A new report by Amnesty International reveals Kim Jong-un's repressive regime is tightening its stranglehold on use of phones and the internet
North Koreans caught using mobile phones to contact loved ones who have fled abroad are being sent to political prison camps.

A new Amnesty report reveals the repressive regime is tightening its stranglehold on people’s use of phones and the internet.

International calls are blocked for North Koreans using the country’s domestic mobile phone service, which has more than three million subscribers.

Access to the internet is restricted to all but foreigners and a select few privileged citizens, meaning most people have little idea what is happening in the outside world.

Some North Koreans can access a closed-off computer network, which provides connection only to domestic websites and email.

The only way of getting access to networks outside the authorities’ control is through a smuggled Chinese SIM card, enabling those near the Chinese border to call people outside the country.

But just by making a single call they risk being flung into a camp for political prisoners.
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, being investigated, imprisoned or dead.
Arnold Fang, East Asia Researcher at Amnesty International, said: “To maintain their absolute and systematic control, the North Korean authorities are striking back against people using mobile phones to contact family abroad.

“ Kim Jong-un is being deceitful when he justifies such repression as necessary to stop what he calls ‘the virus of capitalism’.

"Nothing can ever justify people being thrown in detention for trying to fulfil a basic human need – to connect with their family and friends.”

Amnesty has compiled evidence of North Korea importing modern surveillance and detection devices, and using signal jammers near the Chinese border.(from mirror.co.uk.com)