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SEOUL, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- South Korean films and shows pose a threat to the Kim Jong Un regime because they tell the truth about life in the outside world to North Koreans, a defector in Seoul told UPI. Jung Gwang-il, a North Korean defector and activist who survived abuses at a North Korean prison camp before resettling in the South, said his projects involving smuggling of media content on thumb drives and memory cards have a greater impact on North Koreans than meets the eye.
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"Media content from the outside world show exactly how life is in capitalist societies," Jung said. "In North Korea you cannot freely drink a glass of soju [distilled liquor]. North Koreans cannot eat when they want to eat. In South Korea, if you want barbecue and soju, you can eat whenever, wherever."
North Koreans also learn through smuggled media that South Koreans, unlike themselves, can travel to distant cities without the permission of authorities.
"In South Korean films and dramas, the background shows life exactly as it is in South Korea. Everything a person chooses, he chooses out of freedom, Freedom of movement, it's all in South Korean television shows."
The assessment from the noted activist comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly harder to deliver information into North Korea. Rights advocates say their work is being discouraged in the South.
Jung, who recently spoke at a human rights conference in Seoul hosted by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said engagement with Pyongyang without a human rights component is fruitless.
"What is peace without human rights? I don't need that kind of peace," Jung said, adding South Koreans need to think more about the condition of the North Korean people.
Kim Jong Un a 'wolf turned sheep'
Park Sang-hak, the defector who heads Fighters for a Free North Korea and was nearly assassinated in 2011 for sending in balloons with outside information, had stronger words for South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his engagement with Pyongyang.
Moon's efforts to bring peace to the peninsula comes with limitations and has legitimized Kim Jong Un on the world stage, Park said during the recent Seoul conference.
"A wolf has turned into a sheep," Park said, referring to Kim's image makeover following summits with world leaders.
"Moon Jae-in believed in Kim Jong Un's words, and worked to raise Kim Jong Un's profile in the international community."
Park said the South Korean public was not notified ahead of time of Moon's second summit with Kim at Panmunjom, after U.S. President Donald Trump decided to cancel the Singapore summit.
The general media excitement over the summits has also cast a shadow of "grave misunderstanding" among South Koreans about the nature of the regime.
"College students who don't know how to eat Pyongyang [cold noodles] were lining up outside restaurants in South Korea," Park, a naturalized South Korean citizen, said. "That they were lining up to eat the noodles liked by this cruel person, Kim Jong Un, I thought, 'Can we really fooled to this degree?'"
Seoul has largely stayed away from addressing the thorny issue of human rights as North Korea continues to warn the South and the United States.
As recently as July, Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun stated Seoul and Washington must "kick aside its anachronistic human rights pressure play that provokes the opposing party," while higher priorities, including denuclearization, are at stake.
Jung, who had to fold a project employing drones to smuggle in media content into North Korea from the China border, is feeling the impact of North Korea's counter-pressure on human rights.
"I was planning to do an event at the United Nations General Assembly, but because there are so many issues, I'm not sure if I can do it," Jung told UPI.
"It is a bad environment for human rights activism."
