Eight employees of Pyongyang’s Kwangbok Cutting-Edge Product Development and Exchange Company were arrested by the domestic counterespionage bureau of the Ministry of State Security in late July, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking anonymously, a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK recently that the researchers were arrested on July 28, and their family members, including parents and siblings, were taken away in early August.
The source said a local official with the Ministry of State Security shared that the employees had gathered to watch forbidden videos and read forbidden books from overseas while staying late in the office.
Another state security official told the source that the researchers were caught making slanderous insinuations about the bloodline of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after watching foreign videos.
According to rumors, the arrests came after the researchers were overheard by other staff whispering about Kim Jong Un being the child of a Korean-Japanese woman and wondering which of Kim Jong Il’s concubines had given birth to him. These rumors are being strictly clamped down on by the company management, the source said.
“The basic role of the company is to interact with the outside world, and this task is becoming more important as technological cooperation with the international community has increased in recent years. However, the Ministry of State Security didn’t hesitate to make the arrests because of alleged ideological problems”.
Because the researchers’ work often involved contact with the outside world, they were accused of leaking state secrets or engaging in anti-state activities, prompting the authorities to arrest them on the spot.
Many concerned over fallout from arrests
Other company employees are worried about being caught up in the fallout from the arrests, which has even led to some voluntary resignations, the source said.