Schoolchildren in North Korea are being executed for watching K-pop dramas and foreign TV shows, including Netflix’s Squid Game, according to chilling new testimony shared with Amnesty International. Young people are accused of consuming South Korean culture and then paraded before crowds to face brutal punishment. In the most extreme cases, the penalty is death.

The explosive claims come from 25 in-depth interviews with North Koreans, including 11 who fled the country between 2009 and 2020. Most of the interviewees were aged between 15 and 25 when they escaped. Their stories paint a terrifying picture of a state that treats entertainment as a crime.

Watching South Korean dramas such as Crash Landing on You and Descendants of the Sun, or listening to K-pop, led to severe and humiliating punishments. Escapees say penalties range from forced labour to public executions. The goal, they say, is fear and control.

Kim Eunju, now 40, described being forced to witness executions as a teenager. “When we were 16, 17, in middle school, they took us to executions and showed us everything,” she said. “People were executed for watching or distributing South Korean media.”

She added: “It's ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too.” The message was clear and merciless. Watch, and you risk your life.

Another escapee, Choi Suvin, said she personally witnessed a public execution in Sinuiju in 2017 or 2018. The person was accused of distributing foreign media. “Authorities told everyone to go, and tens of thousands of people from Sinuiju city gathered to watch,” she said.

“They execute people to brainwash and educate us,” she added. The spectacle, she said, was designed to terrify. It was meant to make an example of anyone tempted by foreign culture.

Money and connections can mean the difference between life and death, according to multiple accounts. Those without wealth face the harshest consequences. Families scrape together huge sums in desperate attempts to buy mercy.

“People without money sell their houses to gather $5,000 or $10,000 to pay to get out of the re-education camps,” Choi said. The price of survival is crushing. For many, it is impossible.

Kim Joonsik, 28, said he was caught watching South Korean dramas three times before fleeing in 2019. He avoided punishment because his family had connections. Others were not so lucky.

He said three of his sisters’ high school friends received years-long labour camp sentences in the late 2010s because their families could not afford to pay bribes. “Usually when high school students are caught, if their family has money, they just get warnings,” he said. “I didn't receive legal punishment because we had connections.”

The crackdown intensified in 2020 with the Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act. The law outlawed South Korean content and mandated five to 15 years of forced labour for possession or viewing. It labels the media a “rotten ideology that paralyses the people's revolutionary sense.”

The death penalty is prescribed for distributing “large amounts” of content or organising group viewings. Last year, South Korea’s unification ministry reported that a 22-year-old citizen was publicly executed for listening to and sharing K-pop music and films.

A UN report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned of new laws and practices that increase surveillance and control. Amnesty International says the system is both brutal and corrupt. “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,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty’s deputy regional director.

She added: “This is repression layered with corruption, and it most devastates those without wealth or connections.” The message from escapees is stark. In North Korea, even a TV show can become a death sentence.

Key Takeaways

• Schoolchildren are reportedly executed for watching K-dramas and K-pop.

• Public executions are used to terrify and “educate” entire communities.

• Wealth and connections can buy leniency, while the poor face death or labour camps.

Teenagers 'executed for watching Squid Game' in North Korea

Kim is like a rabid street dog who will do anything to protect his status as the great leader.

It would sure be fun to watch him suffer an incredibly painful and slow death.

1 minute ago, spidermike007 said:

Kim is like a rabid street dog who will do anything to protect his status as the great leader.

It would sure be fun to watch him suffer an incredibly painful and slow death.

Give him more cheese

It's not only DPRK. Look at the three teenage sisters who committed suicide when their father restricted their steady diet of Korean music videos and soaps.

My own granddaughter flew through Seoul before she came to visit me because she's so enraptured. I myself like some SK movies & TV series.

But this is getting to be an unstoppable over-the-top trend. Those girls' wet seats watching The Beatles seemed more wholesome to me. Has society crumbled around us? Is this due to ready digital content? It will only get worse with AI>