Acording to the Netherlands Media Network:
A Seoul-based rights group said today that it has supplied contacts in North Korea with satellite phones to expand news coverage of the secretive communist state and minimise the use of riskier cellphones. Free North Korea Radio, run by North Korean defectors, said it gave satphones to “correspondents” in the North five months ago to try to break down the wall of secrecy.
Several rights groups in South Korea have contacts who relay news via Chinese cellphones with pre-paid cards, but these work only in border areas. Free North Korea Radio, which broadcasts to the North on shortwave as well as running an Internet service, said the satphones give it access to information from more parts of the country.
“Three satellite phones, on top of cellphones, have been in use since last October to bring more live and direct news out of North Korea,” its head Kim Seong-Min told AFP. The three satellite phone operators are based in the capital Pyongyang and the southwest, Mr Kim added. He said they helped spread reports last week that Pak Nam-Ki, a top financial official, had been executed for a failed currency revaluation.
Read the full story here:
Free North Korea Radio correspondents use satphones
Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Andy Sennitt
3/2/2010
