A North Korean family in Onsong county, North Hamgyong province, is being questioned by police after being caught watching foreign media.
The community has been rocked by rumors that family members will be imprisoned or banished, with some locals suspecting that the whole thing was a police setup.
A source in the province told Daily NK recently that the family was apprehended by police early in the month.
“There are several peculiar aspects of the case that have set the rumor mill running,” the source noted.
According to the source, family members were secretly watching foreign media when police made an unannounced raid.
News about the family’s arrest spread rapidly and sent shockwaves through the community. A local police officer said police had launched the raid after being tipped off and that the raid had turned up pornographic videos from other countries. The officer added that the family would not be getting off lightly.
Anxious locals have heard that the householder is likely to receive a ten-year prison sentence and that the rest of the family may be relocated to a remote area.
“This family may not have been well off, but they had a reputation for living quietly and being well-behaved. So neighbors were shocked to learn that the family is going to be ripped apart over viewing foreign media,” the source said.
Suspicious circumstances fuel setup theories
But locals point to several dubious aspects of the case, including the claim that police had been tipped off about the family.
“North Koreans are constantly encouraged to report lawbreakers to their neighborhood watch unit. But nowadays people don’t pay attention to what other families are doing, so hardly anybody actually makes those reports. People generally don’t want to get a reputation as a busybody, so they think it’s odd that somebody would have ratted out the family,” the source said.
Another strange part of the police narrative is the claim that the family watched pornography together.
“It’s hard to imagine parents and children sitting in the same room and watching that kind of video. The initial story was just that the family had been watching foreign media, but then they suddenly called it foreign pornography, which makes people more suspicious,” the source said.
Some even suspect that the family was set up by police, who are under pressure to get results before the upcoming party congress.
“Many people think the police chose their target in advance and that this family were just unlucky scapegoats. So some are afraid that they may be the targets next time,” the source said.
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Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information through secure channels. Unlike reporting based on state media, satellite imagery, or defector accounts from years past, our journalism comes directly from people currently living under the regime.
We verify reports through multiple independent sources and cross-reference details before publication. Our sources remain anonymous because contact with foreign media is treated as a capital offense in North Korea—discovery means imprisonment or execution.
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