Daily NK has learned that the North Korean authorities are constructing a new guard post in a high mountainous area to assist in the detection of Chinese-manufactured mobile phone usage by residents making calls outside the country’s borders.
A source in North Hamgyung Province reported to Daily NK on August 28th, “The post is going up on top of the mountain bordering the Tumen River and is under the management of the 27th unit of the Chosun People’s Army [KPA], the division responsible for mobile phone detection.
He said that the post is not going to be a temporary installation, judging from the fact that bricks and cement are being transported for its construction.
This most recent measure by the authorities not only seeks to regulate calls placed from illegal phones, but stave off those who continue to try.
Until present, regulation of Chinese mobile phones has mostly consisted of house searches conducted by the Ministry of People’s Security [North Korean police] and hand-held signal detectors carried by State Security Department agents. Previously, residents circumvented these monitoring measures by heading to high mountainous areas relatively free of regulation, with added benefits of improved mobile phone reception.
As most measures in North Korea, he predicts it will serve only as a temporary solution, noting that most residents have already begun asking, “Can’t we just bribe them [the guards] to make calls?”
“[The authorities] have ramped up border control resulting in diminished numbers of people crossing back and forth, or in other cases defecting, thus reducing the money guards are able to earn from bribes to look the other way,” the source reported.
“Going forward it may be that people will head up to the mountains, with only their SIM cards and a bribe for the guards on their person, for the opportunity to use a place an outside call undetected,” he said, concluding, “It would still be far easier than trying to escape detection when making outside calls from inside the city.”
SOURCE: DAILY NK
