Local authorities in the border region of North Korea’s Yanggang Province recently ordered neighborhood watch units to strengthen their internal patrols “more than ever.”
A Daily NK source in Yanggang Province said the people’s committee of Hyesan issued an order to local neighborhood watch units late last month calling on them to step up their patrols.
“The order told the neighborhood watch units to be on tight guard to prevent hidden enemies operating in their midst, getting a thorough handle on residents’ tendencies and rumors going around,” he said.
The source said that with the discovery of graffiti criticizing the state on a neighborhood watch unit guardpost on Aug. 23, the authorities began pressing the neighborhood watch units to step up their patrols, which had allegedly grown lax.
According to the source, since the COVID-19 pandemic, neighborhood watch units have been conducting patrols in day and night shifts — 5 AM to 8 PM for the day patrol, and 8 PM to 5 AM for the night patrol. In fact, North Korean authorities have told locals mobilized for patrols to stand watch outside without entering their guard posts.
However, since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the end of the country’s COVID-19 situation on Aug. 10, residents of North Korea’s border regions have largely dropped their guard, said the source.
North Korea’s emergency quarantine system is still in place in regions of the country that border China, but the source said neighborhood watch patrols have in fact grown lax. Locals on patrol do not properly report to their neighborhood watch units when outsiders enter the community, nor do they properly try to learn which locals are spreading discontent about the state.
In fact, the head of one neighborhood watch unit in Hyesan’s Hyehwa-dong district — out of consideration for people desperately trying to make a living — put only one person on guard during the day, and put nobody at all on guard at night.
In another neighborhood watch unit in Hyehwa-dong, locals standing watch in the evening have done so perfunctorily, patrolling outside only during the hours when officials from the local neighborhood check. The rest of the time, they are inside the guard post, sleeping or engaging in other activities.
Then last month, graffiti criticizing the state was discovered at one neighborhood watch unit guardpost. The local on watch at the time was reportedly sleeping, unaware that somebody had left the graffiti. Only in the morning did he discover the writing and report it to the Ministry of State Security.
In the end, the authorities used the incident to once again order neighborhood watch units to tighten their patrols, said the source.
“The Ministry of State Security went into a state of emergency again over the graffiti incident,” he said. “They did this before, too, but to find the culprit, the Ministry of State Security is carrying out various investigations, including checking the handwriting of locals.”
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