Last week, Radio Free Asia reported that copies of Squid game had been smuggled into North Korea on USB sticks and SD cards. Well, after RFA, a man alleged to have smuggled on the show, has been sentenced to death by firing squad.
Sources tell RFA that a North Korean student who bought the USB stick was sentenced to life imprisonment, while six others who saw the show served five years of forced labor. Teachers and administrators of the school were dismissed and expelled by the Labor Party and could end up being exiled to work in remote mines.
“It all started last week when a high school student secretly bought a USB stick with the South Korean drama on it Squid game and saw it in class with one of his best friends, ”a law enforcement source in North Hamgyong Province is quoted as saying RFA‘s Korean service.
“The friend told several other students that they were interested, and they shared the flash drive with them.” A notice was given to the government censors and the students were arrested.
Earlier this month The Washington Post reported that a quote from state-owned North Korean website with the saying Squid game reflects an “unequal society in which the strong exploit the weak,”And shows the“ animal ”character of the“ South Korean capitalist society in which humanity is being destroyed by extreme competition ”.
Although a mouthpiece for the North Korean government may feel comfortable using the show to dig at its southern neighbor, it is illegal for North Korean citizens to watch the show – or any South Korean television program. International media, especially the influence of South Korean free market culture, seem viewed as a threat to the ruling power in North Korea.
Last year the country passed a law called the “Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act,” which can result in the death penalty for viewing, owning, or distributing media from capitalist countries like South Korea and the US They are not playing with the new one Law around and they are trying hard to eradicate every instance of capitalist culture, ”a source said earlier RFA.
“But no matter how strict the government’s actions seem, rumors circulate that among the seven students arrested, one with wealthy parents escaped punishment for bribing the authorities with $ 3,000,” another source said.
“Residents complain that the world is unfair because if parents have money and power, even their death-row children can be released.”
Another man earlier this year is said to have been executed for violating the same law, sell illegal CDs and USBs filled with South Korean music and TV shows.
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