Several teenagers are alleged to have been executed for viewing South K-dramas by North Korea. There have been reports of Kim Jong’s administration adopting severe measures to restrict its comrades from watching the same.
Chosun TV, a South Korean station, reported that approximately thirty middle school students were shot in broad daylight last week for watching South Korean dramas.
It stated that North Korean defectors allegedly brought the shows across the border on USBs that included the shows. The report could not be independently verified as requests for reaction from North Korean representatives were not immediately answered.
Officials from the South Korean Unification Ministry declined to comment on the report directly, but as reported by Korea JoongAng Daily, one of them told reporters that “it is widely known that North Korean authorities controls strictly and harshly punishes residents based on the three so-called ‘evil’ laws.”
The Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act of North Korea, prohibits anyone from spreading media that comes from South Korea, the US, or Japan.
It’s unclear if similar limitations extend to international visitors to the nation, such as Russian youngsters getting ready for summer camp there.
As ststed by BI, “Under the circumstances created by the intensified crackdown on information from the outside world, initially conducted under the pretext of COVID, these reports are plausible.” Greg Scarlatoiu is the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
There have been other cases of North Koreans being murdered because they were connected to content from their southern neighbor. A guy in Kangwon Province was executed by firing squad in public after his neighborhood watch unit discovered him trafficking digital content from South Korea, according to a UN Secretary-General report dated 2022.
According to a 2024 report on North Korean human rights published by the Ministry of Unification of South Korea, wearing white wedding dresses is frowned upon as “reactionary,” and phones in North Korea are routinely searched for “South Korean-style language.”.
Earlier this year, a video surfaced that showed two teens receiving 12-year sentences for watching a K-pop video.
The Amnesty International has collected eyewitness testimony, but the North Korean government has refrained from the public executions that occur in the nation.
Although there was no formal peace treaty between North and South Korea during their 1950s struggle, they are currently technically at war. The last execution, according to North Korean officials, happened in 1992. According to a defector who spoke to the Korea Herald, North Korean parents were required to swear in 2020 that they would make sure their kids didn’t consume “impure video content” at home.
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