- A South Korean media outlet said that North Korea executed dozens of teenagers for watching South Korean dramas.
- It is said that the footage was reportedly stored on a USB stick carried across the border by defectors.
- North Korea has been accused of using harsh punishments for those caught watching South Korean media.
In North Korea, watching your favorite Korean drama could end in tragedy.
According to a report by South Korean broadcaster Chosun TV, about 30 high school students were shot in public last week for watching a South Korean drama.
The show was reportedly stored on a USB stick brought across the border by a North Korean defector, he said.
Business Insider could not independently verify the report.
South Korean officials have not commented directly on the report, but according to the Korea JoongAng Daily, an unnamed South Korean Unification Ministry official told reporters that “it is widely known that North Korean authorities strictly control and severely punish the population under three so-called ‘evil’ laws.”
One of them is the Law on the Counteraction of Reactionary Ideology and North Korean Culture, which prohibits individuals from distributing media originating from South Korea, the US, or Japan.
It is unclear whether the restrictions apply to foreigners visiting the country, such as Russian schoolchildren preparing to attend summer camps in the country.
Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told BI that “in the circumstances created by the intensifying crackdown on information from the outside world, initially carried out under the pretext of COVID, these reports are certainly plausible.”
This is not the first time North Koreans have been reported killed for their association with content from their southern neighbor.
According to a 2022 UN Secretary-General’s report, a man in Kangwon Province was killed by a firing squad after his neighborhood patrol unit saw him selling digital content from South Korea.
A 2024 report on North Korean Human Rights, released by South Korea’s Unification Ministry, claimed that mobile phones in North Korea were regularly checked for “South Korean-style language” and that wearing a white wedding dress was punished for being “reactionary”.
A video released earlier this year showed two teenagers being sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for watching K-pop videos.
Despite eyewitness accounts gathered by Amnesty International, the North Korean government has denied that public executions take place in the country.
According to North Korean authorities, the last execution took place in 1992.
North Korea is still technically at war with South Korea, and their conflict in the 1950s ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
A defector told the Korea Herald that in 2020, North Korean parents were forced to sign a pledge stating they would ensure their children did not watch “impure video content” at home.
Recently, experts have speculated that North Korean military personnel could be sent to assist Russia’s efforts in Ukraine, following closer ties between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Representatives from North Korea did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Correction: July 16, 2024 — An earlier version of this story stated that more than one news outlet had reported the initial claim, not just one broadcaster.
