North Korean Authorities Use Arbitrary Crackdowns as Labor Recruitment Tactic
North Korean authorities are indiscriminately rounding up citizens to provide them as workforces at projects being built to celebrate an upcoming key political anniversary this year, sources inside the country said.
“Patrol teams” have been mustering people who commit minor offences to provide unpaid labor at the construction sites of buildings being built to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party on Oct. 10, they said.
The patrol teams mainly target the unemployed, of those who fail to wear pins of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and youngsters who wear skinny jeans and dye their hair.
Especially when the unemployed are caught, they are sentenced to a maximum of six months of ‘labor camp’ at the toughest construction sites. “There are only a few people who are flawless when a patrol team cracks down on them.”
When young people are caught, they need to work without pay for seven days at the construction site at the Uhryangcheon hydroelectric power plant in North Hamgyong province.
In comparison to these two groups of people, when the team catches senior citizens, it just makes them stand on the street for an hour or so, he said.
Another source in North Hamgyong province reported that patrol teams had gathered more than 1,000 people in a single day in Cheongjin, the third-largest city in North Korea. The purpose of the crackdowns aims at improving labor shortage situations at several construction sites, rather than law enforcement.
Since the teams have sent many people, including women, to various construction sites, many North Koreans are furious that authorities force them and their neighbors to labor at mismanaged building projects, sources said.
[Source: Radio Free Asia]
