North Korea recently issued a joint order to party and government agencies nationwide calling for the implementation of a newly ratified law to protect state secrets, Daily NK has learned.
A Daily NK source in Pyongyang said Monday that the Workers’ Party, Cabinet, judiciary, prosecutors’ service, security services and police handed down the joint order to subordinate agencies and organizations on Feb. 9.
According to the source, the joint order was issued following the 24th Plenary Meeting of the 14th Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly adopted a law to protect state secrets and ratified its executive ordinance. The plenary meeting was held on Feb. 2, according to state-run media.
The joint order calls for the strengthening of the management system for secrets by subdividing and reorganizing secret document ratings, adopting and improving the electronic management of documents for internal and external use, grading people who can store, read and take documents, and improving the protection and encryption of state secrets.
Agencies that deal with classified documents and related workplaces have responded by beginning preparations to carry out the joint order, while judiciary agencies and the Workers’ Party’s Justice Department plan to write additional legal rules and regulations regarding the new law within two weeks.
Moreover, the people’s committee of Pyongyang is reportedly establishing administrative policies to furnish the city with a state-approved electronic management system for secret documents, as well as taking other relevant measures.
Daily NK’s source said the joint order calls for the authorities to “use the opportunity to make all members of society understand that everything from party, state, military and military industry secrets to trivial things in life such as instructions to neighborhood watch units, and the price of items in markets and households are state secrets,” and that “people who want to know about them are undoubtedly spies.”
The joint order provides a glimpse to the extent in which North Korean authorities want to prevent any domestic information from leaking overseas.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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