Six ringleaders and about 20 accomplices were recently stood before a public struggle session in Yangdok County, South Pyongan Province, for importing and distributing “impure recordings.”
A source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Tuesday that the six ringleaders — guides at Yangdok Hot Spring Resort — were put under emergency arrest after they were busted distributing “anti-socialist and non-socialist” recordings to “ordinary people” that they had brought into the town using the Pyongsong-Yangdok Hot Springs bus.
According to the source, soon after the six employees of Yangok Hot Spring Resort were arrested late last month on charges of importing and distributing impure recordings, the authorities arrested another 20 or so accomplices. Then the matter was reported to Pyongyang.
Afterwards, the provincial branch of the unified command on non-socialist and anti-socialist behavior (below: “unified command”) convened a struggle session for those arrested in downtown Yangdok County on Sept. 1. At the session, agents from the unified command read aloud a special order from Pyongyang and then proceeded to “publicly arrest” the accused.
The unified command said the accused had formed a network to engage in anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior, with separate teams to acquire, transport and sell the impure recordings. Unified command officials said all of Yangdok County had been “infected by anti-socialism and non-socialism.”
The officials warned that crimes in Yangok like drug use, gambling, fraud and “superstitious behavior” took place after locals became “imbued with anti-socialist and non-socialist thought” from watching South Korean films and the like, and warned that it would conduct an extensive investigation “not limited to any target.”
In fact, the unified command expressed regret that the problem was discovered at Yangdok Hot Spring Resort, a state-run facility. The officials said the six ringleaders face heavy punishments in accordance with Pyongyang’s order that their misdeeds be treated as political crimes.
The command also threatened the accomplices, telling them that they were being publicly arrested, shamed and branded traitors because they neither turned themselves in nor reported one another.
At the end of the session, the six ringleaders and roughly 20 accomplices were loaded into cars and taken to a provincial police lockup, the source said, adding that the arrested now worry over what hardships they will endure.
“Managers and party officials at the workplaces in question and the responsible security agents and police officers are trembling, too, because they likely face dismissal, sacking or punishment due to their collective responsibility [for the incident],” he said.
Provincial police are conducting intensive investigations to find leaders of the ring active in Pyongsong, Kaechon and elsewhere in accordance with Pyongyang’s order to “uncover the roots of the case,” the source added.
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