On June 27, the Ministry of Unification, South Korea, published a report on human rights in North Korea. The document included 649 testimonies from defectors from North Korea.
According to the criteria of
One of the sources revealed that a 22-year-old man had been publicly executed for listening 70 K-pop songs, watch three movies and distribute them. His actions were an act of defiance to the laws of the totalitarian dictatorship against Western culture.
This musical genre, originating in South Korea, had been banned under Kim Jong Il’s rule to protect citizens from ‘bad influences’.
These restrictions were strengthened by his son and current supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong Un, who in 2020 enacted a law banning ‘reactionary ideologies and cultures’.
The young man who was publicly executed was from South Hwanghaea province also known as the South Yellow Sea Province. It was formed in 1954 when it was divided into two following the Korean War.
Other measures that North Korea has implemented
This is not the first time that a case of North Korea’s sentencing of citizens who break the law has come to light.
In January 2024, the ‘BBC’ found a video showing two teenagers being publicly sentenced to 12 years of forced labor for watching and distributing K-dramas, films of South Korean origin.
Apparently, the images had been recorded in 2022 and reflected the moment when two 16-year-olds were handcuffed in front of an open-air stadium while authorities handed down their punishment.
According to the British media, the video had been provided by South and North Development, a research institute that works with North Korean defectors.
“The culture of the rotten puppet regime has even spread to teenagers. They are only 16 years old, but they have ruined their own future,” one narrator could be heard saying.
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Sofia Arias Martinez
DIGITAL REACH EDITORIAL
TIME
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