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In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Hong and the second or maternal family name is Chang.

Adrian Hong Chang (b. 1983 or 1984 in Tijuana) is a Mexican-American human rights activist of Korean descent.[1] He is known for his leadership of the political group Free Joseon, a self-described North Korean provisional government based in Los Angeles.[2]

Hong serves as managing director of Free Joseon and was previously head of Pegasus Strategies LLC, an advisory firm. His commentary calling attention to North Korean human rights abuses has been published in many American newspapers and magazines, including The Christian Science Monitor. He is a co-founder of the Street Symphony, a classical music group based in Los Angeles.[3] Since April 2019, Hong has remained underground as a fugitive sought by Spain, North Korea, and the United States. His associates have reported that he faces assassination threats from the North Korean regime.[4]

Early life and education

Hong’s father, Joseph, was a Christian missionary and taekwondo champion who immigrated to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. He taught martial arts in Tijuana under the name ‘El Tigre’.[5] Hong was born in Tijuana in either 1983 or 1984, making him a Mexican national by birth. In 1991, at the age of seven, he immigrated along with his family to Chula Vista, California.[5]

Hong attended Yale University, where he co-founded Liberty in North Korea as a college student.[5][6]

Co-Founder of Liberty in North Korea

Hong was the co-founder and executive director of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an international NGO devoted to human rights in North Korea, which he established as a student at Yale University in 2004.[7] In May 2006, LiNK helped arrange the first asylum to be given to North Korean refugees by the US.[8] According to a 2019 statement from the group, Hong’s work with Liberty in North Korea ended in 2009. Hannah Song, the CEO of Liberty in North Korea, confirmed that Hong co-founded the group but had no involvement with it for more than a decade prior to 2019.[6]

In 2009, Hong was selected as a TED fellow[9] and was appointed as an Alfred Wolfers Fellow at Yale University.[10]

Arrest and deportation from China

In 2006, Hong was arrested and deported from China along with six North Korean defectors who had sought asylum at the US consulate in Shenyang. Chinese authorities deported Hong and two colleagues to the United States after several days, but detained the North Korean defectors in Shenyang for months before allowing them to resettle in South Korea.[11][12]

Humanitarian work in Libya and Los Angeles

In 2011, Hong traveled to Libya to help open a pathway for the evacuation of injured civilians and to arrange urgent medical care in Jordan.[13] He also co-founded the group Street Symphony with another TED fellow, Robert Vijay Gupta, in order to bring live classical music to mentally ill individuals living in deeply impoverished communities in Los Angeles.[14]

Awards and recognition

In 2012, Hong was the co-recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant.[3]

Founding of Free Joseon

After his work with Liberty in North Korea ended in 2009, Hong went on to found a successor organization. Originally operating under the name Cheollima Civil Defense, the group publicly renamed itself Free Joseon on March 1, 2019, and declared itself a provisional government preparing the foundations for a future North Korean state. Hong has served as the organization’s managing director. Free Joseon has been involved in several high-profile operations, including the 2017 rescue of Kim Han-sol, the nephew of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and his family following the assassination of Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia.[15]

Involvement in 2019 North Korean embassy in Madrid incident

Main article: 2019 North Korean Embassy in Madrid incident

On February 22, 2019, Hong and a group of Free Joseon members entered the North Korean embassy in Madrid. Spanish authorities subsequently charged Hong and other participants with breaking and entering, illegal restraint, and causing injuries. According to Spanish court documents, the group gained entry after Hong posed as a visiting businessman and was allowed inside the compound. Once in, members of the group were alleged to have used knives, iron bars, machetes, and imitation handguns to restrain and beat embassy staff before fleeing with computer equipment and a mobile phone. During the incident, Hong used the aliases ‘Mathew Chao’ and ‘Oswaldo Trump’.[16]

After fleeing Spain, Hong traveled to the United States and met with the FBI in New York, presenting electronic materials taken from the embassy. A Spanish court issued a warrant for Hong’s arrest in March 2019, and US authorities issued a federal arrest warrant on April 9, 2019. The US Marshals Service subsequently published a wanted poster for Hong, describing him as armed and dangerous.[17] On April 18, 2019, federal authorities raided Hong’s Los Angeles apartment, but he had already fled. Hong has remained a fugitive of the governments of Spain, the United States, and North Korea ever since.[18]

Free Joseon and Hong have denied that this was a raid, and assert that its members were invited into the embassy compound by one or more staff members who wished to defect. They have described the incident as an attempted defection staged to resemble a kidnapping in order to protect the defectors’ family members remaining in North Korea.[19]

Hong’s attorney denounced the US Department of Justice for seeking his arrest based on what was characterized as unreliable testimony from North Korean government witnesses. A US federal court found that evidence supporting the Spanish arrest warrant largely originated with officials of the North Korean government and noted that North Korea’s justice system does not comply with due process standards. The court also acknowledged an FBI-confirmed threat to the lives of Free Joseon members from the North Korean regime.[20]

