According to a rights group, at least seven North Koreans were executed by firing squad for watching or sharing South Korean Kpop music in the past ten years.
Kim Jong-Un, North Korea’s dictator described it as a vicious Cancer’. The executions were part of an attempt to stop the music.
Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group conducted interviews with 683 North Korean defectors over six years – since 2015 – to map places where North Koreans were killed and buried in state-sanctioned public executions.
The group released Wednesday’s latest report, stating that it has documented 27 executions by Kim’s government. Most of them were executed using firing squad.
The charges were for the viewing or distribution of South Korean videos and drugs as well prostitution.
Ten years after assuming power, the dictator of the country isolated has been attacking South Korean entertainment, including movies and TV, which he claims corrupts his citizens’ minds.
The North Korean regime led by Kim Jong-un (pictured during a conference of military educationists of the Korean People’s Army held on December 4 and 5, 2021) has executed at least seven people by firing squad in the last ten years for sharing or watching South Korean K-pop, a rights group claimed on Wednesday
Since long, entertainment from the South is being smuggled across borders, initially as CDs and VHS tapes, and then as flash drives, from China. This allows for media freedom and avoids censorship.
However, a December law made it possible for those who distributed entertainment from South Korea to be subject to the death penalty.
People found guilty of watching and sharing prohibited content were executed publicly, creating terror in the North Korean population.
The full scale of public executions in the country is impossible to know, but to gain some understanding of the practice, Transitional Justice Working Group focused on executions that have occurred since Kim Jong-un took power, and those that have been carried out in Hyesan – a city close to the border with China.
Hyesan is a hub for trading that houses 200,000 people. It acts as an entry point to traffic in South Korean entertainment via USB sticks and other contraband.
Many North Korean defectors have also lived in this city and fled to South Korea. Many others have passed through this city.
Kim has made Hyesan the focus of his efforts to crack down on South Korean music, K-pop, and other South Korean pop.
Kim Jong-un has been attacking South Korean entertainment, including movies and music, since his ten-year reign of power. Pictured: K-pop group Blackpink perform at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in California, 2019
According to the study, seven executions were carried out in order to watch or distribute K-pop. All except one occurred between 2012–2014.
Residents were encouraged to observe the cruel punishments and the families of the dead. The group stated that officials called the accused social evil before the nine bullets fired by three soldiers killed them.
In recent years, however, the human rights group said North Korea has changed the way it carries out capital punishment in response to greater international scrutiny of its human rights, more often holding executions in front of controlled crowds.
Park Ah-yeong was the report’s lead author.
“This doesn’t mean that the situation in human rights is improving. State-led killings still take place in ways not as visible to the public.
North Korea doesn’t answer foreign journalists’ questions or publish data or reports on its judiciary system.
State media seldom reports on criminality or the punishment of the convicted. North Korea denies the existence prison camps exist and accuses the United States of using human rights criticisms as part of its hostile policy.
As a sign of public warning, North Korea used to execute prisoners in prison camps or villages.
Seven executions were committed to K-pop distribution or watching. All but one of them took place in Hyesan, according to the study.
However, executions were increasingly avoided in highly populated residential areas because authorities struggled to track who was there.
The group also stated that it had stopped holding executions at its borders or in facilities easily accessible by satellites.
According to the group, “This possible change of location might explain why the state is acting under the influence of international scrutiny,”
Although North Korea did not abandon public executions (23 of the 27 listed in the report are public), it was determined to limit who could attend, according to the group.
It stated that the state controls and monitors public-killing events to ensure information about public executions is not leaked.
“Inhumane treatment for the accused before execution” – used to warn the public has continued.
Several specific executions of the North have been documented.
In November, it was reported a North Korean man was set to be executed for bringing back a copy of Netflix’s Squid Game into the country.
According to some reports, the student smuggler returned from China with an encrypted USB flash drive containing a digital copy of South Korean television series.
After selling the copies to multiple people, including his fellow students, he was identified by the surveillance agencies of the country.
Radio Free Asia reported that one student who bought a copy of the drive has since received a life sentence, while six others who watched the show have been sentenced to five years hard labor.
According to reports, a North Korean man would be executed for trying to bring back Netflix’s Squid Game (pictured), in November.
In May, Kim Jong-un reportedly ordered for North Korean man to be shot by firing squad for illegally selling films and music, while his family were forced to watch his execution.
Lee was the father of the victim. He was first arrested in Wonsan in Gangwon, and then allegedly executed in front of 500 people 40 days later.
According to Daily NK, Lee was the chief engineer of the Wonsan Farming Management Commission. He was charged with ‘antisocialist acts’ in trading South Korean videos.
This publication stated that Lee was caught and sold music and films by the daughter his neighbourhood watch leader or people’s unit leader.
Lee was executed 40 days after being arrested. His wife, daughter and son were forced to watch from the front row as he died.
And in December last year, North Korea held a public execution by firing squad to punish a breach of coronavirus rules, insiders in the country said..
Radio Free Asia reported that the murder of an accused of trafficking across the Chinese-China border sealed off was committed by a gunman. This incident, Radio Free Asia said, was done to incite people to follow the rules.
Although North Korea says it never has had Covid-19, Kim Jongun’s regime introduced ‘ultra-high level emergency quarantine measures’, and soldiers were instructed to shoot Chinese border trespassers, according to sources.
One source claimed that they executed a firing squad public execution to intimidate residents in the border zone. This was because of frequent contact with border people, as well as smuggling.
The worst recession in North Korea in 23 years occurred in 2020, according to South Korea’s central bank.
North Korea is not confirming any COVID-19 case, but has closed borders and instituted strict prevention measures. They see the pandemics as an issue of national survival.
U.N. Special rapporteur on North Korea’s human rights has warned that North Korea’s most vulnerable residents are in danger of starvation following its fall into isolation after the COVID-19 Pandemic.