said the launch amounted to a banned ballistic missile test that marked a major advance for the North's illicit nuclear weapons program.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies this week completed a trip to South Korea, China, and Japan, where he discussed plans to deal with the North Korean nuclear threat.

Activity at local markets in North Korea has picked up in recent weeks since Pyongyang toned down threats of war against South Korea and the U.S., according to traders along the Chinese border.

Both black and authorized markets had quieted down during weeks of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula in March and April, with border restrictions tightened and many North Koreans busy with war drills and other preparations, sources said.

But this month, with Pyongyang’s war rhetoric dying down, the marketplaces have started bustling again, according to traders who bring goods to North Korea from neighboring China—the isolated country’s main trading partner and source of goods.

“Business is going well because North Korea’s markets are recovered, and they hadn’t until May,” an ethnic Chinese North Korean who runs a small trading business between China and Pyongyang told RFA’s Korean Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another North Korean of Chinese descent who conducts trade between China and Chongjin in North Hamgyong province, and who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said some traders and merchants are doing so well they are running out of inventory.

“Since the situation in North Korean markets is good, Chinese products are in short supply,” he told RFA, adding that he would be picking up extra inventory on his next trip because business was booming.

“I planned to buy 50,000 yuan [about U.S. $8,000] worth of products, but actually I’ll be buying another 20,000 to 30,000 yuan [U.S. $3,000 to $5,000] worth of extra products.”

Returning to normal

Pyongyang began issuing vitriolic war rhetoric after the United Nations in March imposed a new regimen of sanctions in response to the North’s third nuclear test on February 12, raising ominous prospects of a nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula.

North and South Korea are still in a standoff over negotiations about the suspension of the Kaesong industrial park, a key cooperation project.

But daily life is returning to normal for North Koreans, with the markets along with it, while smuggling activities along the Chinese border that fuel the country's thriving black market trade are also picking up, traders said.

“Recently, smuggling has been very active along both sides of the river [border],” a source from Dandong in northeastern China said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“A large amount of herbs and vegetables grown in North Korea are illegally traded for Chinese rice and fertilizer.”

“Vigorous smuggling between China and North Korea shows that the North has regained its stability,” he added.

However, business could slow down again once the rice planting season begins, with local marketplaces open for shorter hours, sources said.

At least three quarters of North Korea’s imports come from China—Pyongyang’s main diplomatic and economic ally—and the U.N. has said the success of the new sanctions depends largely on Beijing.

Annual trade between the two countries is worth some U.S. $6 billion, but in the first quarter of this year it dropped more than 7 percent, with China's exports to North Korea down 13.8 percent to U.S. $720 million, according to the Reuters news agency.

Reported by Joon Ho Kim for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Goeun Yu. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

China is providing large amounts of fertilizer to its ally North Korea and plans to send food aid to the impoverished nation, according to sources inside the country, despite backing international sanctions meant to punish the regime for pursuing its nuclear weapons program.

North Korean sources told RFA’s Korean Service that Beijing had delivered fertilizer to assist in collective farm production even earlier this year than it had in years past—and in larger quantities.

The aid follows Chinese support for tighter restrictions on the North's financial activities as part of stiff sanctions levied by the United Nations against Pyongyang in March for conducting its third illicit nuclear test a month earlier.

“The Chinese government gave fertilizer much earlier than last time,” a source who works for the agricultural department of North Hamgyong province said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Based on the amount of distributions to each collective farm, I think the overall amount of the fertilizer exceeds 200,000 tons,” he said.

The source did not provide details of when China delivered fertilizer last year or the amount it had donated.

But a farmer from Yanggang province told RFA that this year Beijing had sent fertilizer to North Korea, which faces chronic food shortages, more than a month earlier than it had in 2012.

“Last year, I was provided with fertilizer that came from China around June 10,” the farmer said.

“[At that time] each collective farm only received 10 tons of the fertilizer, which was a really tiny amount.”

The farmer said that this year China had begun delivering fertilizer as early as April 26.

An official of the trading department in North Pyongan province told RFA that all fertilizer deliveries from China had been processed through the customs department in the provincial capital Sinuiju, which lies across the border from Dandong city in China’s Liaoning province.

