A Daily NK source in North Hamgyong province reported Wednesday that the announcement has sparked quiet but widespread bewilderment. “People were taught in revolutionary history education that police are class enemies,” the source said. “Now they’re being told that ‘police’ isn’t a bad word, and people are whispering: who exactly were the class enemies we’ve been learning about all this time?”
North Korea’s revolutionary history curriculum, a mandatory component of the country’s 12-year compulsory education system, has long depicted police as instruments of oppression and legitimate targets of struggle. The curriculum’s framing reflects the founding mythology of the Kim dynasty, in which Kim Il Sung and his anti-Japanese guerrilla forces are cast as liberators who fought against colonial-era police.
The Battle of Pochonbo, one of the most celebrated events in North Korean state history, is taught as a story of Kim Il Sung’s guerrilla forces storming a Japanese police substation in what is now Ryanggang province, routing the officers stationed there and rescuing the local population. Similarly, the revolutionary biography of Kim Jong Suk, Kim Il Sung’s wife and Kim Jong Un’s paternal grandmother, centers on a well-known episode in Pochon-ri in which she is said to have outwitted Japanese police. That episode appears on virtually every revolutionary history exam.
“These are core events that come up repeatedly throughout the 12-year curriculum,” the source said. “The Pochon-ri civilian certification incident comes up on every revolutionary history exam without fail. And now they’re saying police isn’t a bad word. People are saying they can’t tell whether the earth revolves around the sun or the sun around the earth.”
‘Obbasi’ and fear of tighter control
Beyond the ideological contradiction, North Korean people expressed concern that the institutional change could mean tightened control in daily life. The source said many people already harbor deep resentment toward anjeonwon, the security officers who currently carry out public order enforcement, referring to them dismissively with the Japanese-derived slang term obbasi.
“People already dislike the anjeonwon and call them ‘obbasi,’” the source said. “They’re saying: if they get renamed police, won’t they just become even more vicious?”
The source added that many North Korean people fear a police-branded enforcement apparatus would bring more systematic and aggressive crackdowns on everyday activity, making life more difficult. “Because of the negative image of police drilled in through revolutionary history education, people are worried that routine enforcement will intensify and life will get even harder.”
Kim announced plans to introduce a police system during his policy address to the first session of the 15th Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s nominal legislature, on March 23. In his remarks, Kim argued that establishing a police system is “an essential requirement of state management” and insisted that “the word ‘police’ itself is not a bad thing.” He called for specialized, professionalized public order work, saying police structures should be subdivided and made more expert. He also instructed officials to conduct public outreach to ensure “all people have a correct understanding” of the new system.
The Supreme People’s Assembly session came weeks after the Ninth Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Congress in February 2026, which introduced sweeping institutional changes including the renaming of the Ministry of State Security to the State Information Bureau. Kim’s police announcement appears to extend that institutional reorganization into the sphere of public order enforcement.
North Korean people, however, appear to be reading the changes through a lens of lived experience rather than official framing. For many, the introduction of a police system signals not modernization but the formalization of mechanisms already used to surveil and control daily life.
Reporting from inside North Korea
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. This network-based approach allows Daily NK to report on developments other outlets cannot access: market trends, policy implementation, public sentiment, and daily realities that never appear in official narratives.
Maintaining these secure communication channels and protecting source identities requires specialized protocols and constant vigilance. Daily NK serves as a bridge between North Koreans and the outside world, documenting what’s happening inside one of the world’s most closed societies.
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