Fellow participant Christopher Ahn, a former US Marine, was arrested on April 18, 2019, and spent 87 days in federal detention before being released on bail of $1.3 million. Ahn has been fighting extradition to Spain, where he faces charges carrying a potential sentence of up to 24 years. In 2022, a federal judge in Los Angeles reluctantly certified Ahn as eligible for extradition while expressing significant reservations about the outcome, writing that she did not think it the right result and hoping a higher court would intervene. Hong himself has remained underground throughout these proceedings, with supporters stating that he and fellow fugitive Sam Ryu face ongoing assassination threats from North Korean operatives.[21]

In April 2023, on the fourth anniversary of the incident, the North Korean embassy publicly accused the United States of protecting Ahn. That same year, a Hungarian court ordered a South Korean citizen involved in the incident to be extradited to Spain. As of late 2023, Hong Chang remained a fugitive.[22]

In March 2026, a U.S. district court issued a ruling denying the government’s request to extradite Ahn to Spain. Ahn was then freed from house arrest.[23] As of 2026, the effect this ruling may have on the warrant for Hong’s arrest and extradition is unclear.

Several journalists and analysts have reported on possible connections between Hong and US intelligence services. Associates cited by the Financial Times stated that Hong has links to US intelligence agencies. Spanish National Police and Spanish High Court investigators noted that at least two participants in the Madrid incident had prior links to US intelligence circles, though no direct evidence of agency direction has been publicly established.[24]

Published works

Hong has contributed commentary on North Korean human rights to numerous publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, The Korea Times, and Foreign Policy. In a 2007 column for The Korea Times titled “Peace for Our Time,” Hong criticized what he described as the then South Korean government’s indifference to human rights conditions in the North.[25]

Hong’s work and the Free Joseon organization have been the subject of extensive coverage. A November 2020 profile by Suki Kim in The New Yorker examined the underground movement in depth. In 2022, journalist Bradley Hope published a book titled The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime (Crown, ISBN 9780593240656), which draws on three years of reporting on Hong and Free Joseon.

See also

References

  1. ^ Brumfiel, Geoff (26 March 2019). “North Korean Embassy Attack Suspects Fled To U.S., Spanish Court Says”. NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  2. ^ Kim, Suki. “The Underground Movement Trying to Topple the North Korean Regime”. The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  3. ^ a b “Adrian Hong”. Street Symphony. July 21, 2012. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
  4. ^ “Freedom for Free Joseon”. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  5. ^ a b c Tremlett, Giles (2019-09-10). “Inside the bizarre, bungled raid on North Korea’s Madrid embassy”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  6. ^ a b “What to Know About the Shadowy Group That Raided the North Korean Embassy in Madrid”. Time. 28 March 2019.
  7. ^ Paul Eckert (21 October 2006). “North Korea nuclear row sharpens humanitarian fears”. Reuters. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  8. ^ “First N Korean refugees reach US”. The Indian Express. Reuters. 8 May 2006. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  9. ^ “TED Fellows | Adrian Hong”. 2013-07-18. Archived from the original on 2013-07-18. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  10. ^ “Adrian Hong — Fine Acts”. 2019-07-24. Archived from the original on 2019-07-24. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  11. ^ Nicholas Eberstadt and Christopher Griffin (February 19, 2007). “Saving North Korea’s Refugees”. The New York Times. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  12. ^ “Did this US activist mastermind raid on North Korean embassy?”. South China Morning Post. 28 March 2019.
  13. ^ “Collaborating constellations: MAPPing the TED Fellows network | TED Blog”. 8 April 2014. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  14. ^ “Our Approach”. Street Symphony. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
  15. ^ Kim, Suki. “The Underground Movement Trying to Topple the North Korean Regime”. The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  16. ^ Budryk, Zack (2019-03-26). “Mexican national offered FBI materials stolen from North Korean embassy in Spain: Report”. The Hill. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  17. ^ “US warrant issued for Adrian Hong”. South China Morning Post. 27 April 2019.
  18. ^ “A U.S. veteran says he tried to help North Koreans defect”. CBS News. 12 May 2024.
  19. ^ Kim, Suki. “The Underground Movement Trying to Topple the North Korean Regime”. The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  20. ^ “Freedom for Free Joseon”. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  21. ^ “A Marine veteran says he tried to help North Koreans defect”. CBS News. 25 August 2024.
  22. ^ “North Korean Embassy in Madrid incident”. Wikipedia. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  23. ^ “A Judge Finally Said No”. Whale Hunting. 2026-04-14. Retrieved 2026-06-17.
  24. ^ “North Korean Embassy in Madrid incident”. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  25. ^ “North Korean embassy raid’s suspect long-time human rights activist”. The Korea Times. 11 April 2019.

Bibliography

  • Hope, Bradley (2022). The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime. Crown. ISBN 9780593240656.