North Korean students listening to a lecture at a university in early 2024. (Rodong Sinmun, News1)
The North Korean authorities have ordered crackdowns on the distribution of “impure” South Korean media and foreign electronic documents, while pushing party members to increase surveillance of each other. This has caused discomfort among some members.
According to a Daily NK source in South Hwanghae province recently, Haeju’s party committee directed party cells and lower-level organizations in early March to block “impure recordings” and outside electronic documents, making surveillance a priority party activity for the month.
The city’s party committee warned members that people in families, workplaces and villages might not be following party doctrine. It instructed members to “keep a keen eye on such people with party consciousness and eagle-eyed vision, spot problems and report them.”
All party members were assigned the “shared task” of closely monitoring coworkers and neighbors for unusual behavior. They were also required to engage in mutual criticism by selecting targets from among themselves.
The committee threatened “political blame and criticism” for members who performed superficial criticism or evaded their duties. Essentially, they were asked to suspect, watch, and denounce those closest to them.
With these surveillance directives, some party members have expressed frustration at being turned into “party spies.”
“People are very sensitive about mutual criticism nowadays,” the source said. “Shared party tasks traditionally meant dividing economic responsibilities or project work among members. But with the party now telling them to be spies, many members question why they worked so hard to join the party.”
“The honor of being a party member is gradually diminishing, and some even regret joining,” he added. “People are beginning to think that while it’s good to become a party member, it’s even better not to be one.”
Despite harsh crackdowns on accessing outside media following laws like the 2020 “Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act” and 2021 “Youth Education Guarantee Act,” public consumption of foreign content hasn’t decreased.
“The fact that blocking impure videos and outside documents became a party project shows just how widespread this material is,” the source said. “No matter how much surveillance intensifies, such behavior won’t disappear completely.”
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