Amnesty International today released a trailer for its upcoming film “The Other Interview” as it was announced that a high-profile comedy film about North Korea would not be screened in the USA following an apparent campaign which targeted entertainment company Sony Pictures.

Speaking of Sony’s decision to indefinitely delay the release of “The Interview”, Amnesty said “we should all be worried when blackmail, threats and the hacking of private data are being used to censor and silence.”

Sony Pictures cancelled the release of “The Interview”, a comedy about the fictional attempted assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, following a sustained cyber-attack in which private emails and files belonging to the company were hacked and released.  Threats were also reportedly made to cinemas screening the film. The US government has said it is possible that North Korea is behind the attacks and threats.

Amnesty’s film “The Other Interview”, due to be released in January, features the story of a young North Korean woman Park Ji-hyu. In a powerful first-person account she explains how she fled starvation in North Korea, before being trafficked into China where she was sold to a farmer and forced to work as a slave. She gave birth to the farmer’s son, but was separated from him when she was reported to the Chinese authorities as a defector from North Korea, and forcibly returned. She was then sent to one of North Korea’s hellish prison camps where she faced starvation and torture. She eventually escaped.

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

“Sony has every right to make a comedy about North Korea. We should all be worried when blackmail, threats and the hacking of private data are being used to censor and silence.

“In reality, many people in North Korea are subjected to an existence beyond nightmares. The population is ruled by fear with a network of prison camps a constant spectre for those who dare step out of line.

“Thousands of people in the camps are worked to death, starved to death, beaten to death. Some are sent there just for knowing someone who has fallen out of favour.

“Amnesty is releasing ‘The Other Interview’ so that people all over the world can hear first-hand how people in North Korea are suffering appallingly at the hands of Kim Jong-un and his officials.

“They don’t want you to see it, which is precisely why you should.”