State Security Department
The State Security Department of North Korea or the Ministry of State Security is an autonomous agency of the North Korean government reporting directly to the Supreme Leader. It was established in 1973 and serves as the secret police of North Korea. It also is involved in the operation of North Korea's concentration camps and various other hidden activities. By nearly all accounts, it is one of the most brutal secret police forces in the world, and has been involved in numerous human rights abuses.
It is one of two agencies which provides security or protection to North Korean officials and VIPs alongside the Guard Command.
Famous quotes containing the words state, security and/or department:
“But the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the advantages of the market had induced to build towns. Agriculture therefore was a religious injunction, because of the perils of the state from nomadism.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
““Which is more important to you, your field or your children?” the department head asked. She replied, “That’s like asking me if I could walk better if you amputated my right leg or my left leg.””
—Anonymous Parent. As quoted in Women and the Work Family Dilemma, by Deborah J. Swiss and Judith P. Walker, ch. 2 (1993)