Mick Hartley

They not only have to endure the slave labour conditions, and the contempt that they're held in by the Chinese, North Korean workers in China are now getting the same draconian ideological controls as at home. From the Daily NK:

North Korea is strictly enforcing three recently enacted laws on its citizens working abroad: the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Exclusion Act, the Youth Education Guarantee Act, and the Pyongyang Dialect Protection Act. These regulations are severely restricting North Koreans’ freedoms both at home and abroad.

An investigation into Chinese seafood factories has revealed that North Korean workers are completely cut off from outside information. According to a source who spoke to Daily NK on Oct. 31, “(North Korean workers) are strictly prohibited from reading South Korean books or viewing South Korean videos or photographs in their dormitories. American and Japanese media are also prohibited, as is Chinese media that is considered risqué or non-socialist or anti-socialist in content.”

Workers who violate these rules face serious consequences under North Korean overseas labor regulations. “Workers can not only be sent back to North Korea but may also face a tougher review back home, and their managers can lose their jobs, too,” the source explained. This amounts to collective punishment, with managers being held responsible for their subordinates’ violations. The heightened scrutiny for returnees could result in life imprisonment or execution, as stipulated in the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Law.

Since mid-October, the regime has intensified ideological education about these laws among overseas workers. This push coincides with North Korea’s recent constitutional amendment declaring South Korea a hostile state.

“Lectures held in the middle of this month for North Korean workers at a seafood factory in Donggang, Liaoning province, focused on clearly defining the state’s permanent territory and correcting social and historical attitudes about the two hostile states,” the source said. “The lectures are designed to police workers’ ideology while stressing the rupture with South Korea.”

The Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act has created additional restrictions. In early October, a worker at a Dalian seafood factory received punishment for humming a South Korean song – a month of extended work hours and mandatory self-criticism. The law specifically prohibits South Korean terms of address like “oppa” (older brother) and the honorific “-nim.” Workers must instead use official titles or “comrade.”

In July, four workers at a Donggang factory faced financial penalties for using the term “oppa” while discussing a South Korean movie. The relatively mild punishment suggests these infractions are too common to warrant the law’s full penalties, which can include at least six years of hard labor or even death. (Article 58 of the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act states that violations of the ban on the “puppet state” dialect are to be punished by at least six years of hard labor, with the possibility of a life sentence or capital punishment.)

"Received punishment for humming a South Korean song". It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.