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Date : November 30, 2015
Desperate resident takes own life in front of KWP building
   http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=13602 [875]
In protest against the governments inaction on a personal grievance case, a North Korean resident has reportedly committed suicide in front of the Korean Workers' Party [KWP] Central Committee building by seppuku [method of suicide used by Japanese samurai involving disembowelment; also known as harakari], Daily NK has learned. 

Last week I went to Pyongyang and heard about this suicide, a Daily NK source from South Pyongan Province reported. The person had filed a grievance case, claiming to have been wrongfully accused of something, but after that didnt go well, the resident committed seppuku in front of the central Partys office building in protest." 

Daily NK confirmed this news with an independent source from the capital.

The individual had filed this case in effort to clarify what had happened and had even gone to the grievance office to try to get a consultation but instead was told to keep quiet. Thats why it led to this extreme decision, she explained.

We do not know the details of this grievance letter, but it is said to involve reports about losing everything the person owned because of a Ministry of People's Security [ MPS, or North Korea's equivalent of a police force] cadre. 

Some people are sympathizing, saying how upset the person must have been to choose such an extreme method. However, the district office involved in the case has ordered people through their inminban [peoples unit] to keep mum about it unless they know exactly why it happened, according to the source. 

People who know the individual have criticized MPS personnel, noting that this (injustice) could happen to anyone, she said, adding most people even in Pyongsong are already aware of this incident and that it would hard to control this rumor from spreading. 

Some have said the person should have taken revenge by getting through this and becoming successful rather than choosing death, she asserted. Others are saddened by the reality saying that suicide is futile since no one will so much as blink over the death of people with no power. 

Public grievance cases are typically registered through a box at each provincial Party committee building, and then they are sent to the central Party to be processed. The person behind the complaint may request a consultation session at the central office, but it is rare that such demands are met, Kim Heung Kwang, the head of North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a group based in Seoul, explained. 

[Source: Daily NK]

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