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Australian Chinese student exposes detained North Korea details: dormitory is forced into false confession

Source: xkb.com.au
[Current News]     16 Jan 2020
Yang peijun was last year detained9. (Photo of the Aussies) Alek Sigley, an Australian Chinese student, was briefly detained in North Korea last year for spying on accusation. A few days ago, he first released the details of his detention, said he was abducted by the North Korean secret police, and was forced to falsely confess. Yang has been detained in North Korea for nine days since June 25, ac...
Australian Chinese student exposes detained North Korea details: dormitory is forced into false confession

Yang peijun was last year detained9. (Photo by the Aussies)


Alek Sigley, a Chinese-Australian student, was briefly detained in North Korea last year for spying on accusation. A few days ago, he first released the details of his detention, said he was abducted by the North Korean secret police, and was forced to falsely confess.

Yang has been detained in North Korea for nine days since June 25, according to Reuters and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was studying at Kim Il-sung University for academic degree, a graduate student in North Korean literature and is believed to be the only Aussie living in the country.

Yang was also the founder of Tongil Tours travel agency before he lost contact with relatives and friends on social media. The company is based in Australia and has been organizing tours to the DPRK since 2013.

Yang Peijun was released with the assistance of Swedish officials and later deported by the DPRK.

North Korea`s state-run KCNA news agency said Mr Yang had committed "espionage ", including handing over data and photo collected using the identity of a foreign student to the" anti-state "media agency.

In addition to denying that he was a spy and saying he was sorry to be unable to re-enter North Korea, Mr Yang did not make details of his detention public.

In a recent article in the North Korea Monthly, published by the North Korean Institute in Seoul`s North Korea Research Institute, Mr Yang said it was suspected that agents from North Korea`s National Security Service had "abducted" him from university quarters and said the security ministry resembled the former Democratic German National Security Agency.

"I`m innocent, but they`re making a false claim to me," he wrote, without elaborating. "They forced me to make a statement and spared no effort to teach me some lessons. This written confession is mixed with the legal reasoning of fabricating evidence, crime and illogicality. "

Yang said on Twitter on Wednesday that he had previously avoided speaking directly to the media in order to "use his words" to tell his story.

The article, published in the Korean Monthly Journal, also includes details about Mr Yang`s childhood and life as a foreign student in North Korea.

Referring to what happened to the detained koreans, mr. yang said he was "completely isolated" from the outside world during the period of detain and therefore "did not know" when he was released. At the time, Australia was working with other countries to ensure its freedom.

"They succeeded in giving me a lesson: the falsehood of the Korean judicial system "... he said.

The KCNA news agency earlier claimed that Mr Yang had joined forces with foreign media such as the "NK News" website to spy and incite, and said the deportation was out of "humanitarian leniency ".

And Chad O ' Carroll, the chief executive of North Korea`s news website, dismissed the notion that Mr Yang`s work constituted spying. In a statement, he said:" mr yang`s op-eds are highly read, presenting a unique view of the depoliticization of life in pyongyang. We publish these articles to show readers a fragment of Pyongyang`s daily life. "

"The six articles published by Yang Peijun are all about working with us. (The DPRK) considers that these op-eds, which he published publicly between January and April 2019, are "anti-State" in nature and are distorting the facts, which we do not accept. "said O`Carlo.

In these articles, Yang said he had a strong interest in East Asia and said," My father is an Australian British Sinologist, my mother is from Shanghai "and my wife is from Japan. He also wrote in his blog:" The love of Japanese anime in my childhood led me to study in Japan for a year, and then I came to Beijing for a year, and I studied philosophy at Fudan University in Shanghai for two years, learning Mandarin and contacting my Chinese roots. "

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