North Korean authorities have publicly sentenced two teenagers to 12 years of forced labor for watching South Korean movies and music videos, according to a video released by an organization that works with North Korean defectors.
The video was published by the Institute for Development of the North and South (SAND). Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the footage, which was first reported by the BBC.
North Korea has imposed severe penalties for watching South Korean movies and music or imitating the way South Koreans speak since a law against reactionary opinion was passed in 2020.
“Judging by the severe punishment, it looks like it will be shown to people all over North Korea to warn them. If that’s the case, it seems like that lifestyle of South Korean culture is widespread in North Korean society,” said the SAND president and political science Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo Choi Kyon Hui.
“I think that footage was edited sometime in 2022.. Kim Jong Un worries that millennials and Gen Z youth have changed their mindset. I think he’s working to get back to the North Korean way.”
The video shows a large public trial where two 16-year-old students in gray overalls are handcuffed in front of 1,000 students in an amphitheater. All students are wearing face masks, which means that the video was taken during the covid pandemic.
The students were convicted after watching and distributing South Korean movies, music and music videos for three months. “They were seduced by a foreign culture… and destroyed their lives,” the narrator explained.
