80 N Koreans executed for watching TV drama from South: report
November 13, 2013 Leave a comment
80 N Koreans executed for watching TV drama from South: report
Staff Reporter
2013-11-13
About 80 North Korean citizens were ordered to be executed on Nov. 3 for the crime of watching television dramas from South Korea, according to the South’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.North Korea watchers based in the South said the condemned were executed in seven major cities in the North. The paper’s source said around 10,000 people assembled outside a gymnasium in the city of Wonsan to witness the execution of eight people, of whom the majority were accused of watching television shows smuggled from South Korea and a minority were charged with prostitution.
A member of North Korea Intellectual Solidarity, a group made up of dissidents who defected to the South, confirmed that smuggling and watching foreign television and movies, especially South Korean dramas and films, can be punishable by death. Yet increasing numbers of people are smuggling content into the country in DVD or digital form, the source said.
In addition to South Korean shows, many in North Korea also try to get hold of American television shows, the source said, giving Desperate Housewives as an example of a sought-after show in the secretive authoritarian state.
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