North Korea is punishing people who violate the nighttime curfew in regions along the China-North Korea border with forced labor. Facing aggravated military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korean authorities appear to be continuing to bolster the already intense surveillance and restrictions on border residents.
According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province last Thursday, the authorities have imposed a 6 PM curfew on border areas of the city of Hoeryong since Sept. 25. The local police have busted about 30 residents so far for violating the curfew, punishing them with stints at “labor training centers,” where minor offenders perform short-term forced labor.
Most of those punished were reportedly selling items at the market or on the street after 6 PM to earn money for food.
“The Ministry of Social Security issued an order on the evening of Sept. 24 calling for nighttime curfew violators to be punished according to the law, complaining how people in border regions were not properly complying with curfew times,” said the source. “Branches of the Ministry of Social Security along the border [i.e., the local police] are responding by intensifying curfew restrictions and enforcement.”
The nighttime curfew along the border has been in force for about two years. The Ministry of Social Security proclaimed the curfew in regions along the northern border in October of 2020.
The Ministry of Social Security’s proclamation at the time set the curfew at 8 PM to 5 AM during the “summer” period from April to September, and from 6 PM to 7 AM during the “winter” period from October to March.
According to the proclamation, the authorities should have started applying winter curfew times from Oct. 1, but instead, they started applying them in border regions of Hoeryong from Sept. 25, said the source.
“Before, if you got busted for breaking curfew, you could get out of it with cigarettes or cash,” said the source. “But from Sept. 25, the police have been dragging people who violated curfew off to labor training centers on the spot, regardless of the reason.”
FARMERS BEAR THE BRUNT OF CRACKDOWNS
People in the border region are reportedly experiencing considerable inconveniences due to the curfew.
Those with small farm plots in the mountains must often stay out far later than 6 PM during the harvest season. Since the police will drag them off to a labor training center if they are caught, some farmers simply stay in the mountains rather than come down, spending sleepless nights on cold mountain sides.
In fact, the source said that on Oct. 13, a resident of Hoeryong’s Yuson-dong neighborhood was unable to return home and spent the night on a mountain because he was out past curfew, having ascended the mountain to gather the crops he spent a year working so hard to cultivate.
“More than a few people are experiencing inconveniences due to the curfew,” said the source. “It’s hard to complete the harvest even if you work all night, so one can’t fully express in words what a hassle the curfew is.
“People have patiently put up with all the difficulties since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and conformed to the state’s quarantine policy,” he continued, adding, “But looking at the behavior [of the authorities] now, people are saying this doesn’t look like a quarantine problem, and are asking whether they live in a nation or a prison.”
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