He said that all of the shipments were designated as free aid from the Chinese government and had arrived at the border via train and container truck.

“Our trade department doesn’t normally import such a large amount of fertilizer at once, but the trade department of each province has been ordered to stock up to 200 tons of fertilizer,” he said.

“I was informed that China will also send food aid soon. Since Pyongyang already knew the aid would be coming, the government has already begun distributing food held in storage to the North Korean people,” he added.

Two-pronged approach

The sources RFA spoke to in North Korea said they found it hard to believe recent reports they had heard from South Korean media about Beijing supporting international sanctions against Pyongyang because of the ongoing trade.

The sanctions do not bar other countries from sending food and other forms of aid to North Korea, but prohibit financial interactions with North Korea in a bid to further isolate the country and pressure it to give up its nuclear weapons program.

China is impoverished North Korea's main diplomatic and economic ally but has shown growing irritation with Pyongyang's war threats, and in March backed tough U.N. sanctions against the hardline communist neighbor for its defiant nuclear and missile tests.

Reports that China is providing large-scale aid to North Korea suggest that Beijing may be taking a two-pronged approach to reining in its bellicose southern neighbor—scolding Pyongyang on the international stage, while supporting the North bilaterally.

“Trade between North Korea and China is very much active,” the farmer from Yanggang province said.

“They have even built a new customs house in Yanggang’s Samjiyon district,” he said.

The farmer added that smuggling across the Yalu River, which lies along the border between the two countries, “is still carried out extensively.”

“Farmers had traded 2 kilograms [4.4 pounds] of corn for 1 kilogram [2.2 pounds] of Chinese fertilizer until few days ago,” he said.

“But since the new fertilizer has arrived from the Chinese government, they now trade them one to one.”

Pressing China

Last week, the state-run Bank of China Ltd.—which Washington has accused of financing Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs—said it had halted business with North Korea’s Chosun Trade Bank.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies on Monday called the decision a “very hopeful sign” in efforts to end the North’s nuclear ambitions, but added it is not yet clear whether the move signifies a real shift in Beijing’s approach to dealing with Pyongyang.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to the region, said last month that it was up to China to “put some teeth” into efforts to press North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

Reported by Sung Hui Moon for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Goeun Yu. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

The newly appointed governor of Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh has vowed to re-examine two bitter land disputes that rocked the city under his predecessor’s term after meeting activists involved in the cases, his spokesman said Wednesday.

But Governor Pa Socheatvong, who took office on Monday, will not intervene on behalf of a jailed campaigner, Yorm Bopha, who had vigorously championed the evictees' right to housing.

Pa Socheatvong will review the cases of residents locked in disputes in the Boeung Kak Lake and Borei Keila area by next week, spokesman Long Dyman said.

"He will begin the work of leading the city for a week first and then he will examine the villagers’ documents,” he told RFA’s Khmer Service.

The new governor met on Tuesday with representatives from the two communities, who said he promised them a swift solution to the disputes, the local newspaper The Phnom Penh Post reported.

The meeting marked a departure from the policies of his predecessor Kep Chuketma, who refused to meet in recent years with the activists, who have staged countless demonstrations in the city on behalf of residents evicted to make way for luxury developments.

Long Dyman said Pa Socheatvong will not be intervening in the case of Yorm Bopha, a leading Boeung Kak activist who was jailed last year in a case critics have said was “manufactured” to target her for speaking out.

Her case is beyond the governor’s authority and only the courts can decide what happens to her, he said.

Yorm Bopha, 29, who has been held since early September, was convicted by the Phnom Penh municipal court in December for committing “intentional violence" in connection with the beating of a suspected thief, and in March the Supreme Court rejected her bail plea.

She has been named an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience and local rights groups have said her case smacks of political interference and should be thrown out.

Stepped up protests

Borei Keila and Boeung Kak activists have stepped up their protests in recent weeks, calling for Yorm Bopha’s release and demanding the city issue land titles for 64 Boeung Kak families excluded from a resettlement deal.

On Wednesday the activists staged a demonstration in front of the South Korean embassy and presented petitions to embassy officials, who did not give any assurance that they will raise the issue with the Cambodian government.

Boeng Kak community representative Tep Vanny said the residents have turned to ask foreign embassies for support because they are disappointed with the government and Prime Minister Hun Sen for delaying an resolution to the disputes.

