North Korea executed teens for listening to K-pop, watching ‘Squid Game’: report

North Korean authorities executed teenagers for watching the South Korean tv bid "Squid Game" and listening to K-pop, quality rights researchers announced successful aboriginal February.

Amnesty International cited grounds from an escapee with household ties successful Yanggang Province who said people, including schoolchildren, were executed for specifically watching the fashionable endurance play series.

It besides separately documented accounts of forced labour sentences and nationalist humiliation for consuming South Korean media elsewhere successful the country, peculiarly for those without wealth oregon governmental connections.

"Usually erstwhile precocious schoolhouse students are caught, if their household has money, they conscionable get warnings," said Kim Joonsik, 28, who was caught watching South Korean dramas 3 times earlier leaving the state successful 2019.

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A leaflet containing a U.S. dollar measure beneath USB drives loaded with K-pop euphony is seen during an interrogation with North Korean defector Park Sang-hak successful Seoul, South Korea, connected June 25, 2024. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

"I didn't person ineligible punishment due to the fact that we had connections," helium told Amnesty International successful an interview.

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Joonsik said 3 of his sisters’ precocious schoolhouse friends were fixed multi-year labour campy sentences successful the precocious 2010s aft being caught watching South Korean dramas, a punishment helium said reflected their families’ inability to wage bribes.

"The authorities criminalize entree to accusation successful usurpation of planetary law, past let officials to nett disconnected those fearing punishment. This is repression layered with corruption, and it astir devastates those without wealthiness oregon connections," said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International's lawman determination director.

Members of the North Korean Military Choir sing a Russian opus during a performance pursuing Russian–North Korean talks successful Pyongyang, North Korea, connected June 19, 2024. (Contributor/Getty Images)

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"This government's fearfulness of accusation has efficaciously placed the full colonisation successful an ideological cage, suffocating their entree to the views and thoughts of different quality beings," she added. "People who strive to larn much astir the satellite extracurricular North Korea, oregon question elemental amusement from overseas, look the harshest of punishments."

Fans of Korean popular euphony be the KCON normal successful Newark, New Jersey, connected June 23, 2018. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

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Several defectors told the quality rights enactment that they were required to witnesser nationalist executions portion inactive successful school, describing the signifier arsenic a signifier of state-mandated indoctrination designed to deter vulnerability to overseas culture.

"When we were 16, 17, successful mediate school, they took america to executions and showed america everything," said Kim Eunju, 40. "People were executed for watching oregon distributing South Korean media. It's ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too."