kim jong un horse
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on a horse atop Mount Paektu. This image was released by North Korean state media on Oct. 16, 2019. (KCNA)

The Central Committee’s Discipline Inspection Department recently began investigating Pyongyang’s Mirim Horse Riding Club after receiving a report that alleged corruption on the part of officials there. 

A source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on July 5 that the Discipline Inspection Department has been investigating the club’s party committee since mid-June for allegedly taking large sums of money to provide private lessons to the children of cadres.

According to the source, four middle school students who were learning to ride at Mirim Horse Riding Club were hospitalized on June 18 after they suffered riding accidents. Three sustained light injuries while one suffered from more serious injuries. 

When the club blamed the students for the accident, an angry parent complained to the Central Committee that the club was taking large sums of money to provide private one-on-one lessons.

North Korea strictly forbids private education. However, after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his wife Ri Sol Ju, his sister Kim Yo Jong and close cadres appeared horseback in a new documentary film titled “2021: Year of a Great Victory,” Pyongyang’s upper class reportedly developed a keen interest in horse riding. Private riding lessons took off, too.

In fact, Central Committee cadres and Pyongyang’s wealthy class are reportedly paying large sums so that their children can take private, one-on-one riding lessons.

According to the source, Mirim Horse Riding Club was taking USD 1,800 per person for a year of lessons when the Discipline Inspection Department launched its inspection.

“The Discipline Inspection Department officials who came for the inspection are taking a close look into Mirim Horse Riding Club’s [alleged] corruption,” said the source. “Cadres and staff are nervous that they’ll get in trouble since the Central Committee is running the inspection.

“Mirim Horse Riding Club was constructed with special interest from the Supreme Leader [Kim Jong Un], so it’s an even bigger problem that the capitalist phenomenon of providing exclusive private lessons to the children of cadres and wealthy families has emerged [there],” the source continued, adding, “I expect there to be major fallout.”

Created at the Eighth Party Congress in January of 2021, the Discipline Inspection Department aims to strengthen the authority of the ruling party’s Central Auditing Commission, which keeps an eye on rule violations by party members, adjudicates infractions and handles complaints and petitions.

Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.

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