The Kim Jong Un regime in North Korea has been executing its own people, including schoolchildren, for watching South Korean television shows or listening to K-pop. The disturbing revelation has been made by a report of Amnesty International, which is based on testimonies of North Korean who fled the country.
Last year, Amnesty International conducted detailed interviews with 25 individuals who were able to escape from North Korea. 11 of these individuals are said to have fled the country between 2019 and 2020, and the most recent departure was in June 2020. Most of these individuals were between the ages of 15 and 25 at the time they escaped.
The rich bribe their way out while the poor suffer
The individuals told Amnesty that watching popular South Korean shows such as Crash Landing on You, Descendants of the Sun and Squid Game or listening to South Korean pop music can lead to the harshest punishments, including capital punishment. While the rich can escape punishment can manage to escape punishment by bribing officials, the poor are left to face the consequences.
North Koreans who fled the country between 2012 and 2020 told Amnesty International that the stringent North Korean laws are not able to deter people from watching South Korean TV. The consequences of watching South Korean content depend on money. “People are caught for the same act, but punishment depends entirely on money,” Choi Suvin, who left North Korea in 2019, told Amnesty. Suvin revealed that people who do not have money sell their houses to obtain USD 5,000 or 10,000 to secure their release from the re-education camps.
Choi Suvin reportedly witnessed a public execution in Sinuiju in 2017 or 2018 for distributing foreign media. “Authorities told everyone to go, and tens of thousands of people from Sinuiju city gathered to watch. They execute people to brainwash and educate us,” Suvin said.
Another North Korean escapee, Kim Joonsik, said that he was caught watching South Korean dramas three times before he managed to escape in 2019. Joonsik avoided punishment due to his family connections. “Usually, when high school students are caught, if their family has money, they just get warnings. I didn’t receive legal punishment because we had connections,” Joonsik said. He further said that his sister’s three school friends were granted years of labour camp sentence in the late 2010s for watching South Korean TV shows, as their families could not afford bribes.
Another escapee, Kim Eunju, said that school children are made to watch the executions. “When we were 16, 17, in middle school, they took us to executions and showed us everything. People were executed for watching or distributing South Korean media. It’s ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too,” Eunju said.
Multiple executions for watching the forbidden content reported
One of the interviewees, quoting a source from the Yanggang Province of North Korea, said that people, including high school students, were executed for watching Squid Game. A separate execution was documented by Radio Free Asia in North Hamgyong Province in 2021 for distributing the series. The interviewees also said that similar punishment followed for listening to South Korean pop music. According to Amnesty, a report by The Korean Times had also reported that North Korean teenagers were caught and punished for listening to BTS.
“These testimonies show how North Korea is enforcing dystopian laws that mean watching a South Korean TV show can cost you your life, unless you can afford to pay bribes. The authorities criminalise access to information in violation of international law, then allow officials to profit off those fearing punishment. This is repression layered with corruption, and it most devastates those without wealth or connections,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director.
“This government’s fear of information has effectively placed the entire population in an ideological cage, suffocating their access to the views and thoughts of other human beings. People who strive to learn more about the world outside North Korea, or seek simple entertainment from overseas, face the harshest of punishments,” she added.
Suppressive North Korean laws and the smuggling of South Korean content
The North Korean regime is notorious for suppressing its own citizens and inflicting extreme punishments for trivial acts. In 2020, the North Korean regime introduced the Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, which describes the South Korean content as “rotten ideology that paralyses the people’s revolutionary sense.” The Act mandates 5 to 15 years of forced labour for watching or possessing South Korean dramas, films or music. It also prescribes stringent punishment, including the death penalty, for distributing “large amounts” of content or organising group viewings.
Interestingly, despite the harsh punishment, the consumption of content from South Korean and other foreign media has reportedly increased. The content is smuggled into North Korea on USB drives and watched on “notetels”, which are notebook computers with built-in televisions.
According to the interviewees, a special law enforcement unit, “109 Group,” conducts the warrantless searches in homes and on the streets. They search people’s bags and mobile phones for any prohibited content. An interviewee said that even the officials openly watch the South Korean content.
