The magazine Rimjingang, whose Japanese version was published for the first time Thursday, aims to let the world know what is really happening in North Korea through the eyes of its own citizens and to connect them to the outside world, the magazine's editors said.
"If the situation continues like this, the current hardship that North Korean citizens face will hardly be kept on record," Jiro Ishimaru, a journalist and representative of the Osaka office of Asia Press International, an organization of freelance journalists, told a news conference in Tokyo.
Ishimaru's office organizes the magazine's reporting team, which has six North Koreans contributing articles from the reclusive state, as well as several supporters helping their operations.