North Korea law enforcement agencies are earning public ire by punishing individuals or groups that violate the nation’s law to eradicate “reactionary thought and culture” with fines in excess of the legally specified amount. In short, many North Koreans are criticizing law enforcement agencies for robbing people under the pretext of stopping the spread of foreign culture.
Multiple sources in North Korea told Daily NK on Monday that operators of private photo studios in Pyongyang, Hamhung, Sariwon and Wonsan were recently fined for violating the law on reactionary thought and culture by producing recordings, publications, photos, drawings or backgrounds for congratulatory messages that ran afoul of the law. When they protested the excessive fines, however, they were arrested and their studios temporarily or permanently closed.
“This news was reported nationwide when it was included in cadre training materials,” one of the source said.
Daily NK’s sources said that Unified Command 82 is paying particular attention to the growing number of photo studios that take money for producing “exotic” photos or pictures, or videos or photos with congratulatory messages tailored for young people in their 20s.
Believing that certain photo studios are helping get young people hooked on foreign photos, images and text, Unified Command 82 appears intent on strongly punishing such behavior, designating it a violation of the law to eradicate reactionary culture.
To encourage awareness, the authorities distributed cadre training materials that included accounts of violations of the law.
In fact, materials dated July 2 provided by sources to Daily NK recounted how the head of a photo studio in Hamhung, South Hamgyong Province was fined in late June for producing wedding photos for people in the 20s and 30s using an exotic, palm tree-lined beach as a background image.
The materials said particularly problematic studio owners in Pyongyang, Sariwon and Wonsan were subject to exemplary punishments. What they reportedly had in common was that they protested that the summary fines exceeded what the law called for.
However, the materials did not specify the fine ceiling stipulated in the law, or how much law enforcement agents tried to fine the protesting studios.
Daily NK’s sources say that while officers are supposed to levy fines as the law stipulates, in reality, they hand them out so indiscriminately that people say the fines are whatever the officers say they are.
A source in Gangwon Province said everyone who studied the materials agreed that there is a divide between what the law says and reality.
“The fine you have to pay when they nitpick differs from region to region and from enforcer to enforcer, so people are complaining, asking what kind of ‘people’s law’ or nation this is, and demanding that officers enforce the law,” he said.
The law to eradicate reactionary thought and culture levies fines of KPW 1 million to KPW 1.5 million on organizations that violate the legislation. However, the sources say that, in reality, violators sometimes pay 10 times that amount.
Public anger is rising at the merciless, arbitrary fines leveled for violations of the law; however, the state is simply standing by as officials issue irrational, excessive fines in excess of legal provisions.
A source in Pyongyang said protests against the fines have taken place in places other than the four cities mentioned in the cadre training materials.
“People only earn respect for the country’s laws if they are punished in accordance with them, but officers are sucking the people dry like vampire bats, sparking intense anger,” he claimed.
The source added that if private photo studios are busted for using computer printers and other equipment in violation of the law, the shops are immediately closed and all their equipment confiscated by the government.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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