Two brothers in North Korea’s Ryanggang
Province were arrested early last month by State Security Department agents for
using smuggled-in Chinese mobile phones. A Ministry of People’s Security
(police) officer permitting this activity in exchange for bribes was also apprehended,
Daily NK has learned.
“Around the fourth of last month,
anti-espionage agents from the provincial State Security Department [SSD]
barged in while the two farmers (brothers) in Ryanggang Province were talking
to another sibling in South Korea,” a source from the province told Daily NK in
a telephone conversation on July 1. “They were arrested on site on suspicions of
espionage, handcuffed, and taken away to the relevant SSD unit.”
“There was an agent from the county’s [name
redacted for safety reasons] Ministry of People’s Security office who was
also immediately arrested on the same day for allegedly turning a blind eye to
the phone calls frequently being placed to the South,” he added.
In light of the incident, state authorities
have doubled down on threats of punishment for those caught
placing calls to South Korea, “mercilessly equating such actions to international information leaks and therefore deeming them acts of espionage,” according to the source.
“The two brothers have been branded ‘spies and destructive individuals out to obliterate socialism’,” he
explained. “It will cost them 30,000 RMB (39 million KPW) to get them out.
Their family members have no one to appeal to, driving them to ask other
siblings in the South to send them money.”
Speculation is rife about the brothers’ fate among residents in the surrounding area. Most have commented that sufficient funds notwithstanding, the harsh nature of
the arrest suggests the case will not be so easily resolved. More specifically,
however, opinions are divided: half of those familiar with the case are hopeful that the young men’s diligence in fulfilling
Party duties and unwavering loyalty for the Suryong [Great or Supreme Leader] will soften their
punishment; the remaining half is of the grim belief that these two young
men will imminently find themselves detained in a political prison camp.
A fixture of the Kim Jong Un era, strong
orders to ferret out the use of Chinese mobile phones have recently grown in
severity. As reported in May by Daily NK, Kim Jong Un ordered law enforcement
to penalize those who use Chinese phones to talk to people outside of the
country with the crime of espionage in a bid to stem the outflow of internal
information and attempts to escape the country.
“That this recent incident occurred under
tighter surveillance and restrictions has increased tensions in the area,” an
additional source in Ryanggang Province asserted. Complaints, too, are on the
rise; the vast majority of residents in border areas rely on Chinese
cell phones for their livelihoods.
