North Korea recently instructed its law enforcement agencies formulate measures by mid-December to deal with the unemployed and individuals who abscond from their workplaces.
Following the recent Seventh National Conference of Judicial Officers, the authorities appear intent on further bolstering state control using law enforcement agencies.
According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province on Wednesday, the authorities on Sept. 17 ordered branches of the police, prosecution and other agencies throughout the country to wage an “intensive struggle” against the unemployed and workplace deserters until mid-December.
North Korean authorities claimed in the order that the jobless and workplace deserters have been “sowing chaos in social order, roaming the country engaging in theft and burglary.”
They ordered law enforcement agencies to “thoroughly root out anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior such as violent crime by organizing mop-up teams to wipe out the jobless and workplace deserters.”
According to the source, “In the past, the Workers’ Party ordered that the jobless and workplace deserters receive ideological education and that the authorities ensure their living conditions in a responsible way. But now, it says it will punish them as criminals.”
In particular, the source said the authorities — believing jobless individuals and workplace deserters of uncertain abode are at the heart of burglaries, murders and other criminal cases — issued the directive to resolve problems related to public order.
In response to the recent order, police and prosecutors in cities and counties throughout North Hamgyong Province, including Chongjin, formed “mop-up” teams from Sept. 20 to crackdown on the jobless and workplace deserters. These teams differ jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction on account of local conditions; generally speaking, however, they include one prosecutor, two police officers and a four-man enforcement squad composed of discharged soldiers.
The mop-up teams are targeting individuals who have not gone to work or who have been out of contact with their workplaces for three months or more. They are also targeting young people and laborers who have abandoned their assigned organization, such as the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea or Socialist Patriotic Youth League.
In particular, the authorities called on law enforcement agencies to look into workplace deserters who pay money to shirk their workplace or organizational responsibilities.
The Workers’ Party appears to believe that individuals who pay to get out of work or organizational responsibilities have bigger ideological problems than those who just left their workplace or organization due to financial problems.
However, officials tasked with cracking down on those who pay to shirk their workplace or organizational duties are reportedly accepting bribes to protect them or look the other way.
Indeed, collusion continues between enforcement officials and the jobless and workplace deserters because many government officials are in a tenuous financial situation due to the continued border closure.
Based on the source’s account, mop-up teams have been active everywhere in North Hamgyong Province since Sept. 20.
“Rumors are going around that those busted by the mop-up teams are being exiled with their families to mines and farming villages suffering labor shortages,” he said.
“For a while, the government was screaming about mop-up campaigns and wars of annihilation against users of Chinese-made mobile phones, but now, they’ve basically declared war against the jobless and workplace deserters,” he continued, adding, “Cracking down on people who are roaming around to put food on the table is just an excuse to exert control over the people.”
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