North Koreans face death for consuming South Korean media (Image: Netflix/Yougkyu Park/AFP)
North Koreans are being imprisoned in labour camps and executed for watching TV programmes like Squid Game or listening to music such as K-Pop from South Korea, Amnesty International said. The human rights organisation said people it interviewed who fled the country said children have even been forced to watch public executions to deter them from watching foreign programmes. It said those who can’t afford to pay officials’ bribes faced the harshest punishments.
Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, said: “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.
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“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.”
Amnesty said it carried out 25 interviews with North Korean escapees last year, most of whom it said were aged 15 to 25 when they fled.
The rights organisation said the testimonies detailed how accessing foreign culture or information resulted in punishment at least before 2020.
Kim Joonsik, 28, told Amnesty he was caught watching South Korean dramas three times before he fled North Korea in 2019. Mr Joonsik said he was able to avoid being punished because his family had links to officials.
He said: “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.”
Amnesty spoke to North Koreans who fled Kim Jong-Un’s brutal regime (Image: Getty)
But he said three of his sisters’ schoolfriends received years-long sentences in labour camps in the late 2010s for watching South Korean TV.
Their families couldn’t afford to bribe officials. When Mr Joonsik’s own sister was arrested, the family paid £6,600 ($9,000) to secure her release.
A 2020 law dismisses South Korean film TV and music as “rotten”. North Koreans caught with such content face five to 15 years of forced labour.
Officers from Pyongyang’s so-called “109 Group” enforce the regime’s strict laws on foreign media, including searching homes and mobile phones.
Some escapees described schools forcing pupils to watch public executions by firing squad as part of their “ideological education”.
One harrowing case relayed to Amnesty saw a squad of 10 people fire some 30 rounds at a condemned North Korean.
Kim Eunju, 40, who fled in 2019, said: “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.”
Amnesty urged Pyongyang to protect freedom of expression and repeal all laws which unjustly criminalise access to information.
It also called for the death penalty to be abolished for all offences; to establish a moratorium on all executions as a first step; end arbitrary detention and discrimination.
To protect the interviewees, Amnesty said it had changed their names.