In a special Whole School Assembly on Tuesday 12 November, we were honoured to welcome Mr Timothy Cho to the College.
Mr Cho is a North Korean human rights activist and two-time defector. He has been imprisoned four times in North Korea and China. Today, Mr Cho is Secretariat of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea. He has studied a BA in International Relations and Politics at the University of Salford and an MA in International Relations and Security from the University of Liverpool. He has also spoken at the UN and the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy and in his Assembly speech, Mr Cho spoke about his life in North Korea, his attempts to escape, and his life after.
On life in North Korea, Mr Cho spoke of the strict and harsh life that faced citizens. Uniformity was enforced – clothes, hair, actions – and there were harsh punishments awaiting those who stepped out of line. The things that we as British citizens can do easily and freely in the UK are non-existent in North Korea.
At the age of 9, Mr Cho’s parents fled North Korea, abandoning him to become a homeless member of the ‘hostile class’ - families of defectors. He talked about his life from then, detailing the struggles that he faced and the horrors he experienced. At 17, Mr Cho attempted to escape – his first attempt. Following his capture in China, he was sent back to North Korea and imprisoned. Deproved of food and medicine and crammed in a cell with over 50 other people, Mr Cho still remembers the screams and the scars still show.
Upon his release from jail, Mr Cho knew that he had to try to escape again. Travelling with a group, they made their way to an international school in Shanghai where they were captured and imprisoned. Knowing that he was to be executed upon his return to North Korea, all seemed lost for Mr Cho. It was in that prison that he first prayed to God. In North Korea, there is no religion or higher deity, and citizens are expected to swear unwavering loyalty to the regime.
After months of praying every day, he was visited by two men who told him that one of the students in Shanghai had taken a photo during their arrest and shared it with a journalist. The BBC, Washington Post, and many other news organizations reported on it which forced China to not send them back to North Korea.
After receiving diplomatic immunity, Mr Cho was sent to Thailand, South Korea, and later to the UK where he has lived since. Leading now a pollical life, he advocates for a free North Korea. His final message to our pupils was a challenge. A challenge to be the best version of ourselves, and to speak and to act on behalf of the millions of people like him still in North Korea.
Thank you, Mr Cho, for taking the time to speak to our pupils who we are sure will have been inspired by your story.
