Alek Sigley was detained by North Korea late last month, after spending more than a year in the country as a foreign student; he has since been deported. Prior to his detention, he spoke to ABC News about what everyday life was like in Pyongyang:
But there was one key factor that set him apart: he was studying in North Korea, one of the world's most isolated, secretive nations.
Sigley broke his silence on Twitter several days later, saying the allegation that he is a spy is"false" and he won't be answering questions about the incident. Sigley added that, although he is"still very interested" in North Korea and wants to continue his studies, he currently has"no plans to visit the country again, at least in the short term."
Sigley, who grew up in Perth, became interested in North Korea while he was an undergraduate student majoring in Asian studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. He studied abroad in China in 2011, where he lived in a dormitory at Shanghai's Fudan University and happened to be on the same floor as North Korean students.
Sigley made his first trip to North Korea in 2012 as a tourist, spending five nights in Pyongyang. He met some people there in the local travel industry who inspired him a year later to start Tongil Tours, an Australian-based company that specializes in educational tourism to North Korea. After being released from detention earlier this month, Sigley announced via Twitter that"Tongil Tours will be cancelling all its tours until further notice.
"It was a bit of a tense wait," Sigley said, adding that it took about two years from when he first began inquiring to when he found out that he was accepted into the graduate program. One of the more recent cases is Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was arrested in Pyongyang in January 2016 for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda poster while he was visiting North Korea on a sightseeing tour organized by a China-based company. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. After nearly 17 months in detention, Warmbier was released and medically evacuated to the United States in June 2017.
Yet North Korea maintains one of the world's largest standing armed forces. In its most recent human rights report, the Korean Institute for National Unification, a think tank funded by the South Korean government, stated that ongoing food shortages for farmers in North Korea were a result of the government's discriminatory food rationing based on class and prioritization of military rationing.
The Pyongyang Metro, located some 360 feet beneath the capital, is how many residents commute each day. Built in the 1970s, the bustling subway system is made up of 16 stations, some of which boast bright chandeliers and massive mosaics, often depicting North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. Sigley said he dressed plainly and is half-Chinese, which allowed him to"blend in" better than some other foreigners.Authorities rarely stopped him to ask for identification, he said, unless he was trying to catch the metro with one of his classmates who's European and sticks out.
Sigley described one instance when he was traveling back from Pyongyang International Airport after seeing off a friend who was visiting. Sigley was stopped at a military checkpoint when trying to re-enter the capital and he still hadn't been issued his foreign student ID, so the rifle-bearing soldiers had to bring him into a room for questioning.
"It's still a very closed society and, in that respect, there's still a lot of restrictions," Sigley told ABC News. He described the university buildings as tall and modern, and each one has a massive slogan on the exterior. The tallest building on campus has a common North Korean slogan that lights up in red at nighttime so the students can see it from their dormitories. It reads,"The great leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Un will always be with us," according to Sigley.
Students don't hang out on the lawns reading books or playing sports, like you often see at universities in Western nations, Sigley said. Rather, the North Korean students are often seen cleaning and maintaining the campus, such as mopping the hallway floors and weeding the flower beds.Fashion is a form of expression of art and one's identity. But Sigley said it's under strict limitations in North Korea.
Sigley said he had also seen an increasingly colorful and modern array of womenswear promoted in North Korean fashion magazines, which are regulated by the government. High heels are all the rage now, and every woman -- from office workers to security guards -- can be seen wearing them in Pyongyang, according to Sigley.
The country's cellular networks along with a relatively new Wi-Fi service allow citizens in Pyongyang with mobile phones and other portable devices to access the intranet network, but not the global internet, according to Sigley. Most of these restaurants, however, are not accessible to tourists and are too expensive for the average North Korean. They are largely patronized by the elite and foreigners. There are cheaper restaurants frequented by locals that typically offer just Korean dishes, according to Sigley.
Sigley was in Pyongyang at the time and said there was immense interest in the summit among locals, who followed the extensive coverage of the big event on North Korea's state-run media. Sigley said he asked his North Korean roommate at the time how locals were reacting to the outcome of the summit. He told Sigley that they viewed it as a success on the part of their leader but were still awaiting actual change, particularly in sanctions.
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