Two young people in North Korea have been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for watching South Korean music videos, according to a Western organization. A court has charged the two boys with watching and distributing films, music and music videos (K-pop) from South Korea over a three-month period, the South and North Development Institute (Sand) said on Friday.
The material was recorded by authorities in North Korea. Because everyone in the video is wearing face masks, the film was probably shot during the corona pandemic.
“You ruined their future”
The video shows two teenagers in handcuffs being paraded in front of a large number of other teenagers in a sort of public trial. According to the British BBC, a narrator said: “They are only 16 years old, but they have ruined their own future.” Reuters could not independently verify the video, which was first reported by the BBC. The Sand organization, which distributed the material, is working with North Korean defectors.
The laws were tightened in 2020
K-pop has become increasingly popular among young people in many countries, including North Korea, in recent years. But South Korean entertainment and imitating your neighbor’s way of speaking are strictly prohibited in the isolated North. There is a risk of draconian punishments; the laws were tightened in 2020.
Warning to your own population
Given the draconian sentence, the conviction of the two teenagers seems intended as a warning to its own people, according to Sand President Choi Kyong-hui, who fled North Korea in 2001. If this is the case, the lifestyle of South Korean culture appears to be widespread in North Korean society. For North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, it is problematic that young people in his country have changed their way of thinking. “I think he’s working to get them back on North Korea’s path.”
Isolated North Korea and democratic South Korea are still officially at war. After the end of the Korean War in 1953, an armistice agreement was reached, but there is no peace treaty. The two countries are separated by a 248 kilometer long demilitarized zone.
Source: Krone
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