Daily NK Snapshots are synopses of select articles from our Korean website. Snapshots provide a window into Daily NK’s reporting and into everyday life and society within North Korea.
South Hwanghae Province Orders Field Trips to Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities to Celebrate its 65th Anniversary
To mark the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities on Mar. 26, the South Hwanghae Province Party Committee has designated March as Class Studies* Month and ordered all agencies, work units, and schools in the province to arrange field trips to the museum. Groups have been visiting the museum every day since Mar. 4. Materials distributed for Class Studies Month emphasized that, in light of recent un-socialist and anti-socialist tendencies, the party must take the lead in continuously intensifying class studies for North Korean students and youth in order to ensure the future of the state. Additionally, the Province Party Committee instructed that class studies activities should be carried out through various means throughout the province, including lectures, debates, and image-based presentations. Meetings are also being held to explain the anti-reactionary thought law, Youth Education Guarantee Act, and Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act to residents. The Committee stressed that, despite the many state-mandated activities in March, students were not to miss any school, lessons should be closely related to themes of class studies, and work units were still responsible for meeting their production quotas.
*”Class studies” refers to ideological education in North Korea intended to cultivate hatred of and resistance against the “exploiting class” of imperialist and capitalist countries like the United States and Japan.
Full article in Korean by Jong So Yong here.
North Korea Distributes New Work Logbooks, Orders Laborers to Record Work History and Personal Information
North Korea has developed and distributed new, more detailed work logbooks for laborers and raised the amount withheld from their monthly wages for social security from 3 percent to 7 percent. These efforts to record detailed work histories of individual laborers, as well as the increase in withheld wages, are being carried out under the pretext of establishing a new system of social security benefits. Labor administrators in North Hamgyong Province began training to use the new logbooks on Mar. 13. After this, they will distribute logbooks from the Central Labor Administration to individual laborers who must fill them out before the end of the month. To be valid, the new logbooks must include detailed information – including number of family members, changes of employment or address, time off work, and any children who join the military – from the time laborers began working until their enrollment in social security. Logbooks must also receive annual approval from the Department of Factory Labor as well agents from the Ministries of Social and State Security. Laborers privately oppose these changes as they do not have high hopes for the new social security benefits, nor do they see the point of reporting the additional information required by the new logbooks.
Full article in Korean by Jong So Yong here.
The Ministry of Social Security is Reincarcerating Prisoners Who Were Released Due to Their Health – Why?
Since Mar. 10, the Ministry of Social Security has been reincarcerating all prisoners throughout the country who had been released due to problems with their health. According to a source in North Pyongan Province, with the exception of political prison camps and those carrying out lifetime sentences of labor reeducation, it had become common practice for prisoners to give bribes in exchange for health-related discharges. However, the source explained that the goal of the reincarcerations was actually to raise tensions and stir up fear in the public that the country could go to war. North Korea regards criminals as the most insubordinate element of society, so it is thought that they would be dealt with immediately at the onset of a war. The mass reincarcerations include prisoners with genuine health problems, not just those guilty of bribery, and are intended to further provoke fear that war could break out at any moment. People are already overwhelmed by hunger and starvation, though, and are responding apathetically. The source commented that stirring up fear will not address people’s dissatisfaction, and instead the government needs to try to solve the food shortage.
Full article in Korean by Lee Chae Un here.
Summaries by Nick Seltzer. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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