North Korea Executes Young People for ‘Illegal Movie Distribution’

Forget illegal “file-sharing,” as it wages an all out war on “idea-sharing” from South Korean cinema that has already taken the rest of East Asia by storm.

In an article posted last month on Radio Free Asia, it seems that North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom as it’s referred to for good reason, has decided to “intensify” its crackdown on the imports of popular South Korean culture.

Having apparently already taken the rest of East Asia by storm, South Korean movies and TV dramas have also infiltrated the living rooms of North Korea and the authorities there are none too happy.

“I watched ‘Winter Sonata’ in North Korea and I even recall the name of the leading actor, Bae Young Joon,” said a defector to South Korea identified only by his surname, Kim.

“North Koreans enjoy South Korean TV drama because it is interesting and realistic,” said Kim, who arrived in the South in 2002. “North Koreans love the fact that South Korean TV drama is not about politics, but about love and life, the fundamentals of human existence anywhere in this world,” he told RFA’s Korean service.

“A lot of people get together in groups and watch South Korean drama on DVDs. DVD players are available at foreign currency stores in North Korea,” he said, adding that in some parts of North Korea people have good reception of Chinese TV signals and watch South Korean drama directly.

Unfortunately for North Koreans however, it truly is “file-trafficking” in this long isolated and repressed country and some are starting to pay the price for illegal movie distribution with their lives.

“There have been two or three reports of public executions of North Korean young people in major cities including Chungjin, as punishment for having illegally copied and distributed South Korean visual material,” said Kang Chul Hwan, vice-chairman of the Seoul-based Committee for the Democratization of North Korea.

“It is not an overstatement to say that the Kim Jong Il regime is waging war on the South Korean TV drama,” he said, adding that the North Korean authorities have intensified surveillance and searches to prevent South Korean videos from entering North Korea.

He also noted that many of the North korean agents who confiscate the material end up watching it themselves, making it truly a losing battle because it means that the regime’s law enforcement personnel can then see with their own eyes how backward and idiotic their country has become.

The bottom line is that despite its best efforts, the country will never be hermetically sealed short of a glass bubble encasement like in the recent movie “The Simpsons.” Film conquers all manmade boundaries through its message, and North Korea is no exception.

“Can the North Korean authorities prevent people from watching South Korean TV drama? If the people really want to watch it, they will find a way to watch it,” said Hwan.

**If you want to see more of North Korea’s manic behavior, I recommend checking out its Korean Central News Agency website. The article about how the “Number of Intellectuals Increases in DPRK” is particularly humorous.**

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