Lead curtain: an overview of everyday life in North Korea

Being a journalist entering North Korea as a tourist, and trying to go unnoticed as the only westerner on a Chinese tour group, gives me the creeps. I know that I can get into real trouble if someone finds out that I was sent there to write a story for a magazine.

In February 2014, after interviewing 240 refugees of the regime, the United Nations ranked North Korea at the top of the list of human rights violating countries. In 400 pages, there are reports about systematic torture, deliberate starvation, and massacres at levels close to the Nazi genocide. Oblivious to all of this, Kim Jong-un lead the communist party to a massive victory in the legislative elections last month, with 100% of the votes for the national parliament on a heavily state-controlled process. Did anyone from inside North Korea raise any suspicious on the results? Of course not!