"South Korea is a democratic country, so we think they have a duty to intervene our case," she told RFA.

Reported by Morm Moniroth for RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

North Korea has shut indefinitely the Kaesong industrial park—the most visible symbol of cooperation between the two Koreas—and all North and South Korean workers have been withdrawn amid military tensions. South Korea has dismissed an "incomprehensible" list of North Korean demands for reviving the jointly run industrial park in North Korea. Changsop Pyon of RFA's Korean Service interviews Bradley Babson, a North Korea expert, about the impact of the park's closure. Babson, a former official of the World Bank for 26 years, is head of the DPRK Economic Forum at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Q: What do you make of Pyongyang's decision and motivation?

A: To me, the fundamental issue is what it means for the inter-Korean relationship, and it represents a relatively positive and strong element of the mutual cooperation for mutual benefits that's been pretty successful for a substantial period of time, in a way that survived all the difficulties for the last five years up until the last six months or so. It's obviously an important component of a relationship that was developing under the Sunshine Policy, which became more complex and difficult during the Lee Myung-bak era. And I think the fact that they're withdrawing from Kaesong, for me, is more about trying to clarify and redefine what the future of inter-Korean relationship is really going to be.

Q: According to the news reports, about 53,000 North Korean workers at Kaesong made about U.S. $90 million annually, a major source of foreign exchange for the North Korean regime. Do you think Kaesong's closure deals a big financial blow to the North Korean regime bent on earning foreign currency?

A: I don't think it would be fatal. Any country could absorb U.S. $90 million of loss, even North Korea. They have alternatives. They're making a bet they can absorb these losses for some time, and achieve a larger objective, whatever that objective is. I think this is a price they're willing to pay because they want fundamentally to change the context of inter-Korean relationship. And this is the message they've chosen to find a reason to talk seriously and in a different way with South Korea, and I think they also want to do with the U.S., changing the fundamental elements of their relationship and try to put things on a different kind of course in the future.

Q: It's been almost 10 years since Kaesong started operating in 2003. Many people were really surprised at North Korea's willing decision to embrace the project, given that it would lead to more economic opening on the part of North Korea as well as the North Korean workers' growing exposure to South Korea. Why do you think they made such a decision?

A: Well, in the early days of the Sunshine Policy there was a genuine effort to build bridges across the relationship in multiple ways. It was not just Kaesong, also Kumgang, family reunions, and military direct communication lines. You know, there were a number of different dimensions in which inter-Korean relations were becoming more engaged, and Kaesong was an important part of that because it was rooted in commercial interests, not just political interests. What North Korea gained out of that [were] the money and foreign exchange earnings, some of which went to labor and some of which went to Kim Jong Il. So, U.S. $90 million a year is a significant amount of exchange. Obviously they've been in need of foreign exchange earned on a commercially acceptable basis, and this gave him a commercially and politically acceptable way of earning a significant amount of foreign exchanges.

Q: As you pointed out, North Korea earned a significant amount of foreign exchanges through Kaesong. In addition to foreign exchange earnings, don't you think Pyongyang also enjoyed other benefits such as learning Western-style business management?

A: Well, from a business point of view, it did provide an opportunity for North Koreans to learn something from South Korea both about managing business in today's world and international standards. So, business management and technology involved production systems, labor relations, and how effective they are in developing productivity of North Korean labor. North Korea had a real learning curve through observing and participating in the way that Kaesong became commercially successful, and in combining comparative advantages of their cheap labor with the management expertise and technology, and access to the market that the South Koreans could provide.

Q: According to some reports in the South Korean press, one of the chief reasons North Korea decided to withdraw its workers was their 'ideological contamination.' Do you agree?

A: One of the risks they face now in withdrawing everybody is I can't imagine the 50,000 people who left their jobs two weeks ago are very happy right now. I do think you have people who have become used to a discipline of having a good job, going to work every day, getting a nice lunch and health services, and Chocopies which you can sell in the market for some extra money. By denying these people those benefits and their current lifestyle, I can't imagine they're very happy. You raised the question of workers' ideological contamination—but they've been ideologically contaminated for years, and it's nothing new. So, I don't think that's a current factor. The change in mindset of the people in Pyongyang becoming more engaged in market trading and market economies, and making money from entrepreneurship is much more threatening to the regime's longer-term interests than a bunch of factory workers in Kaesong. I don't think ideological contamination was a rationale for making this move now.

