An enlarged meeting of the Central Committee’s Political Bureau on Nov. 15 criticized criminal activity at Pyongyang Medical University, but the meeting did not reveal the particulars of what criminal activity occurred. According to a Daily NK source in Pyongyang, the capital city is reportedly already rife with rumors following public executions and mass exiles surrounding the criminal activity.
The source, who spoke to Daily NK last Thursday, said that the children of cadres enrolled at Pyongyang Medical University had engaged in “anti-socialist acts” that resulted in a suicide. The acts were reportedly committed under the tacit approval of party and security organs, including the university’s party committee. The revelation of this incident led to the punishment of all those involved.
According to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, four sons of Central Committee cadres in their second to fourth years at Pyongyang Medical University had committed the “anti-socialist” crime of repeatedly sexually abusing certain female students and demanding sexual favors from them. According to the source, the victims were then paid hush money.
In August, one of the victims took her own life. To address the injustice, the victim’s mother directly appealed to the university’s party committee to punish the male students involved.
Pyongyang Medical University, however, took no action against the male students, so the mother petitioned the Ministry of Social Security branch in Chung-guyok, the district where the university is located. While North Korean authorities are required to process these petitions and inform the petitioner of the results, the district Ministry of Social Security branch provided no response to the woman.
Ultimately, the mother decided to deliver a letter to the Central Committee herself, so she snuck into Pyongyang and delivered a petition letter to the Central Committee. Hiding at a relative’s home in Pyongyang, she waited for the petition to be processed. But when no response emerged, she visited the office where she had dropped off the petition.
The desk clerk and staff who had received her petition letter recognized her and listened to her story again. Judging that a serious anti-socialist crime had taken place instigated by and with tacit approval from those with power, they informed Jo Yong Won, first vice director of the party’s Organization and Guidance Department.
When word of the matter finally reached the top, the party committee of Pyongyang Medical University underwent an intensive week-long investigation by the Organization and Guidance Department in early October. Afterwards, the university party committee, which used its authority to overlook the students’ anti-socialist acts – as well as the party and security officials who failed to properly provide party guidance process petitions or enforce the law in the case – were expelled from the party, stripped of their positions or discharged, and exiled to the provinces along with their families.
“The four male students at Pyongyang Medical University were involved in a well-known incident from about a decade ago when they were 13 or 14 years old. They got caught buying sex in a place of prostitution in Pyongchon-guyok. At the time they were locked up, but released after seven days thanks to the power of their parents,” said the source. “Even the Ministry of Social Security officials from that case were exiled this time around for failing to nip anti-socialist activities in the bud.”
All seven members of the party committee of Pyongyang Medical University who overlooked the students’ anti-socialist crimes were sent with their families to Chagang Province to work at a calcium carbonate mine in Sijung County and a logging station in Rangrim County. Five officials from the Ministry of Public Security in Chung-guyok who squashed the petition and the Ministry of Public Security officials who were responsible for failing to properly unhold the law during the Pyongcheon incident were exiled with their families to a farm in Rinsan, North Hwanghae Province.
The source said about 60 people were exiled from Pyongyang to the provinces over the matter.
Moreover, North Korean authorities publicly executed the four students at Pyongyang Medical University by firing squad. It seems the authorities opted for a public execution to warn people against anti-socialist acts and to instill caution and fear.
Meanwhile, North Korean authorities have reportedly carried out a full-scale ideological inspection of the party’s Science and Education Department for providing shoddy party guidance to the university, and have replaced problematic cadres. They also plan to replace four other individuals, including a petition clerk and a first vice section chief, for overlooking petitions, which they claim has harmed the people’s faith in the party.
The source said the North Korean authorities plan to severely punish members of the Pyongyang Defense Command and the Ministry of State Security’s Checkpoint 10 for failing to crack down on Pyongyang Medical University students using taxis to roam the country and engaging in unhealthy lifestyles while movement restrictions are in place to combat COVID-19.
“This matter was dealt with seriously as it was defined as ‘anti-party’ because it led to the overlooking of anti-socialist acts,” said the source. “The leadership has also decided to order intensive ideological reviews and evaluations of party, educational and law enforcement institutions nationwide, in the belief that similar incidents are happening in other areas of the country.”
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