FILE PHOTO: North Koreans are seen peddling goods at a street market in Hyesan, Yanggang Province. (© Daily NK)
The Ministry of State Security has ordered provincial bureaus to monitor nighttime movements and superstitious rituals as families fear personnel changes, with some paying thousands of dollars for good-luck charms.
A source in South Pyongan province told Daily NK recently that the ministry had ordered bureaus in each province to crack down on those behaviors in mid-November.
In the orders, the ministry noted that officials were frequently implicated in corruption at the end of the year and that officials’ wives were indulging in superstitions and following the advice of fortune tellers rather than the party’s directives.
Notably, the ministry said that officials’ wives were frequenting fortune tellers out of fear that their husbands would lose their positions and be given a trivial assignment in the personnel reshuffle typically held at the end of the year.
The ministry emphasized that its orders were not a perfunctory end-of-the-year announcement but a serious push to prevent ideological deviance and slackness inside the party as it concludes its five-year projects from the Eighth Party Congress and gears up for the Ninth Party Congress.
After receiving the ministry’s orders, the South Pyongan provincial state security bureau immediately passed them on to state security departments in cities and counties throughout the province.
Shamanistic rituals and gold payments for Kim Jong Un’s favor
While forwarding the orders, the provincial state security bureau noted it had received confidential reports about the wives of middle-ranking officials holding shamanistic rituals praying for their husbands to retain their positions and for positive reports about them to reach the ears of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The bureau added that some officials’ wives had been paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars or items made of gold for good-luck charms.
“The provincial state security bureau informed local branches that officials’ wives were consulting fortune tellers, holding rituals and driving around to the homes of superior officials at night to deliver bribes. As such, the bureau ordered the local branches to carefully monitor officials’ wives nighttime movements and quietly report any evidence that they are delivering bribes,” the source said.
The provincial state security bureau declared that superstitious behaviors by officials’ families are “anti-socialist actions reflecting a loss of faith in the Party” and warned that anybody involved in such behaviors would face severe legal repercussions.
Party officials and their family members expressed their grievances about the crackdown.
“There’s considerable discomfort in the bureaucracy about the fact that officials and their family members are the target of this crackdown. Some even criticize the regime for focusing on tightening the screws on officials instead of paying attention to urgent issues such as the people’s financial difficulties,” the source said.
Read in Korean
