◆ Even those caught stealing a single potato face punishment
The authorities are taking efforts to ensure that food isn’t siphoned off from agricultural areas during the harvest season. They are deeply concerned about the lack of food available for those with priority to receive government rations, including soldiers, security personnel, and workers at munitions factories.
As a result, farm managers are doing searches of people’s personal items when they leave the farms after their mobilization period is over. Mobilized people are unhappy about this because the farm managers are searching even those with very little personal belongings.
The reporting partner told ASIAPRESS, “If even one potato is found in the personal items of those searched, the organization the mobilized person is affiliated with is required to pay back 10 times the cost of that single potato. Moreover, the authorities are threatening that anyone who steals will face more than six months of unpaid labor.” (To be continued in the next installment 2 →)
※ ASIAPRESS communicates with its reporting partners through Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea.
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