According to South Korea, a 22-year-old North Korean citizen was publicly executed for listening to and sharing K-pop music and films. The execution, which took place in 2022 in South Hwanghae province, involved the man who had listened to 70 South Korean songs, watched three films, and distributed them. These details come from testimonies published in the North Korean Human Rights report released by South Korea’s unification ministry on Thursday.
The report, which compiles testimonies from 649 North Korean defectors, underscores Pyongyang’s severe crackdown on Western cultural influences and the flow of information into the isolated country. North Korea’s ban on K-pop, aimed at shielding citizens from the “malign influence” of Western culture, was further strengthened by a 2020 law prohibiting “reactionary ideology and culture.”
North Korea has dismissed criticisms of its severe human rights violations, labeling them as conspiracies aimed at overthrowing the leadership. The regime punishes various “reactionary” practices, including South Korean customs like brides wearing white dresses, grooms carrying the bride, wearing sunglasses, and drinking alcohol from wine glasses.
The report reveals that North Koreans frequently undergo mobile phone inspections to check for South Korean contact name spellings, expressions, and slang terms. Human Rights Watch’s 2023 world report highlights North Korea’s intolerance for pluralism, its bans on independent media, civil society organizations, and trade unions, and its systematic denial of basic liberties, such as freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and religion.
One defector, a woman in her early 20s, noted the rapid influence of South Korean culture on North Korean youth. She mentioned that young people avidly follow and emulate South Korean culture, developing a strong affinity for it. She shared that after watching Korean dramas, many young people question why they must live under such conditions in North Korea, with some feeling they would rather die than continue living there. Although openly criticizing Kim Jong-un is forbidden, close friends, lovers, and family members often express dissent in private.
Historically, North Korea has conducted public executions in villages and prison camps, allowing crowds to gather. However, human rights groups report that these executions have been increasingly moved away from densely populated areas and locations easily monitored by satellites.
North Korea has increasingly avoided conducting executions in densely populated residential areas, where it is difficult for authorities to monitor attendees. Additionally, it has ceased holding executions near its borders and at sites easily observed by satellites.
On Tuesday, South Korea threatened to resume anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, marking the latest in a series of Cold War-style confrontations between the two nations. This threat followed North Korea’s recent launch of balloons carrying plastic bags of rubbish across the border, the fifth such campaign since late May. This action appears to be a response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets via balloons.
The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953, not a peace treaty.
