North Korean authorities executed teenagers for watching the Netflix series ‘Squid Game’ and listening to K-pop. [Photo=Squid Game still cut]

North Korean authorities executed teenagers for watching the Netflix series ‘Squid Game’ and listening to K-pop, Amnesty International announced in early February.

Fox News reported on the 8th (local time), citing the announcement by the human rights organization Amnesty International and the testimony of a defector with family in Yanggang Province, that people, including students, were executed simply for watching the South Korean drama series.

The organization also separately announced cases of people being sentenced to forced labor or subjected to public humiliation for consuming South Korean media, adding, "Most of those who received severe punishments were people who were poor or lacked political connections."

Those with Money or Connections Escape Punishment

Kim Jun-sik (28), who defected in 2019, testified that he was caught watching South Korean dramas three times but "we were not legally punished because we had connections."

In North Korea, students from affluent families often receive only a warning in such cases.

Kim testified, "Three of my sisters' high school friends were caught watching South Korean dramas in the late 2010s and were sentenced to several years in a labor camp," adding, "This proves that their families were unable to bribe superiors."

Sarah Brooks, Deputy Director of Amnesty International for East and Southeast Asia, told Fox News, "While the North Korean authorities criminalize access to information in violation of international law, they also allow public officials to profit from people’s fear of punishment. This oppression is a result of layers of corruption, and the victims are those without wealth or connections."

She further stated, "The Kim Jong Un regime has effectively imprisoned the entire population in an ideological prison, stifling access to the views and thoughts of others. Those who wish to learn about the outside world inevitably face severe punishment."

Amnesty also compiled testimonies from several defectors who stated they were forced to witness "public executions" while attending school, emphasizing, "This practice is a form of indoctrination enforced by the state to prevent exposure to foreign cultures."

Allowing Public Officials to Profit by Exploiting Fear

Defector Kim Eun-ju (40) revealed, "When we were 16 or 17 years old, we were forcibly taken to the execution sites in middle school. We saw people being executed for watching or distributing South Korean media. It was a form of ideological education. The message was, if you watch this, you will end up like them."

In 2019, Thomas Ojea Quintana, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, stated that "North Korea has become a country solely for government officials. The entire country is a prison."

The 'North Korean Human Rights Report,' published annually since 2018 to document the human rights situation in North Korea, will not be produced after 2024, the last year of its publication before the launch of the Lee Jae-myung administration in 2025. [Photo=Ministry of Unification]

Meanwhile, the 'North Korean Human Rights Report,' which has been published annually since 2018 to document the human rights situation in North Korea, will not be produced starting in 2025, with the inauguration of the Lee Jae-myung administration.

This is widely seen as an intention not to provoke North Korea over its "Achilles' heel" of human rights issues, as the Lee Jae-myung administration has been proposing various engagement policies towards North Korea since taking office.

By Lim Yo-hee