A North Korean mother faces a prison threat, after she saved her two children from a fire in her home, but leaves the image of the former president, Kim Jong-il, followed by fire. The woman was under investigation by the Ministry of State Security, after the fire broke out in a house shared by two families in Wansong township in northern Hamgyang province near the Chinese border.
The father and mother were outside the house when the fire broke out, but they quickly returned to save their children, after seeing smoke from the house. During the rescue operation, the image of former President Kim Jong Il was burned. The North Korean government requires each family to display in their home pictures of the country's three leaders, who are the current president, his father and grandfather, and send home inspectors to make sure these pictures are on the walls.
According to North Korean laws, all images of the Kim family must be treated exactly the same as the men themselves, meaning that neglecting this image may be considered a serious crime. If she is found guilty, this mother can face a long prison sentence with hard labor. The neighbors said they were anxious to help this woman, but preferred to stay away, for fear of being involved in political crimes.
Koreans who save pictures of the Kim family from fires and floods are considered heroes, especially if they die while trying to save the pictures. There are examples of this, as the Korean, Jan Yoss Aung, who fled the country in 2005, reported such incidents during an interview in 2015. “When a fire broke out in a house, a child was found burned to death while holding pictures,” she said. Kim's Family », and there is the North Korean girl, Han Hyun Gyeong (14 years), who drowned while trying to save pictures of the Kim family, after a flood destroyed her home in Sinhung township, in southern Hmkaeong in 2012. She was rewarded after her death with the Medal of Honor for the youth, and gave her name On her school in her honor.
Of course, those who are indifferent to these images are subject to severe penalties. The American student, Otto and Rambayer, who was visiting Pyong Yan, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with hard labor, because he removed a poster from the wall bearing the picture of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current president.
There are many laws regarding how to hang pictures on the walls. They must be hung on the most visible and prominent wall in the living room, and at a suitable height to be clear to everyone, so that no one, no matter how tall, appears higher than them. And it must be kept completely clean, and if there is a layer of dust on the image, this exposes the owner of the house where the pictures are to be subject to a fine, and the size of the fine is proportional to the amount and thickness of the dust on the photos. It is not clear at the present time why this woman is under investigation alone without her husband, but it is usually the responsibility of neglecting these pictures on the owner of the house.
The Koreans who save Kim's family from fires and floods are heroes, especially if they die during the rescue attempt.