Telephone landlines cost money, and with its
mountains and government-caused poverty, North Korea began very
limited mobile service after August, 2002. News of the
train wreck and massive explosion at Ryongchon apparently first
leaked out from the North via cellphones. There were maybe 30,000
cellphone subscribers at the time of the explosion. (Source:
Why
North Korea Is Prohibiting Mobile Phones, at Seoul's
Dong-a Ilbo.) The Dong-a Ilbo
article discusses frequency-blocking equipment being installed in
areas bordering China.
Now the DPRK is confiscating cellphones and cutting international
landlines.
Starting in April, the sources said Pyongyang blocked
90 percent of its international phone lines to hinder leaks of
information to the outside world. Before April, the North operated
970 international phone lines, but the sources said a direct order
came from the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, to cut the lines. The
North Korean Foreign Ministry is now said to operate with just two
lines, while the North's military operates another two and the
Ministry of Foreign Trade possesses one.
In another measure, the sources said Pyongyang has also impounded
20,000 cell phones [out of 30,000] since May of last year [2004]
after the North Korean authorities came to believe cell phone calls
leaked news of a massive explosion at the rail station in the town
of Ryongchon. North Korean citizens who paid [1,200$] as a deposit
on the cell phones are said to have been angered because the
deposits are not being returned.
Source:
North is said to cut back phone use at Seoul's
JoonAng Daily.
The JoonAng Daily article and the discussion at
You're all grounded and
So
Much for Sunshine make it seems as if this is a new
development, tied perhaps to recent rathceting up of pressure on
the North, but the JoonAng Daily and Dong-a Ilbo articles, plus the
brief mention in a March 10, 2005, article, of 'public executions
of human traffickers and
cellphone owners in the Sino-Korean
border town of Hoeryeong, North Hamgyeong Province' (
Crackdowns,
Public Executions on Sino-Korean Border at Seoul's
Chosun Ilbo, emphasis supplied),
show that Kim's crackdown on cellphones has been going on for a
while.