The report was released at a time of heightened tensions between South Korea and North Korea
(Picture: AP)
North Korea has executed a 22-year-old in public for listening to K-pop music and watching South Korean films, a new human rights abuses report claims.
Third generation authoritarian Kim Jon-un’s attempts to isolate people and guard his propaganda has been highlighted in a report by South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
Page after page, it paints a picture of the brutal censorship and crackdown in the neighbouring nation, based on testimonies obtained from more than 600 North Korean defectors.
The man, from the South Hwanghae province, was publicly executed in 2022 for listening to 70 South Korean songs, watching three films, and distributing them.
His punishment was purportedly based on a law adopted in 2022, which calls for eradicating ‘the reactionary ideology and culture.’
The report of the killing was base on the testimony of an unnamed defector who allegedly heard a person who appeared to be a judge reveal the charges at the execution site.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un stands during the departure ceremony of Russian president Vladimir Putin (Picture: AP)
North Korean authorities are stepping up ideological controls and are especially nervous about people being exposed to and influenced by South Korean dramas and other outside culture.
Practices deemed ‘reactionary’ include brides wearing white dresses and grooms carrying brides at weddings.
Wearing sunglasses and drinking wine from a wine glass would also trigger a crackdown.
But what exactly the punishment is for these remains unclear.
A 2024 report from Human Rights Watch said about freedom of expression and information in North Korea: ‘Accessing phones, computers, televisions, radios, or media content that is not sanctioned by the government is illegal.
‘It is considered “anti-socialist behavior” that is punished, including through the use of torture and forced labor.
‘The government regularly cracks down on those accessing unsanctioned media.
‘It also jams Chinese mobile phone services at the border and targets for arrest people for communicating with contacts outside the country.’
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