Face of Nation : An Australian academic and blogger missing in North Korea may have angered authorities in his adopted country by writing a series of articles for a website about North Korea.
Alex Sigley, who is originally from Perth, has not been heard from by family and friends since Tuesday morning Australian time.
Australian embassy officials in Seoul and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) are “urgently” trying to confirm South Korean media reports of Mr Sigley’s arrest but admitted to news.com.au they still had no idea where he is.
The 29-year-old juggles management of a tour company bringing foreign students into North Korea for educational visits with his studies at the prestigious Kim Il Sung University, where he is taking a masters in Korean literature.
North Korea specialist Dr Leonid Petrov, a friend of Mr Sigley and a lecturer at the Australian National University, told news.com.au that the Australian’s Facebook account had been shut down — possibly by North Korean authorities.
However, Mr Sigley’s family has since disclosed that his relatives assumed control of his social media in the search for clues to his whereabouts.
There has been speculation that Mr Sigley, a prolific blogger of all things North Korean, was placed in lockdown ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to South Korea for security reasons.
“There has been talk about a possible meeting between Trump and (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un in the demilitarised zone of Panmunjom,” Dr Petrov told news.com.au.
“If Alek witnessed any preparations for this on the streets of Pyongyang, it’s possible they decided to play it safe and place him somewhere for security reasons because they don’t want these arrangements to get out.”
The second possibility is Mr Sigley has been involved in some kind of accident. The third scenario involves authorities questioning him over his association with news website NK News.org.
The site has a section on North Korean defectors and is regarded with suspicion by North Korean authorities, according to Dr Petrov.
Mr Sigley has written a string of articles for the website since January this year, none of them remotely political in nature. Instead they focus on the food, culture and sights of Pyongyang.
Chad O’Carroll, the CEO of Korea Risk Group which publishes the NK News, said Mr Petrov’s assertion about the NK News was incorrect and said site was not hostile to North Korea in any way.
Mr Sigley has been heavily profiled about life in the notoriously secretive country by several media organisations, including Sky News, The Guardian and Public International Radio (PRI).
Three months ago, Mr Sigley wrote an article for The Guardian in which he talked about being able to move around the capital unchaperoned and dine wherever he liked.
In February, he was featured in an article for PRI titled “Twitter and Cocoa Pops: The surprising life of a student in North Korea”.
He also has a blog called From Perth to Pyongyang where he has posted dozens of articles raving about the country’s food, culture and geography.
“Everything is controlled in North Korea, and so everything Alek wrote, whether it was on his blogs or social media, would have been monitored,” Dr Petrov told news.com.au
“So something has been triggered in the past few days to downgrade his status as a trusted foreigner with access to people and places others do not normally enjoy.
“It’s possible he was in a traffic accident and is in hospital and doesn’t want to speak with anyone, but in those circumstances it’s difficult to imagine he would leave his family in the dark.”
Asked what kind of place Mr Sigley would be held in if he was in the custody of authorities, Dr Petrov said the North Koreans had “a whole network” of guesthouses and hotel rooms just for that purpose.
“Regardless of whether his status has been downgraded or not, Mr Sigley is regarded as a friend of North Korea, so I believe his disappearance is not catastrophic but it is complicated,” he said.
“North Koreans treat foreigners with respect and they have a whole network of hotel rooms and guesthouses used for holding people. The rooms, of course, are heavily monitored, and so if you say anything that concerns then the next thing is you have a security guard at your hotel room door.”
Dr Petrov said if there was no word from Mr Sigley by Monday, that would be a real cause for concern.
“It’s been three or four days now that nobody has heard from him, so that is a worry but it’s not catastrophic — yet,” he said.
“If by Monday, when the Trump visit is over, we still haven’t heard from him then I think that would be very concerning.”
On Thursday afternoon, Mr Sigley’s family issued a statement confirming they remained unsure of his fate.
“As of 1pm (AEST), it has not been confirmed that Alek has been detained in the DPRK,” it said.
“The situation is that Alek has not been in digital contact with friends and family since Tuesday morning Australian time, which is unusual for him.
“Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is therefore seeking to confirm his whereabouts and welfare.
“Alek is an Australian-born Asian scholar and traveller who has visited, studied and lived in several countries in Asia. Alek can speak Mandarin and Korean fluently along with some Japanese.
“He is studying for a Masters in Korean literature at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. Alek’s family hope to re-establish contact with him soon.”
A DFAT spokesman said the Australian Embassy in Seoul was trying to get to the bottom of the case.
“The embassy in South Korea is working hard to find him,” a DFAT spokesman told news.com.au on Thursday.
“It has not been established positively whether or not he has been detained, but we are working very hard to clarify that.”
The spokesperson said authorities had information relating to when Mr Sigley was last seen but were not releasing it for the moment.
Australia has no diplomatic mission of its own in Pyongyang and is represented in North Korea by the Swedish Embassy.
While he has undoubtedly drawn attention to himself with his prolific tweeting and blogging, Mr Sigley’s observations about his adopted country are overwhelmingly positive.
He posts rave reviews about Pyongyang’s restaurants, for example, and rhapsodises about the beauty of the North Korean people and their language.
His tour company is top rated on TripAdvisor and those who have left reviews say things like “a treasured experience” and “extraordinary” and “highly informative five star trips”.
Executive producer for Sky News’ AM Agenda, Trudy McIntosh, went on one of Mr Sigley’s tours in 2013 and said she “never heard him say anything inappropriate”.
“It’s alarming to see this happen to him,” she tweeted this morning, adding she hoped reports of his detention were “false”.
On May 4 last year, Mr Sigley married his long-time Japanese girlfriend Yuka Morinaga in a wedding attended by his mother and father Gary — who is the former director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Western Australia.
He wrote about the event, which was held in Pyongyang, in his blog, saying “we weren’t entirely sure what to expect, but the wedding turned out extremely well”.
“A few years back our Korean business partner, a good friend of ours, suggested that if we get married we hold our ceremony in Pyongyang,” he wrote.
“Years later, we made it happen … Our wedding hosted around 50 guests. We had a group of 20 family and friends join us from overseas and a group hosted by Tongil Tours.
“After the wedding day, we went on a one-week travel itinerary around the DPRK, going to Kaesong and the DMZ, sightseeing around Pyongyang and passing through Wonsan to hike in Mount Kumgang.
“Kim Il Sung University kindly allowed me to take a one-week break from classes to accompany the group. Our entourage included several honoured guests.”
Among the attendees was world-renowned Russian academic and Korean history scholar Dr Andrei Lankov, who has previously taught at the Australian National University.
Mr Sigley’s last social media post came three days ago and seemed innocuous enough.
Canberra advises against non-essential travel to North Korea, where several foreigners have been detained.
Consular advice recommends Australians “stay as short a time as possible, eliminate unnecessary activities and review your security arrangements”.
In 2016, Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was imprisoned during a tour of the authoritarian state after being accused of taking down a propaganda poster.
Doctors said he suffered severe brain damage while in detention, fell into a coma and died days after arriving back in the United States in June 2017. He was 22.
