Kim Seong-min

Kim Seong-min (; 1962 – 12 September 2025) was a North Korean–born democracy activist who was the director of Free North Korea Radio.

In 1996, while serving as a propaganda writer for the North Korean army, Kim defected and fled to China. He was captured by Chinese authorities, interrogated, and sent back on a train to Pyongyang, where he was to be executed. Kim jumped from the moving train and made it back to China, eventually escaping to South Korea in 1999.

In 2004, Kim helped to establish Free North Korea Radio, which has received awards and recognition from Reporters Without Borders, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, and the Bush administration.

Life in North Korea Kim Seong-min was born in 1962 in Huichon, Chagang, North Korea, His father, Kim Sun-sok, was a poet and a professor at Kim Il Sung University. Kim Seong-min also aspired to be a poet, writing in both North and South Korea.

In 1978, after finishing high school, Kim joined the North Korean army and served for the mandatory 10 year period in the 620th Camp artillery unit.

Kim was motivated to begin broadcasting news and information into North Korea in part after listening to KBS programming, which used honorifics to refer to Kim Jong Il. He said, "This was not the way radio stations should be referring to Kim Jong Il if they were trying to subvert the listeners." At the same time, South Korea stopped broadcasting into North Korea. Kim said, "We realized it could be, and should be, up to us North Korean defectors to start broadcasts into North Korea." He had also been inspired, when still in North Korea, by leaflets dropped from aircraft sent from South Korea, and by an illegally held radio. His interview is a permanent feature of the George W. Bush Institute Freedom Collection.

Security threats Kim Seong-min lived with 24-hour police protection due to threats on his life from the North Korean government. as well as a phone call warning him that his sisters would be hurt if he continued to criticize North Korea.

Kim died from metastatic lung cancer in Seoul on 12 September 2025, at the age of 63.