Seoul’s Unification Ministry has disclosed details of a death penalty carried out against a young North Korean man by his regime simply for listening to South Korean music and watching South Korean movies.
Our correspondent Kim Jung-sil reports.
In North Korea, those watching South Korean dramas and movies, or listening to songs must do so at the risk of their own lives.
For the first time, the Ministry of Unification has made public the record of an execution of a person violating North Korea’s Law on Rejecting Reactionary Thought and Culture. Enacted in late 2020,.., the law bans North Koreans from watching foreign content, that the regime believes potentially poses a threat to it.
The ministry released its latest report on the human rights situation in North Korea on Thursday, and it included the case of a 22-year-old male being executed for violating the recent law.
A defector who witnessed the execution, said the young man was put to death for listening to 70 South Korean songs and watching 3 movies, according to charges read out before the sentence was carried out.
He was caught in possession of the South Korean material and was also charged with distributing the content to seven others.
New testimony from 141 North Korean defectors this year, added to that from 508 defectors in 2023, confirms the continuity of North Korea’s human rights violations.
Two defectors, a mother and her daughter in her 20s, came to the South late last year and spoke to reporters the same day the report was released.
They said they had to escape the North because they were on the verge of death due to a financial crisis and the extreme surveillance and interference by some younger “watchdog” members of the regime’s Workers’ Party.
Actor Yu Ji-tae was named an ambassador for promoting North Korean human rights.
“About 20 years ago, I was filming a movie based on a North Korean novel, and when I was in Mt. Geumgang for shooting, the staff from the South and North were using the same language, but it felt so different that it made me feel sad. I later learned that there are serious issues regarding North Korean human rights. I want to do everything in my power to help.”
The ministry plans to promote the report to raise awareness both inside and outside South Korea.
Kim Jung-sil, Arirang News.
Source : Arirang TV, https://www.arirang.com/news/view?id=272538
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