▲ Hyesan seen from across the Yalu River
Reuters Yonhap News
Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on the 2nd that teenagers were publicly executed for distributing South Korean dramas and films in North Korea.
According to a report, a source in Yanggang Province said, “The day before, three teenage students were publicly executed in Hyesan City last October.” The unclean records refer to pornography.
In North Korea, when teenage students are caught watching South Korean movies or dramas, they are punished with job training camps. If caught again, not only will they be punished for 5 years in the labor camp, but the students’ parents will also be imprisoned in the labor camp as they are responsible for their children’s education.
Specifically, it is a message from the source that minors will also be sentenced to death if caught distributing or selling Korean movies or dramas beyond just viewing.
Two teenage students who were publicly executed last October were caught by the 82nd Combined Command (Combined Anti-Socialist/Non-Socialist Command) for distributing Korean movies, fiction and pornography to their friends. The other is said to have committed a crime by stabbing her stepmother to death after arguing with her stepmother over money.
“The public execution was carried out on the runway of Hyesan Airport,” the source said.
The source said the 82nd Combined Command, which cracks down on books and videos that go against the North Korean system, is cracking down on including investigators among the residents. Investigators disguised as ordinary citizens buy Korean films and fiction directly, investigate and report those who distribute or sell them. The source said that the students who were executed this time also got caught in this trap.
On the same day, another resident of North Hamgyong Province’s source said, “Although the authorities have conducted intensive checks and crackdowns to eradicate reactionary ideology and culture, cases of people secretly watching Korean movies or dramas in large cities, including the border, were not uprooted and public executions were carried out in this method,” he said.
This source also reported the execution of three teenage students in Hyesan City in October, adding that the executed students were in the third year of an advanced middle school (high school).
A source in North Hamgyong Province explained, “After the public executions, the 82nd Combined Command organized a combined strike force with officials from the State Security Department, the Department of Security, the prosecution and judicial agencies, claiming to eradicate reactionary ideological culture. “
“Especially in Hyesan City, there are young men among the merchants who make money by secretly possessing and distributing impure recordings, making them the target of intense crackdowns by the 82nd Combined Command and Strike Forces,” he said. registrations and publications, like others, do not procrastinate the investigation and face the investigation, pre-trial and trial quickly and decisively in the public struggle,” she predicted.
Hyesan City, the capital of Yanggang Province, is a border city bordering the Changbai Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, across the Yalu River.
Journalist Shin Jin-ho
