North Korean authorities are strictly controlling the use of mobile phones by overseas dispatched workers. This is believed to be due to an increase in Russian dispatched workers accessing overseas information or attempting to defect through unauthorized mobile phones.
According to Daily NK’s local North Korea source in Russia on the 17th, early this month in the Russian Primorsky Krai, three executives, including a security guard, a party secretary, and a worker manager at a North Korean trading company, unexpectedly stormed into a construction workers’ dormitory at around 1 a.m. and caught them on the spot looking at their cell phones with their blankets over them during bedtime.
Moreover, it is said that executives lined up workers in their underwear outside their quarters in the middle of the night and searched their shared items and personal belongings.
It is said that the workers were quite embarrassed as it was rare in recent times for company executives to raid their quarters during bedtime and conduct inspections like this.
In Russia, you can buy a used cell phone on the street for about $50 (about 69,000 won), and if you just put in a SIM card, you can use it to make calls and use the Internet. It is known that most dispatched workers in Russia have cell phones without their managers knowing because it is relatively easy to buy cell phones.
North Korean authorities are also known to be unaware of this fact, and it is reported that they repeatedly instructed new workers not to use cell phones when dispatching them to Russia last month. (Go to related article: North Korea dispatches workers to Russia again last month… Cell phone use strictly prohibited)
A source said, “Construction work in Russia is so hard that most North Korean workers secretly carry cell phones with them and enjoy watching South Korean movies and dramas on YouTube under their covers at night.”
It is said that workers who were caught secretly watching YouTube videos or news on their phones were ordered to move to a concrete pouring site with high labor intensity and low pay a week later.
Concrete pouring is a time-consuming and often unworkable job due to weather conditions, and is seen as a job that Russian construction workers do not earn much money for. The source said that the order from the trading company to go to the concrete pouring site is a form of “revolutionization” (North Korean-style punishment such as forced labor and ideological education).
In particular, trading companies previously threatened that they would immediately repatriate workers if they were found to be in possession of a mobile phone, but in reality, they simply moved the workplace instead. This is understood to be because it would be difficult for executives to avoid responsibility for negligent worker management if North Korean workers were repatriated.
A source said, “Because Pyongyang is putting so much pressure on trading companies to prevent their workers from accessing outside information, they are carrying out surprise crackdowns on their own,” adding, “However, it is difficult for the executives carrying out the crackdowns to report to Pyongyang that their subordinates have caused problems, so they have no choice but to wrap up the cases at this point.”
Source: www.dailynk.com
