The North Korean police have been deploying special teams to crackdown on illegal behavior on trains traveling between Pyongyang and other cities. In particular, the authorities believe that the trains are a conduit for videos from other countries.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Thursday that the country’s national police agency, the Ministry of Social Security, has been conducting raids on all trains entering Pyongyang since Apr. 15 on the grounds that trains are a hotbed for the various kinds of non-socialist behavior.
According to the source, the ministry believes that “impure recorded materials” from other countries are one of the causes of capitalist culture making inroads in the public, along with sudden changes in the ideological mindset of young people and university students. As such, the ministry has been seeking ways to eliminate those videos.
In the ministry’s view, the reason that foreign visual content continues to spread in the society rests in the government’s failure to prevent their circulation. That gave the ministry the idea of searching the trains, which are often used to transport the videos, the source said.
“The police agency sent special teams to all trains traveling on the Pyongyang-Hyesan and Pyongyang-Onsong lines that searched for any impure video recordings that they might be transporting. The agents found illegal merchandise, SD cards containing large numbers of impure video recordings, and illegal publications and printed materials being transported in the baggage and cargo compartments of several trains,” the source said.
“The most impure video recordings were found in trains bound for Pyongyang that had stopped at Sinsongchon Station,” the source added, referring to a train station in Songchon County, South Pyongan Province.
Police probe corruption within railway agencies
The ministry suspects that the only way the trains could have hosted such illegal activities was if the offenders were being aided and abetted by the Pyongyang Rolling Stock Depot and the Pyongyang Railroad Safety Department, and it has launched an investigation to collect evidence to back up those vague suspicions. However, the two agencies are attempting to evade responsibility by claiming they had nothing to do with the activities in question.
The ministry informed the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in writing that the its discovery of foreign videos being transported on trains reveals the extent of illegal activities on the national railroad. The ministry argued that there is an urgent need for more transparency and accountability at the agencies involved.
“The Ministry of Social Security requested permission to closely monitor internal affairs and carry out regular audits [at the agencies] to prevent similar incidents. It also asked for permission to investigate any illegal activities that may turn up and to harshly discipline the guilty parties,” the source said.
Article 7 of the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act, which North Korea enacted in late 2020, outlines the principles for punishing offenders as follows. “When an individual commits the act of importing, viewing or circulating reactionary ideology and culture, the offender will be subjected to harsh legal sanctions up to and including execution, depending on the severity of the act, and regardless of the offender’s station in society or the reasons for their behavior.”
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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