Q: In fact, one of the chief benefits North Korean workers enjoyed while working at Kaesong was a sort of genuine freedom that they could not feel inside North Korea. Do you feel the same?

A: People rediscovered their freedom, and particularly the elites of Pyongyang are interested, and everybody under their 40s is more interested in making money than participating in a patronage system. Nobody wants to join in the government or military. They want to go out and do business, or get involved in trading, and that mentality, which is a mindset, has a different vision of the future. The mindset of the old school wants to go back to the socialist control and ideological control, etc. I do think there is a battle of mindsets taking place within the country, and that's not related just to Kaesong, it's more related in many ways to what happens with the growth of the market and entrepreneurship. That's the same mindset that pushed back when they tried to do currency reform back in 2009 and 2010, when they tried to go back to socialist model and pushed back. And push-back reflects the fact that the people's minds are in a different place, not trapped in an old kind of thinking when it really hurts. Some of the old-timers and the military hardliners look at this as ideological contamination. Other people look at it as the unleashing of entrepreneurial  freedoms.

A black market for home sales is thriving in North Korea even though all residential houses are owned by the government and trading on them is forbidden, sources inside the reclusive country say.

Corrupt officials approve the illegal transfer of the homes in exchange for bribes as they cash in on an acute shortage of homes, the sources told RFA’s Korean Service.

Houses in the more affluent districts are much sought after and traded through brokers who milk the sellers and buyers of commission and pay bribes to the relevant officials, the sources said.

Residential homes in areas along or near the border with China enjoy a certain premium due to the bustling bilateral trade and the ability of homeowners to use mobile phones using signals obtained from Chinese transmission stations.  

The “sale” of government real estate is now widespread in North Korea, said a source in Sinuiju, the capital of North Pyongan province and part of a special administrative region across the border from Dandong in China’s Liaoning province.

“There are many brokers who sell houses and usually get 1 percent of the price as commission from both the seller and buyer,” the source told RFA’s Korean Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They offer bribes to [officials in] the department of housing allocation, so they can easily solve the matter of obtaining a ‘license’ to get into a house legally,” he said.

He said flourishing trade and a lack of sufficient homes have allowed residents in cities across the border with China to sell the homes they have been assigned by the state to other individuals at huge costs.

“Houses in Sinuiju are sold at a higher price than those in Pyongyang—although they are not the same price as the Chinese houses in Dandong on the other side of the river,” he said.

“It is easy to earn money by ‘selling’ them because they act as gates to China.”

Virtual housing market

Private ownership of homes is illegal in North Korea, but residents of Pyongyang who make frequent trips to China and residents of cities on the border between the two countries told RFA it is no longer strange to hear about “sales” of government properties between individuals.

According to a virtual housing market for North Korean civilians, the country’s most expensive homes are located in Sinuiju, with Hyesan city in northern Yanggang province next in cost and Pyongyang in third.

A single family home or large apartment in what is deemed a good location in Sinuiju can fetch around U.S. $30,000, while those in the suburbs of Pyongyang and other border cities are priced less.

While houses are being built everyday in Pyongyang to supply a growing demand, it is difficult to find new homes in other cities, leading to a rise in the cost of real estate, the sources said.

A resident of Hyesan told RFA that homes in cities like his, near the border with China, command the highest prices on the black market because they provide access to Chinese money and infrastructure.

“I can’t say all houses in Hyesan are expensive, but those which are good for the smuggling trade and receive a clear Chinese cell phone signal are really high priced,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Several houses by the riverside are even priced similarly to Chinese houses on the opposite side of the border in [Jilin province’s] Changbai city,” he said.

Sources told RFA that the North Korean government has canceled licenses several times in recent years, issuing statements which describe the practice of housing transactions as an “offence against the system of the North Korea.”

But attempts to stamp out the trend have repeatedly failed as those involved in the sales include untouchable high-ranking officials and because the practice is too far reaching.

