Daily NK Reports Citing North Korean Source
Over 40 Local Party Committee Officials Received Entertainment
Officials, Service Workers, and Related Personnel Included Among Those Punished
It has been reported that North Korean local officials were publicly reprimanded by Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, after it was revealed that they received alcohol entertainment and brought women into bathhouses for inappropriate conduct.
On the 17th, the North Korea-focused media outlet Daily NK reported, "Women from service institutions involved in the entertainment activities of officials from the Onchon County Party Committee in Nampo City will also be punished."
According to Daily NK, the details of this incident, described as a "major criminal case," are as follows. At the end of last month, about 40 officials from the Onchon County Party Committee held a formal county party plenary meeting and then collectively received entertainment. Originally, the event was arranged as a commitment to dedicate themselves to local economic development, but the actual atmosphere reportedly turned somewhat lewd.
Party officials at various levels received alcohol entertainment from women belonging to service institutions, and as the officials became more excited with drinking and dancing, they took the female service workers into the bathhouse and engaged in immoral acts.
Chairman Kim condemned the incident at the 30th expanded meeting of the 8th Secretariat of the Party Central Committee held on the 27th of last month, calling it a "serious violation of party discipline and a crime of moral and cultural corruption," and stated that it should be regarded as a public denial of the party's discipline construction line. According to the Workers' Party Charter, the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee decided to dissolve the Onchon County Party Committee in Nampo City and announced strict measures against those involved.
Daily NK cited a source saying that not only the officials but also the female service workers were dismissed or suspended. Because they were mobilized as entertainers at the immoral gathering, they were included as subjects for ideological training. Furthermore, it was understood that the managers of restaurants, hot springs, and inns who mobilized female service workers to the entertainment event were also subject to punishment.
The source told Daily NK, "To enter facilities under the Social Supply Management Office, one’s family background must be somewhat supportive, and bribes must be paid. Parents who paid bribes of 200 to 300 dollars to get their daughters into service positions are now expressing outrage that their daughters were stigmatized with a dirty label and expelled."
This is not the first time an obscene incident has occurred in North Korean bathhouses. In June last year, it was revealed that second-year students at a high-level secondary school in Hamhung City, South Hamgyong Province, engaged in group sexual activities and even used drugs in a bathhouse. The students reportedly paid the bathhouse manager an additional 70 dollars (about 96,000 won at the time) beyond the official usage fee to rent the entire bathhouse for two hours.
In response, the North Korean Cabinet’s People’s Service General Bureau issued a directive in September last year to eliminate immoral phenomena in convenience service facilities nationwide, including skin care (beauty treatment), beauty salons, massage, and bathhouses, but this recent incident has occurred again.
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