Daily NK’s investigation into the North Korean authorities’ crackdown on users of Chinese-made mobile phones from January to Dec. 8 of this year has determined that hundreds of people were arrested by the Yanggang Province branch of the Ministry of State Security.
Most of those arrested were women in their 20s to 40s who were sent to labor camps or political prison camps after being detained and questioned at the provincial branch of the Ministry of State Security’s holding facility.
Suspects are endlessly subjected to torture by investigators and guards during their questioning in detention, too, including being hung from the ceiling, given electric shocks, and exposed to hot and cold. Sexual assaults also frequently take place.
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea on Monday, a woman in her 30s from Kimjongsuk Country was arrested at her home by the local branch of the Ministry of State Security in April after electronic surveillance equipment detected a phone conversation she had with an acquaintance in China.
After seven days of questioning, the woman – identified by her family name of Kim – was sent to a provincial Ministry of State Security holding facility on charges of espionage. On her first day at the facility, she was forced to kneel with a wood staff between her legs as she underwent questioning.
The next day, she was hung by her ankles from the ceiling and her head repeatedly dunked in water until she confessed to spying.
In May, a woman in her 20s from Hyesan was busted by the city branch of the Ministry of State Security after she received money from a defector living in South Korea.
After seven days of questioning, the woman – identified by her family name of Pak – was charged as a spy when investigators found records in WeChat that she had leaked internal information such as food prices and market exchange rates.
She was then sent to a provincial Ministry of State Security holding facility.
During her questioning, Pak had to suffer the indignity of being sexually assaulted by guards at night.
Pak shouted and resisted the repeated sexual assaults, but she reportedly died in the end when she was beaten by the guards and suffered severe injuries, including a busted skull and broken ribs.
People sent to the Yanggang Province holding facility are being sexually assaulted and indiscriminately beaten by investigators and guards, but nobody is being held responsible for this state of affairs.
This is because those sent to the holding facility have already been charged as spies – traitors to the state – before being questioned.
Moreover, the level of secrecy at the provincial Ministry of Security holding facility is almost as tight as a political prison camp. The source said because problems that occur at the facility are handled in utmost secrecy, operators engage in horrible wrongdoing.
The source even noted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un criticized the Ministry of State Security for “serious human rights abuses” early this year. Despite this criticism from the top leadership, the ministry remains “so savage that people say you wake up in the morning and they’ve arrested the person who lives next to you, and the next morning they’ve arrested the person who lives behind you,” the source said.
He said people now avoid saying anything sensitive even to family, an indication that the Ministry of State Security’s surveillance and repression of the public is more intense than ever.
North Korea enacted in 2020 a law to eradicate “reactionary” thought and culture. The law calls for a maximum sentence of death for people who import and distribute South Korean video material. It also intensified punishment from the original five years to 15 years in prison for people who watch such media.
Books, music and photographs are also subject to punishment, and there is even an article in the law calling for two years of forced labor for “using South Korean speech or singing styles.” However, nothing concrete is known regarding punishment of users of Chinese mobile phones.
Meanwhile, at UN headquarters in New York last month, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly passed a draft resolution condemning human rights violations in North Korea and demanding improvements. The resolution was adopted by consensus without a vote.