Reported by Joon Ho Kim for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Goeun Yu. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

For a long time, Jo Jin Hye led two lives. Most people knew her as a home health-care manager living outside Washington D.C., or as a night student at a high school for adults.

But she had also become one of the United States’ leading activists for human rights in North Korea, her native country. She is called night and day by North Koreans half a world away in desperate need of advice, contacts,  or money.

“Sometimes,” she says, “I am on the phone from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m., when defectors are attempting an escape.”

These defectors are beginning a journey that Jo Jin Hye, now 25, began at age 10 with her mother Han Song Hwa and younger sister Jo Eun Hye, also called Grace Jo, in 1998 amid a famine in North Korea’s Hamgyeong Province, on the Chinese border.

Their escape followed the loss of half their family. Jo Jin Hye’s grandmother and newborn brother died of starvation, her older sister disappeared after setting out for China in search of food, and her father was tortured by security agents after crossing the border and bringing back a sack of rice. He died while in prison.

The family were labeled “anti-state traitors” for entering China, and police and men from the Bowibu, the National Security Agency, threatened to burn down their house if they did not leave their village.

Her mother fled with Jo Jin Hye for the border, carrying seven-year-old Grace Jo, who was malnourished, in a sack on her back. They walked for three days and nights before holding hands and wading through the waist-high currents of the Tumen River into China.

But Han had no way to bring her five-year-old son and had left him with neighbors, promising to return for him in five days. The person she later hired in China to fetch him reported that the little boy had been put out by their neighbors, who were famished and didn’t have enough to feed another mouth.

The boy had wandered into a nearby field, crying out, “Mommy, sister! When are you coming back?” He, too, succumbed to starvation.

Struggle to survive

Once in China, Han and her daughters struggled to survive and evade deportation back to North Korea. China ignores international law prohibiting the forced repatriation of refugees, presumably fearing that if they accept any North Koreans, this will trigger a flood.

The Jo-Han family spent much of the next 10 years living as fugitives in China.

“We kept getting arrested, separated, and united again,” Jo Jin Hye said. “We … waited for each other in places where we knew we could establish contact.”

They were repeatedly caught, jailed, and sent back to North Korea, where they were sometimes imprisoned and tortured.

“I was slapped until my face was swollen,” said Jo Jin Hye. “They pulled my hair so hard that my head was half-bald.”

Eventually they would be released and, by paying bribes, flee across the river again.

While in China, both sisters were jailed at one point for 15 months for helping other North Korean defectors. Both were also repatriated, usually separately—Grace Jo twice and Jo Jin Hye four times. Their mother was also repatriated four times.

Whenever they were caught by Chinese police, Han and Jo Jin Hye would swallow money wrapped in plastic for later use in North Korea.

Somehow, after these long periods of separation, Han always found her daughters. Jo Jin Hye herself once spent three months tracking down her younger sister.

Whenever they could, they would resume living together in China until one or more of them was arrested again. Grace Jo lived in constant fear that her mother would suddenly disappear.

Help from others

Grace Jo wound up living with several Chinese families who were ethnic Koreans. Once she became a teenager, Jo Jin Hye was on her own for part of the time. She turned for help to the friends of people she got to know in North Korean prisons and labor camps.

Eventually the family was befriended by Pastor Philli Buck, a Christian missionary who was Korean-American. At one point he looked after them for a year.

Both sisters became fluent in Chinese, and Grace Jo got a little schooling. But like her mother, Jo Jin Hye—being older—always had to work. She would earn money in one restaurant until the police came to check papers, and would then run away to find work at another.

From time to time, she would find her mother and Grace Jo and give them some of her wages.

The family survived by their wits until they were aided by the underground railroad that smuggles North Korean refugees from China to welcoming countries.

In 2006, after Han and her daughters had been repatriated once again to North Korea and were in Bowibu custody, they expected to be publicly executed or sent to a camp for political prisoners after admitting they were Christians, knew American missionaries, and had helped other defectors try to reach South Korea.

Pastor Buck quickly raised U.S. $10,000 from American congregations and offered it through brokers to Bowibu agents for the family’s freedom. As a result, the three were charged with misdemeanors rather than serious crimes, and after promising high-level Bowibu officers they would remain in North Korea, they were released.

They had no intention of keeping their promise.

