Four North Koreans who tried unsuccessfully to defect by sea in late April have been sentenced to political prison camps.
“Four people who got caught trying to defect in a small wooden boat near Hwadae county were investigated by provincial state security officials, then sent to the Ministry of State Security and finally sentenced to political prison camps in mid-May,” a source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK recently.
Daily NK reported in early May that four North Koreans had been caught trying to defect in a small wooden boat by sea from Hwadae county—located on North Hamgyong province’s southern coast—by a maritime patrol vessel and turned over to state security authorities.
Swift sentencing sends chilling message
Three of the four were from the same family, while the fourth was a boat captain who officially worked for a fisheries company. Provincial state security officers questioned each of the four separately, and all confessed that they were “trying to reach South Korea.”
The provincial state security officers refused to feed them properly during questioning, saying, “Betraying our party and state to go to our enemy, South Korea, is the same as throwing away your life as a human being, so treating you like people would be wrong and giving you even half a bowl of corn would be wasteful.”
They were sent to the Ministry of State Security and quickly sentenced to political prison camps following an order from Pyongyang to “deal with the incident quickly.” Word of the unusually fast decision spread, and public sentiment turned sour as a result, the source said.
“One state security agent who handled a district where the arrested people lived said that nowadays, if you get caught trying to go to South Korea, you immediately get removed from society, with investigations lasting less than a month, because the longer the investigations drag on, the more rumors about the attempted sea-borne defections spread, which could give people ideas,” the source said.
The state security agents handling the attempted defection also ordered the heads of neighborhood watch units to “closely monitor the movements of neighbors the arrestees were close to.”
Property seized, families displaced
According to the source, the wooden boat they tried to defect in was immediately seized by state security authorities and registered as a “state maritime asset.” The maritime patrol division of the provincial state security authority plans to use the boat for educational and propaganda purposes—specifically as “lesson material for reactionary would-be defectors.”
The arrestees had their homes and property confiscated, with the family’s house immediately given to a disabled veteran and his wife in Hwadae county. The urban management division of the provincial people’s committee is now fixing up the house, and the couple has been told they should move in early June.
A cousin of one of the arrested people broke a window and secretly entered the home to retrieve something their relative had used, but was arrested by county police after a neighbor reported him. He was sent to provincial police, where he’s being investigated for breaking and entering and stealing state property.
After the incident, the provincial state security authorities issued an order to the region emphasizing that “assets seized by the state are no longer private property but state property,” adding that “touching even a single item used by a traitor would be considered collusion with treason against the state.”
Fishery companies in the province have been ordered to “step up inspections of fishing boats and privately owned wooden boats and control their departures.”
