Defectors nearly always parrot prevailing scare tactics of a society, regardless of the veracity of those statements. You can see that today with North Korean

Defectors nearly always parrot prevailing scare tactics of a society, regardless of the veracity of those statements. You can see that today with North Korean defectors. Is North Korea an awful country with mind boggling human rights violations? Absolutely. Are North Korean defectors heavily incentived to come up with increasingly out there stories, even stories that are contradicted by their previous stories because they're shunned by ROK society at large and have trouble finding other sources of income than selling tales to the media that won't be fact checked? Also true.