From China to America

Pastor Buck then arranged for brokers to get them out of North Korea and to Beijing, where the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees gave them lodging and protection. Finally, after more than a year, they were granted asylum in the United States.

Two months after they arrived, Jo Jin Hye and other refugees were invited to meet with then President George W. Bush. She then staged a hunger strike in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington to protest Beijing’s forced repatriation of North Korean refugees.

After 16 days, she was hospitalized. Her strike did help draw attention to the issue, but China’s policy did not change.

Like many other refugees, the Jo-Hans had their share of hard times in the United States, including a short spell of homelessness after their landlord, who rented them two rooms in his house, became intolerable. He had imposed a curfew and was unreasonable about their taking showers.

They finally left. The landlord refused to give them back their belongings, and they had to go to the police to recover them.

In addition, like other North Koreans, they were treated as inferior by some Korean-Americans. But today they have two cars, a suburban apartment, and jobs in home health care. Jo Jin Hye and Grace Jo are A-students and have professional ambitions.

Somehow, the traumatic events they suffered in North Korea during the famine and following their deportations have never thrown them off their stride.

A number of Americans and Korean-Americans have also stepped forward to aid and befriend the family. A Korean pastor has been a mentor to them even after they moved and changed churches.  A former Clinton administration official gives them legal advice, two Korean interpreters have helped them in public appearances, and several individuals have tutored the sisters in their studies.

Members of their two Korean-American churches have lent a hand in many ways.

'The right connections'

Both financially and culturally, observers agree, the family has fared unusually well in comparison with the other 150 or so North Koreans living in the United States.

Greg Scarlatoiu, director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, based in Washington, cites their hard work, friendly personalities, and good fortune in having made “the right connections here.”

Their mentor, Pastor Heemoon Lee, also notes that unlike most North Koreans, who come alone, they had the great advantage of having arrived together as a family.  Moreover, Lee adds, their deep Christian faith has bolstered them and helped connect them to the Korean-American community.

Living underground in China for so many years no doubt also schooled them in how to deal with adversity.

Jo Jin Hye did something unusual while chasing the American dream—she founded a small nonprofit organization called NKUS to help other North Koreans escape and to support fellow refugees in the United States.

Her mother and sister pitch in, and NKUS now has more than a dozen supporters:  Americans, Koreans, and nine other defectors.

“Despite all they experienced, which would make you want to leave it all behind, they instead are so committed to helping their brothers and sisters here in the USA, rescuing refugees out of China, and helping bring about change in North Korea,” said Suzanne Scholte, chair of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, in an e-mailed comment.

Through NKUS, the family has already been instrumental in helping at least six defectors in China reach a third country. NKUS also recently sponsored a church benefit concert in a Washington suburb that drew 300 people and raised $3,000.

The proceeds were intended to smuggle a female defector’s two nephews out of North Korea before they could be sent to prison as a punishment for her defection. The concert featured North Korean pianist Kim Cheol Woong, who defected in 2001.

The Jo-Han family finances NKUS by selling Korean food at church bazaars and festivals and by donating most of the money they receive for public speaking. Jo and her mother speak about oppression in North Korea at churches and universities all over the United States and in South Korea, and have both testified before Congress.

Outspoken and blunt, they are determined that others know what is happening to the people of North Korea. Few others in the United States can speak about that firsthand.

Peter Slavin is a U.S.-based freelance journalist.

Press freedom took a knock in Hong Kong, Cambodia, and Thailand while Burma chalked up the best gains for media reforms in Asia over the past year, says an annual global survey.

Only five percent of Asia's population had access to a "free" media in 2012, while 47 percent lived in "partly free" and 48 percent in "not free" media environments, according to the "Freedom of the Press 2013" survey released Wednesday by Washington-based Freedom House.

It cited a "worrying deterioration" in press freedom in Cambodia as well as in Thailand, which has been downgraded to "not free" from the "partly free" category.

Cambodia

Cambodia's score has worsened "due to an increase in the number of journalists behind bars" and "a significant rise in threats and physical violence against the press, including the first murder of a reporter since 2008," the report said.

It referred to the jailing last year of independent radio station owner Mam Sonando, who was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the outlet's coverage of land disputes.

