{"id":52957,"date":"2022-10-07T17:00:31","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T08:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=52957"},"modified":"2026-04-06T14:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:09:27","slug":"some-north-koreans-express-concern-government-move-advise-mask-wearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/some-north-koreans-express-concern-government-move-advise-mask-wearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Some N. Koreans express concern over government&#8217;s move to &#8220;advise&#8221; mask wearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With North Korea once again \u201crecommending\u201d people wear masks, some North Koreans are expressing concern that the move is just the start of state efforts to once again intensify control over the public.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province on Oct. 5, police and enforcement teams in the border city of Hoeryong have been enforcing mask wearing since Sept. 26.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The authorities are reportedly tightening quarantine efforts in response to an order from the State Emergency Anti-epidemic Command. The order called on police, security and prosecutorial agencies nationwide to continue intensive efforts to combat COVID-19 \u201cuntil the end of the global public healthcare crisis\u201d via measures to strengthen law enforcement efforts in line with the government&#8217;s autumn disease control efforts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, police and enforcement officials are reportedly going light on people caught up in the crackdown, neither fining them nor bringing them down to the station as they did in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instead, they give offenders mere \u201cguidance,\u201d telling them to \u201cwear your mask from next time because you could catch the autumn flu,\u201d perhaps taking into consideration that some locals may have simply forgotten their masks when they left home.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people are responding positively, but others look on with concern.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIsn\u2019t enforcing masks a signal that the authorities will again intensify restrictions on the public?\u201d they ask, adding, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt seems they are enforcing masks again in the name of emergency quarantine efforts to justify restrictions on the public.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea has used emergency quarantine efforts to thoroughly shut down smuggling, defections and other behavior counter to the regime, completely closing the border and even deploying the 11th Corps \u2014 the so-called \u201cStorm Corps\u201d special forces unit \u2014 to the border region.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many residents of border regions like Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province and Hyesan, Yanggang Province have received criminal punishments as the state mobilized the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Social Security to weed out \u201cimpure elements.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because of this, people in border regions have reportedly long lived in fear of crackdowns, so much so that when they wake up every morning, they hear of neighbors being arrested or exiled by the Ministry of State Security or Ministry of Social Security on charges of espionage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPeople had to suffer a lot from crackdowns and restrictions launched in the name of stopping the infectious disease [COVID-19], and many people think this is abnormal,\u201d said the source.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cButit seems the authorities are continuing intensive restrictions because the only way they can suppress public discontent in difficult economic times such as these is restrictions under the guise of emergency quarantine efforts,&#8221; he added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The source said given how public unrest and discontent with the regime could arise as crackdowns grow in intensity, North Korea would likely intensify restrictions on residents of the border region little by little.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20221005-5\/\"><i>Read in Korean<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With North Korea once again \u201crecommending\u201d people wear masks, some North Koreans are expressing concern that the move is just the start of state efforts to once again intensify control over the public.\u00a0 According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province on Oct. 5, police and enforcement teams in the border city of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":43763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[222,737,763],"class_list":["post-52957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-border","tag-public-health","tag-covid-19"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Some N. 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