A joint task force from the Central Committee’s Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of State Security (MSS) was recently dispatched to Hyesan, Yanggang Province, to root out all users of illegal cell phones, Daily NK has learned. There, they made mass arrests of North Koreans working as brokers on the border.
On Tuesday, a source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK that “the joint task force from the Central Committee’s Ministry of Justice and the MSS are currently in Hyesan,” and that “after the joint task force arrived, the MSS Bureau No. 10 (Radiowave Detection Bureau) arrested 23 people, who are now being held at an MSS detention center.”
The 23 people arrested on a watchlist of people with more than three recorded instances of involvement in businesses that involve a middleman, including smuggling, transferring money, and human trafficking.
The source explained that the 23 individuals were kept on separate lists managed by the MSS, the Ministry of Social Security, and the prosecutor’s offices of Yanggang Province and Hyesan. However, after arriving in Yanggang Province, the joint task force requested the lists and mobilized MSS Bureau No. 10 to arrest them.
The joint task force reportedly claimed that they had to make these arrests as a preventative measure against COVID-19. According to them, brokers and smugglers who use illegal cell phones “make contact with foreign countries” and cause trouble by smuggling goods and money contaminated with the COVID-19 virus.
“The joint task force says that because the provincial or city-level MSS, Ministry of Social Security, or prosecutor’s offices might go too easy [on the illegal cell phone users], [the task force] is taking care of the cases themselves so [the local ministries] aren’t involved whatsoever,” the source said. “[The joint task force] is determined to complete their scorched earth campaign against illegal cell phone use in Hyesan before Day of the Sun [Kim Il Sung’s birthday] on Apr. 15.”
Men made up 70% of the 23 people arrested, and all of them had their heads shaved before being jailed. Cutting a person’s hair in this way identifies them as prisoners, so locals are saying that the people being detained will most likely go to a re-education camp before Apr. 15.
The source said that “the people that were arrested by the joint task force are reportedly already undergoing a preliminary examinationAlso referred to as a "pretrial," the preliminary examinatio... More” and that “the minimum sentence for those who go through the preliminary examinationAlso referred to as a "pretrial," the preliminary examinatio... More process is three years, but it is likely that the 23 arrested [in the cell phone crackdown] will get a minimum sentence of five years of re-education through labor.”
The 23 suspects are reportedly protesting against their arrest, claiming that “one in five Hyesan residents use Chinese cell phones, so they should all be treated the same as us.” The suspects complain that it is unjust that they were suddenly arrested and punished without even being caught engaging in illegal activities.
Hyesan residents are reportedly filled with fear and alarm at the news of the joint task force’s campaign to eliminate illegal cell phone users. The source said that “because the joint task force intends to achieve results before Day of the Sun, people are keeping as low a profile as possible.”
Meanwhile, the source says that in Hyesan, where a month-long lockdown was put in place on Mar. 3, people have been shocked by the quick succession of deaths of eight patients in isolation wards at the provincial People’s Hospital recently. The hospital claimed that the patients died from tuberculosis, but rumors are circulating that they died from COVID-19 because authorities cremated all of their bodies immediately after death.
Three of the patients who died had been released in an amnesty from the Gaechon political prisoner’s camp on Oct. 10, 2020. They should have gone to their region of exile after release, but were living in Hyesan illegally and were caught when the Ministry of Social Security and local disease control officials conducted a surprise inspection.
They were reportedly taken into isolation because they exhibited symptoms of COVID-19, including fevers and coughing. After they were transferred into isolation wards at the provincial People’s Hospital, their symptoms worsened, eventually leading to their death. Locals who heard news about their deaths said that it was scary that someone who could survive life in a miserable concentration camp for more than ten years could die from COVID-19 just a few months after being released, according to the source.
Additionally, the central government reportedly told Hyesan residents not to hold banquets or other gatherings and to limit funeral processions to a single day. North Korean officials worried about public opinion have allowed people to travel freely within the city, but have banned large gatherings, which could pose a bigger risk of mass infection.
*Translated by S & J
