North Korea’s Ministry of State Security suspended all investigations and custodial proceedings on Feb. 8, ordering provincial bureaus onto emergency footing ahead of the Ninth Party Congress scheduled for late February, leaving detainees stranded in custody until normal operations resume.
A source inside North Korea who requested anonymity for security reasons told Daily NK recently that the ministry issued the emergency order to all provincial bureaus, pausing outstanding cases and forcing suspects and detainees to wait indefinitely.
“Since state security bodies are in emergency mode, all work on outstanding cases has been suspended. That means that anybody who has been wrongfully detained will have to cool their heels at least until the Party Congress is over,” the source said. “The families of detained people are horrified that their loved ones will have to remain in those bitterly cold cells for at least two more weeks.”
Alongside the suspension of proceedings, the ministry ordered provincial bureaus to rigorously inspect the maintenance of propaganda articles and items associated with the cult of personality surrounding the Kim family. Teams of inspectors were dispatched to public spaces, institutions and enterprises to check on statues, monuments, mosaic murals, portraits of the leaders, and plaques bearing their sayings.
“People are very nervous about these inspections because even trivial mistakes in the maintenance of propaganda articles can have unpleasant consequences not only for institution and enterprise managers but also for state security agents on duty and municipal or county state security departments,” the source said.
In North Korea, such items are regarded not as mere artwork but as sacrosanct emblems of the leader’s “supreme dignity,” making their preservation a core responsibility of the security apparatus.
Ideological conformity check before congress opens
The ministry also instructed provincial departments to verify that updated maps of the Korean Peninsula distributed last year have been properly displayed. The maps depict South Korea in gray, in keeping with leader Kim Jong Un’s framing of “two hostile states” — a narrative that erases the North’s former concept of unification. The directive appears designed to ensure the regime’s new line on South Korea has filtered down to the lowest institutional levels before the congress convenes.
“Judicial procedures have stopped, and all resources are being devoted to inspections. An anxious mood will probably pervade both state security bodies and local communities until the Party Congress is over,” the source said.
The Ninth Party Congress was announced in the Rodong Sinmun on Feb. 8, which reported that the politburo of the Eighth Central Committee had held its 27th meeting the previous day with Kim Jong Un presiding, at which the decision to hold the congress at the end of February was made.
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