North Korea’s Ministry of Social Security has ordered tighter surveillance of North Korean people. The goal is to root out the lingering belief that the two Koreas are one people.
A source in South Pyongan province told Daily NK on Monday that the ministry issued the order on July 1. Since North Korea revised its constitution in March to institutionally support its “hostile two states” doctrine, the ministry has required all neighborhood units to hold weekly meetings. Neighborhood leaders must now track residents’ unusual remarks and behavior in detail and submit written reports to their local police post, the source said.
The order is meant to head off any ideological wavering among North Korean people as South Korea is recast as an unchanging principal enemy and a foreign country, the source said. It places responsibility on neighborhood leaders to track residents’ unusual statements, actions and even what they appear to be thinking, and to report those observations to the local police post.
At the center of the order is a requirement that neighborhood leaders hold at least one meeting per week. The meetings are officially framed as sessions to implement state policy. In practice, the source said, their real purpose is to catch people who mention old ideas like unification, the Korean nation, fellow countrymen or the era of inter-Korean exchange. Authorities are also targeting anyone who shows even slight doubt about the hostile two states line.
Leaders required to file weekly written reports
The Ministry of Social Security has set a strict standard for the campaign: no one is to be overlooked. Neighborhood leaders are being told to capture not just words and actions but the general “trend of thinking” they observe in daily interactions, and to describe it in writing, the source said.
Neighborhood leaders must submit their weekly reports directly to the police officer in charge on a designated day each week. Authorities have warned that if problematic remarks or ideological lapses are discovered later within a leader’s unit, the leader will be held jointly responsible, the source said.
News that the surveillance network went into effect on July 1 has created a mix of tension and confusion among North Korean people and neighborhood leaders in Pyongsong, Mundok county and Pyongwon county, the source said.
Neighborhood leaders describe extreme fatigue. “If I don’t report on a neighbor over one wrong word, I could be the one who gets caught instead,” one was quoted as saying, according to the source. North Korean people in the area have also voiced frustration, saying they now feel they must stay silent the moment they step outside their homes. Even police officers have questioned the order, with some asking how they are supposed to see into people’s minds and put it in writing, the source said.
North Korean authorities appear to believe that even though the constitutional revision erased the legal concept of unification, the decades-old belief that the two Koreas are one people cannot be uprooted quickly. Administrative and institutional steps to erase the past are complete, in the government’s view, but the hostile two states line will only be fully established once the lingering belief in shared nationhood is gone from people’s minds as well.
The source said the order is also expected to deepen mistrust between neighbors and effectively shut down informal conversation in everyday settings like markets and workplaces.
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July 14, 2026 at 08:01PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)