In a stark display of North Korea’s tightening control, teenage girls have been arrested, publicly shamed, and their families’ personal details exposed in newly revealed videos, all for the alleged crime of watching South Korean dramas.
On Sept. 4, KBS revealed videos produced in North Korea after May 2021 to educate its citizens and soldiers. KBS reported that there are around 10 such videos, each lasting over two hours.
The analysis suggests that as economic difficulties worsened following the cessation of trade with China during the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea intensified its control measures, leading to a further deterioration in human rights conditions.
The newly revealed videos show young girls sitting in the front row, heads bowed in shame. At one point, a female student breaks down in tears.
Subtitles on the screen reveal the personal details of a student, including her age and school. The video includes narration stating, “Several students who watched and shared impure propaganda, including so-called South Korean puppet dramas, have been severely punished according to the law.” The video then shows teenage girls being handcuffed.
In addition, personal information about the girls’ families, including their parents’ names, jobs, and places of residence, was disclosed. One mother, who works as a teacher, was criticized for failing to properly raise her daughter. The video stated, “How could she have educated her students well when she couldn’t even guide her own daughter away from falling into a pit of crime?”
Some videos also hinted at the widespread consumption of South Korean films and dramas among North Korean soldiers. In one video, a soldier confessed, “On my cell phone, I watched 15 American movies, 17 S. Korean movies, and listened to over 160 S. Korean songs.”
North Korea stressed the need to treat the spread of S. Korean culture as a life-or-death issue. The narration emphasized that every individual in the country, such as soldiers, workers, and their families, must view the fight against this harmful influence as a matter of their own survival.
In a related development, Lee Hyun-seung, a researcher at the Global Peace Foundation and the son of a former high-ranking official in North Korea’s Office 39, revealed in a discussion hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., that more than 30 middle school students were publicly executed in North Korea recently for watching South Korean dramas.
