Cell Phones Insure Safe Passage of People and Information from North Korea

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(Newswire.net — June 12, 2013) Jackson, WY — While watching bodies float down the Yalu or Amnok River, North Korean, Hyeonseo Lee, contemplated her own  harrowing escape.  Years later she guided her family into China and then Laos and eventually to freedom in South Korea using cell phones as the primary means of communication across thousands of miles of dangerous terrain.  Maintaining the working integrity of the phones while fording rivers or hiding them from the sight of armed guards is crucial in these desperate journeys that range from paying off prison guards and border patrol. 

In 2013 users on the internet were encouraged to help in a community based event on Google Maps. These users could use google map-maker, along with Cartography and Telemetry tools that eventually created a virtual map of the capital city, Pyongyang and political prison camp locations such as Camp 22.

The North is a place where people can go to prison for life enduring  hard labor, torture, starvation, rape, murder, medical experimentation, and forced abortions for simply listening to the South Korean radio or singing a Southern song.  People are often sent to these camps without trial. There are estimates of as many as 400,000 deaths in concentration camps  from 1948 to 1987.  Living in a world as harsh as North Korea, it is understandable why people seek to escape and in some cases smuggle information even at risk of their own deaths; and why they need reliable cell phones to maintain vital communication with those who are waiting on the other side.

The waterproof iphone case has become crucial in changing the lives of families and even entire countries such as North Korea. Phones with video footage have been smuggled out of the North showing the stark realities of life there, as well as the ways in which change is already evident on the political level, mainly from mobile phones. A waterproof iphone case has become a necessity where phones can be hidden in mud, water buckets, maybe even in toilets to insure they continue to function for brave citizen journalists who may need to hide them from the ever punishing government agents.

More of this story can be found here: https://newswire.net/newsroom/pr/73202-waterproof_iphone_case.html.

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By Gutchquena Mann and Cynthia Nodland and can be found on Google +.

Gutchquena Mann and Dr. Cynthia Nodland are Freelance Journalists