[Courtesy of Xinhua News]
Amnesty International on Wednesday accused North Korea of importing modern surveillance and detection devices to tighten its stranglehold on the use of communication technology and isolate citizens from the outside world.
Pyongyang has increased its technological capacity to control and repress people in an effort to block contact with the outside world, the human rights watchdog said in a report.
"This includes importing modern surveillance and detection devices, and using signal jammers near the Chinese border," it said.
International calls are blocked for North Koreans using domestic mobile phone service, which has more than three million subscribers, Amnesty said.
Most people who flee North Korea have no means to contact their families back home, leaving both sides uncertain about whether their relatives are alive or dead, being investigated by the authorities or imprisoned, it said.
"To maintain their absolute and systematic control, the North Korean authorities are striking back against people using mobile phones to contact family abroad," Amnesty's East Asia researcher Arnold Fang said in the report.
"The absolute control of communications is a key weapon in the authorities' efforts to conceal details about the dire human rights situation in the country,” Fang said.
There is a growing illicit trade in imported mobile phones and SIM cards that enable North Koreans living near the border to access Chinese mobile networks and communicate directly with people outside the country.
But access to Chinese networks provides a risky lifeline for those wanting to communicate with family members abroad and traders wanting to earn a living, Amnesty said.
Anyone caught making an international call using a Chinese mobile phone risks being sent to a reform facility, or even a political prison camp, it said.
"North Koreans must go to extraordinary lengths, at great personal danger, to have a brief phone conversation with their loved ones," Fang said.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
