{"id":61004,"date":"2024-09-03T09:00:15","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=61004"},"modified":"2026-04-05T16:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:14:14","slug":"north-korea-iron-fist-harsh-sentences-border-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-iron-fist-harsh-sentences-border-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea&#8217;s iron fist: Harsh sentences for border communication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Around 30 North Koreans in Jagang province received harsh sentences for smuggling and using Chinese phones to contact the outside world, reflecting the regime&#8217;s crackdown on illegal border activities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOver 30 users of Chinese mobile phones apprehended by Jagang province\u2019s state security bureau in April and May were all given severe sentences in two hearings this month,\u201d a source in the country recently informed The Daily NK. \u201cThe Ministry of State Security\u2019s opinion that these individuals were not merely criminals but also internal agitators with the potential to oppose the party and the state had a big impact on their sentences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After North Korea\u2019s Ministry of State Security declared April to be \u201cthe month of eradicating illegal behavior,\u201d Jagang province\u2019s state security bureau stepped up policing of Chinese mobile phone usage in the border area. That led to a large number of people being arrested and interrogated, and their sentences were announced in two hearings on Aug. 16 and 21.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jagang province\u2019s state security bureau accused one of the arrested individuals \u2014 a repeat offender who had six Chinese phones and a sack full of Chinese currency at his house \u2014 of being a spy. That individual and three other repeat offenders were transferred to a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">political prison camp<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> along with their family members on Aug. 16.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The other arrested individuals were handed over to the provincial police. One person, a first-time offender, was given a one-year corrective labor sentence, while the others were sentenced to hard labor in prison for ten years to life. In addition, the family members of those given prison sentences were banished to rural counties in Jagang province, including Chosan, Tongsin and Usi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAn open-air public trial was held in the Toksan neighborhood of Kanggye. At the trial, an official from the provincial police strongly warned that the families of anyone who came into contact with information from overseas would be eliminated from our society, root and branch, for generations to come,\u201d the source said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The authorities were sending a public warning with the hope of preventing the kind of ideological wavering that can come from exposure to external information and to nip in the bud any chance of anti-regime activities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The North Korean authorities are essentially treating Chinese mobile phone use on the border with China, where smuggling and illicit communication are frequent occurrences, not merely as unlawful but as anti-state behavior.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In particular, the authorities are jacking up policing and control of Jagang province residents because of the strategic importance of the area, which is close to munitions factories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSome people in the border region are frustrated that the authorities are treating Chinese mobile phone users as spies and giving them harsh sentences when smuggling is the only way to get by on the border,\u201d the source told The Daily NK. \u201c They\u2019re also afraid that the authorities are trying to rotate out the population by gradually banishing all the current residents, since it wouldn\u2019t be practical to arrest or kill them all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-pre-wrap break-words\"><em>Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-pre-wrap break-words\"><em>Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-pre-wrap break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20240828-5\/\"><em>Read in Korean<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around 30 North Koreans in Jagang province received harsh sentences for smuggling and using Chinese phones to contact the outside world, reflecting the regime&#8217;s crackdown on illegal border activities. \u201cOver 30 users of Chinese mobile phones apprehended by Jagang province\u2019s state security bureau in April and May were all given severe sentences in two hearings [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":46464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,649],"tags":[162,222,731,948,995,1124,3243],"class_list":["post-61004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-china-north-korea-border","tag-ministry-of-state-security","tag-border","tag-jagang-province","tag-mobile-phones","tag-prison-camps","tag-crackdowns","tag-crime-corruption"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - 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