Mam Sonando was convicted in October on charges of instigating insurrection, drawing protests from rights groups who accused Prime Minister Hun Sen of muzzling criticism against his rule.

A Cambodian appeals court in March however quashed that ruling, dropped most of the charges, reduced the sentence to time served and ordered his release.

Freedom House said that despite the release, there was a "continuing negative trend" in media freedom in Cambodia ahead of crucial elections in July.

"Media owners continue to face pressure and harassment, which is quite worrisome," Karin Karlekar, Freedom House Project Director for Freedom of the Press, told a press conference.

Thailand has been put back into the "not free" category "due to a trend of aggressive enforcement of lese-majesté laws," Freedom House said.

Critics say the lese-majeste laws are used as a political tool to discredit and silence opponents. Those found guilty of insulting the Thai royal family can serve up to 15 years in jail for each offense.

In a case that was widely denounced by rights groups, an ex-magazine editor was jailed for 10 years in January after he was found guilty of publishing articles defaming King Bhumibol in 2010.

Hong Kong

China's special administrative region Hong Kong's score also declined in a reflection of "growing government restrictions on journalists' access to information and several violent and technical attacks against reporters, websites, and media entities," Freedom House said.

In addition, Beijing's efforts to influence media production in the territory intensified and touched on internal Hong Kong politics, marking a departure from past trends in which the targets of Chinese pressure were primarily voices and topics regarded as politically sensitive on the mainland, the report said.

In January, journalists in Hong Kong, a former British colony which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, ran a petition in newspapers urging the city’s Beijing-backed leader to withdraw a proposed law which they said would infringe press freedom.

Local and foreign journalists are opposed to a government plan to restrict access to information about company directors after such details were used in a series of investigative reports to expose the wealth of Chinese officials.

Hong Kong maintains a semi-autonomous status with guarantees of civil liberties—including press freedom—not seen in mainland China.

Taiwan's media freedom score also declined slightly as regulatory delays in approving a license for a new television station compelled the owner to declare that the project was no longer financially sustainable.

Burma

But Burma, where reform-minded President Thein Sein's nominally civilian government has been implementing political and other reforms after five decades of harsh military rule, registered the survey's largest numerical improvement of the year due to "people's increased ability to access information" and the release of imprisoned bloggers and video journalists, among other factors.

Freedom House also cited other "positive" factors such as an end to official prepublication censorship and dissolution of the censorship body, the establishment of several independent journalists' and publishers' associations, fewer cases of harassment and attacks against journalists, improved access for the foreign media, greater access to foreign radio broadcasts and the Internet, and some progress toward a new media law.

However, it cautioned against restrictions maintained on ethnic minority journalists and coverage of ethnic violence between minority Muslim Rohingyas and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in Rakhine state.

It also said that efforts to repeal "restrictive" legislation and reconcile the new media law with international press freedom standards have encountered official resistance.

China

In China, home to the world's most sophisticated censorship apparatus, Freedom House said the installation of a new Chinese Communist Party leadership did not produce any immediate relaxation of constraints on either traditional media or the Internet.

In fact, it said, the Chinese regime, which boasts the world's most intricate and elaborate system of media repression, stepped up its drive to limit both old and new sources of information through arrests and censorship.

Still, China registered a modest improvement in scores in the Freedom House survey as microblogs and other online tools "enhanced Chinese citizens' ability to share and access uncensored information, particularly regarding breaking news stories."

There were fewer cases of violence against professional journalists and high-profile social media activists reported in China in 2012 than during the previous year, and several public outcries and online campaigns have been credited with driving the news agenda or forcing government concessions.

North Korea

North Korea, one of the world’s worst-rated countries, also saw a "slight improvement" in scores as a result of increased attempts to circumvent stringent censorship and the use of technologies such as smuggled DVDs to spread news and information, Freedom House said.

But Karlekar said there were no signs of media reforms under North Korea's new young leader Kim Jong Un although there has been "increased access by citizens to information" via entry of flash drives, videotapes, and other material from abroad due to economic opening.

There were little improvements in Asia's other restrictive media environments, such as  Laos and Vietnam, Freedom House said.

Asia's regional average score however has improved slightly, "as negative movement in the legal category was outweighed by positive change in both the political and economic categories," Freedom House said.