Topics: News, World News, North Korea, Netflix, Squid Game
A report from Amnesty International has said that teenagers in North Korea are being publicly executed and sent to prison camps for watching Squid Game.
The Netflix series is one of the most popular shows the platform has ever released, but Squid Game is South Korean in origin, and includes characters who have escaped from the oppressive regime in the North.
Western media, and especially US and South Korean media, has long been illegal in North Korea, and people who smuggle and consume it can face severe penalties.
Media is often smuggled into the highly secretive country on memory sticks, as the internet is also tightly controlled.
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It's not just Squid Game that brings severe penalties either, as other South Korean media such as K Pop is also banned.
A new report from Amnesty International has spoken to people from North Korea, who revealed how widespread South Korean media is despite the ban.
One interviewee told Amnesty International that consumption of the media was effectively an open secret, saying: "Everyone known everyone watches, including those who do the crackdowns.”
They explained that the penalties for watching it can vary, with the penalty for distributing foreign media being far more severe than for an individual possessing the banned media, for example.
"Workers watch it openly, party officials watch it proudly, security agents watch it secretly, and police watch it safely," they said.
Kim Eunju, 40, recalled just how serious the punishments can be, saying: "When we were 16, 17, in middle school, they took us to executions and showed us everything.
"People were executed for watching or distributing South Korean media. It's ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too."
Punishment is also highly dependent on someone's ability to pay a bribe as well, meaning that if you can't afford the bribe then you're more likely to face harsher consequences.
Choi Suvin, 39, escaped North Korea in 2019, and said: "People are caught for the same act, but punishment depends entirely on money.
"People without money sell their houses to gather 5,000 or 10,000 USD to pay to get out of the re-education camps."
A spokesperson for Amnesty International said in a statement: “These testimonies show how North Korea is enforcing dystopian laws that mean watching a South Korean TV show can cost you your life - unless you can afford to pay.
“The authorities criminalise access to information in violation of international law, then allow officials to profit off those fearing punishment. This is repression layered with corruption, and it most devastates those without wealth or connections."
