North Korean authorities have intensified their crackdown on cross-border communications, threatening residents in border regions with reeducation camp sentences for any overseas phone calls. The penalties are especially harsh for contacting South Korea, with Ministry of State Security officials delivering stern warnings during neighborhood lectures.
This marks a significant escalation from previous policies, which primarily targeted phone owners with severe punishments while imposing lighter sentences on those who borrowed phones. Now, even individuals using borrowed devices to call South Korea face the risk of reeducation camps.
For example, if a defector’s relatives call the defector living in South Korea through a “middleman” near the border, both the middleman with the Chinese-made cell phone and the defector’s relatives will be sentenced to time in a reeducation camp.
On Oct. 12, two agents from the Hoeryong branch of the Ministry of State Security lectured the residents of a neighborhood watch unit about the criminal punishment they would face for using Chinese-made cell phones.
The North Korean security agents warned that both owners and users of Chinese-made cell phones for overseas calls, particularly to South Korea, will face time in reeducation camps. They urged self-reporting and encouraged people to inform on others, emphasizing that discovery is inevitable as the crackdown intensifies. They stressed that even solitary offenses will be punished, aiming to create an atmosphere of widespread surveillance and compliance.
Public quietly mocks regime’s phone crackdown
People who heard the warning sniggered quietly that such reminders would sound better after the authorities solve the country’s food shortage, and that they are indifferent to such threats because they have lived with them for so long.
“Some people even say they hope to buy a Chinese-made cell phone as soon as they can afford one to make money and live well, even if it means dying if they are caught,” the source said. “They also say that since everyone is using Chinese-made cell phones to make money, they want to help the owners of such phones avoid the crackdown and not report them to the authorities.
“The government’s intimidation, threats, and coercion no longer work on hungry people who have nothing to eat,” he added.
The Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.
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