A growing number of Pyongyang residents are visiting fortune tellers to hear their New Year’s fortunes, Daily NK has learned.
“Nowadays, people in Pyongyang are flocking to fortune tellers to hear their fortune for the New Year, prompting the city police to crack down on the practice,” a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Jan. 27.
The North Korean authorities regard superstitious practices as non-socialist behavior and prosecute anyone engaging in them. Article 256 of the North Korean criminal code states that anyone who performs a superstitious activity in exchange for fees or goods shall serve up to a year of hard labor.
Furthermore, those who have taught superstitions to multiple individuals or whose superstitious practice has had “grave consequences” face up to three years of hard labor, with a sentence of three to seven years possible in the case of aggravating circumstances.
According to the source, the Pyongyang police have been on high alert as an increasing number of citizens and cadres have been visiting fortune tellers since the beginning of the year. In fact, the source said, residents of various districts in the capital have recently been arrested and prosecuted for engaging in the superstitious behavior of having their fortune told.
HARSH PUNISHMENTS METED OUT TO SOME
Early in January, two people were sentenced to three months in a labor camp for superstitious activities in Hyongjesan District, Pyongyang, while four families were caught in the act in Rangrang District and given a six-month sentence.
“People who are apprehended while engaging in superstitious activities in Pyongyang can face being banished to the provinces. But people are still clinging to those behaviors, perhaps because it has gotten so hard to make a living,” the source said.
Given the spate of superstitious behavior cases at the beginning of the year, the Pyongyang police has ordered precincts in each district to show no mercy for such behavior and to tighten public control through neighborhood watch units, the source said.
The Pyongyang police have reportedly placed special emphasis on strengthening controls on people’s nighttime movement and rigorously monitoring non-residents’ access to apartment buildings.
As a result, neighborhood watch units in Pyongyang have been requiring non-residents to state the purpose of their visit when entering an apartment building and to notify security guards when they leave the building, the source said.
“In the past, non-residents were only required to list the floor and room number they were visiting in the log at the security office. But now they not only have to stop by the security office on their way out but also have to write down exactly what they did during their visit,” the source said.
“The apartment security staff have to submit a list of the day’s visitors to the heads of neighborhood watch units the next morning, and the heads of these units have to then pass that information along to the district precinct,” he added.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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