Diplomats in Pyongyang confirmed that students were being drafted into manual labor on the outskirts of the city until April next year to prepare for major celebrations to commemorate the centenary of the late leader Kim Il Sung’s birthday. But they said this did not mean the closure of universities.
But part of the motivation may come from fears of student revolution. Last week someone put a piece of graffito on the wall of a Pyongyang College which called the Dear Leader “a dictator who starved people to death.”
For North Korea, this is more or less the equivalent of setting the White House on fire with a Molotov. Pyongyang was locked down (more than usual) for three days in a vain search for the culprit. Hopefully he or she is well-hidden, or followed the seven folks who triggered a border security crackdown when when they defected to the South a few weeks ago, joining the 21,000 other former North Koreans who have had that same great idea since 1953.
(Read more from reason.com)