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Tag: K-dramas

  • Video: 2 North Korean teens receive hard labor sentence for watching K-Drama

    Video: 2 North Korean teens receive hard labor sentence for watching K-Drama


    A rare video from North Korea captures the public sentencing of two teenagers to 12 years of hard labor for watching South Korean TV dramas.

    The footage, obtained by NBC News from the South and North Development (SAND) Institute, provides a glimpse into the secretive state led by Kim Jong Un.

    The teens, clad in gray jumpsuits, stand before hundreds of students in a stadium as uniformed officers criticize them for not adequately reflecting on their alleged mistakes.

    Such videos are infrequently accessible to those outside North Korea, where residents are prohibited from sharing evidence of their daily lives with other countries.

    The footage underscores the strict control over information within the country, where residents and travelers must adhere to designated routes, and photography is severely restricted.

    The video, initially reported by the BBC, was obtained by the SAND Institute, a think tank working with defectors. The institute’s CEO, Choi Kyong-hui, who defected from North Korea in 2001, suggests that the video may have been edited in 2022. NBC News, however, could not independently verify the video or confirm the charges.

    Choi speculates that the video aims to intimidate North Koreans, discouraging them from sharing and consuming South Korean entertainment such as K-dramas and K-pop. North Korea has a history of imprisoning residents for engaging with South Korean culture, reflecting the ongoing tensions between the two countries, which technically remain at war since 1953.

    In the video, a narrator accuses the teenagers of succumbing to South Korean culture, and their names and home addresses are disclosed.

    The strict control over cultural influence is reinforced by the “Let’s Intensify Efforts to Eradicate All Forms of Reactionary and Non-Socialist Phenomena” law enacted in 2020.

    This law allows officials to impose severe penalties, including capital punishment, for importing or distributing materials showcasing South Korean culture.

    Choi notes that the government’s focus is on halting the circulation of South Korean entertainment. While the crackdown may be a temporary measure, she believes that attempts to suppress South Korean cultural influence will ultimately fail, as people will resume engaging with K-dramas and K-pop once government campaigns subside.

  • Teens punished over K-dramas depicted in rare North Korea video

    Teens punished over K-dramas depicted in rare North Korea video

    Exclusive video from the media shows North Korea punishing two young boys by making them work hard for 12 years because they were caught watching K-dramas.

    The video, which seems to be from 2022, shows two 16-year-old boys with handcuffs in front of lots of students at a stadium outside.

    It also shows police officers scolding the boys for not thinking about their mistakes.

    North Korea does not allow South Korean entertainment, including TV shows, to be shown in the country.

    Even though it’s risky, some people are still willing to break the rules to watch K-dramas, which are really popular worldwide.

    There aren’t many videos like this because North Korea doesn’t allow photos or videos of life there to be shared with the outside world.

    The media got this video from a research institute called South and North Development (Sand) that helps people who have left North Korea.

    It means that the authorities are taking stricter action against these incidents. The video has been spread in North Korea to teach people about the government’s beliefs and to tell them not to watch inappropriate videos.

    The video has someone talking and saying the government’s messages over and over again. “The bad government’s culture has even reached young people,” says the speaker, talking about South Korea. “They are only 16 years old, but they have messed up their future,” it says.

    The police named the boys and told everyone where they live.

    In the past, kids who broke the law like this would go to special camps instead of jail, and the punishment was usually less than five years.

    In 2020, Pyongyang made a law that says people can be killed for watching or sharing South Korean movies or TV shows.

    A person who left their country’s side said to the BBC that they were made to watch a 22-year-old man get killed. He said the man did something wrong by listening to music from South Korea and sharing movies from there with his friend.

    Sand CEO Choi Kyong-hui said that North Korea sees K-dramas and K-pop as a threat to its beliefs.

    “Looking up to South Korean society too much can make the system weaker soon. ” She said this is not good because it goes against the belief in North Korea that the Kim family is very important.

    North Koreans began to experience South Korean movies and music in the 2000s, when the South gave aid to the North without asking for anything in return.

    Seoul stopped giving aid to North Korea in 2010 because they found out that the help was not reaching the regular people it was meant for, and it was not making North Korea behave better.

    However, entertainment from South Korea kept getting to North Korea through China.

    “If you’re caught watching an American drama, you might be able to bribe your way out of trouble. But if you watch a Korean drama, you could get killed,” said a North Korean defector in an interview with BBC Korean.

    North Korean people love Korean dramas because they help them forget about their tough lives, a person who escaped from North Korea said.

    “In North Korea, we are told that South Korea has a worse life than us, but when we watch South Korean TV shows, it seems like a totally different world. ” Another person who escaped from North Korea in her twenties said that it seems like the North Korean authorities are cautious about that.