North Korean mum faces GULAG after saving her kids from fire instead of Kim portraits
A NORTH Korean mum faces being sent to the gulag after saving her kids from a house fire instead of portraits of the country’s rulers, according to reports.
The secretive state demands that every home display paintings of its past leaders Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung – Kim Jong-un’s dad and granddad.
And the tyrannical regime even sends inspectors to people’s homes to make sure that every house has them.
It’s a crime not to care for the paintings – and now a mum-of-two reportedly faces being sent to a prison camp for failing to rescue her family’s copies from a fire.
The blaze is said to have broken out at a house shared by two families in Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province, close to the Chinese border.
It’s understood that both sets of parents were out at the time and rushed to rescue their children.
But in the chaos one family lost their portraits to the flames.
Now the mother is under investigation by the Ministry of State Security, a local source told South Korea’s Daily NK newspaper.
As a result, she can’t tend to her children in hospital or even obtain antibiotics for their burns, the report added.
LEFT IN LIMBO
Neighbours were said to be eager to help, but feared she would be charged with a political crime and decided to stay away.
The source said: “The mother will be able to focus on caring for her children once the authorities end their investigation.”
North Koreans who rescue their Kim portraits from floods and fires are feted as heroes – especially if they die in the attempt.
Jun Yoo-sung, who fled the country in 2005, recalled such an incident in a 2015 interview.
She said: “When a house was set on fire, some child was found to have been burnt to death holding on to those portraits.
“Of course, such incidents are used for North Korean propaganda.”
Han Hyon-gyong, 14, drowned trying to save her family’s Kim portraits after a flash flood struck her home in Sinhung County, South Hamkyong, in 2012.
She was posthumously awarded the Kim Jong-il Youth Honour Award and her school was renamed in her memory.
A hero has even emerged from the latest blaze in Onsong County.
A young farm worker who managed to save the portraits belonging to the other family is now being celebrated, despite recently serving time for a violent crime.
There are also strict rules on how the paintings are hung.
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They must be on the most prominent wall in the living room and high up, so that nobody can stand higher than them.
They must be kept clean too – a layer of dust is punishable with a fine, with the size of the sum dependent on the thickness of the layer.
Images of North Korea’s former leaders are also prominently displayed in the nation's public places including schools, railway stations and subway trains.
