Mick Hartley

From the Daily NK:

North Korea is punishing people who violate the nighttime curfew in regions along the China-North Korea border with forced labor. Facing aggravated military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korean authorities appear to be continuing to bolster the already intense surveillance and restrictions on border residents.

According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province last Thursday, the authorities have imposed a 6 PM curfew on border areas of the city of Hoeryong since Sept. 25. The local police have busted about 30 residents so far for violating the curfew, punishing them with stints at “labor training centers,” where minor offenders perform short-term forced labor.

Most of those punished were reportedly selling items at the market or on the street after 6 PM to earn money for food. 

Or farmers trying to get the harvest in:

Those with small farm plots in the mountains must often stay out far later than 6 PM during the harvest season. Since the police will drag them off to a labor training center if they are caught, some farmers simply stay in the mountains rather than come down, spending sleepless nights on cold mountain sides.

In fact, the source said that on Oct. 13, a resident of Hoeryong’s Yuson-dong neighborhood was unable to return home and spent the night on a mountain because he was out past curfew, having ascended the mountain to gather the crops he spent a year working so hard to cultivate.

“More than a few people are experiencing inconveniences due to the curfew,” said the source. “It’s hard to complete the harvest even if you work all night, so one can’t fully express in words what a hassle the curfew is.

“People have patiently put up with all the difficulties since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and conformed to the state’s quarantine policy,” he continued, adding, “But looking at the behavior [of the authorities] now, people are saying this doesn’t look like a quarantine problem, and are asking whether they live in a nation or a prison.”

Or both.