Andrei Lankov Explains How Surveillance and Indoctrination Works In North Korea

A ROK Drop favorite Dr. Andrei Lankov has an article published that discusses how the Kim regime prevents dissent within North Korea:

However, terror alone does not explain the remarkable staying power of the regime in Pyongyang. The presence and role of daily surveillance must not be underestimated. North Koreans have good reason to believe that even a minor deviation from the officially approved political line will be noticed and punished by the authorities. Punishment, like the misdemeanour itself, might be quite mild. However, it is the ubiquity of surveillance which is important.  (……)

Perhaps, one should first mention the neighbourhood watch groups, known as the inminban (literally, people’s group). Each inminban consists of 15-30 families living side-by-side in a village, urban block, or multi-story building. Such a group is headed by a junior official, whose task is to look for all suspicious activities within her (this is always a woman’s job) jurisdiction. She is also charged with the registration of overnight visitors because one cannot stay overnight even with friends or relatives without giving prior notice to the authorities. The official is required to have intimate knowledge of all families under her jurisdictions: their occupation, income level, family relations and even work routine. At their briefings with police, the inminban heads have always been reminded that they should know “how many chopsticks are in any given household” – and this oft-repeated sentence is not a joke.

Another responsibility of the “people’s group” and its head is to ensure that no forbidden items are kept in private houses. The list of such items includes, above all, tunable radio sets and DVDs of South Korean as well as some Western movies.  [Aljazeera]

You can read the rest at the link, but Dr. Lankov also discusses how the regime uses indoctrination as a means of political control.  There is really nothing new in Dr. Lankov’s analysis for people who closely follow North Korea, but it should make for interesting reading for those who do not.  On this topic I highly recommend reading Babara Demick’s book, “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea” which goes into great detail through interviews of North Korean defectors how the caste system, inminban, and indoctrination systems work.