North Korea 'executes schoolchildren for watching Squid Game'

People in North Korea, including schoolchildren, are being executed for watching Squid Game and other foreign media, according to new testimony.

Citizens also face being killed for listening to K-pop, a South Korean music genre that includes bands like BTS. Interviewees have described a climate of fear in which the South's culture is treated as a serious crime.

The less well-off are more likely to suffer the harshest punishments, while wealthier North Koreans are able to pay corrupt officials to dodge prosecution, it is claimed. The testimonies were revealed by Amnesty International after conducting 25 in-depth interviews with escapees who have fled the secretive state run by Kim Jong-un's regime.

The escapees said watching globally popular South Korean dramas, such as Squid Game, Crash Landing on You, and Descendants of the Sun, can lead to the most extreme consequences, including death. 'Multiple executions' One interviewee said they heard from an escapee with family links how people, including high school students, had been executed for watching Squid Game in Yanggang Province, which is close to the Chinese border.

Another execution for distributing the South Korean show was previously documented by Radio Free Asia in neighbouring North Hamgyong Province in 2021. "Taken together, these reports from different provinces suggest multiple executions related to the shows," Amnesty said in a statement.

Interviewees also described the perils of listening to foreign music, particularly K-pop from South Korea, with the popular band BTS named in their testimony. In 2021, The Korea Times reported that a group of teenagers were caught and investigated for listening to the group in South Pyongan Province, which neighbours the capital, Pyongyang.

'Homes sold to avoid re-education camps' Choi Suvin, who fled North Korea in 2019, said people would sell their own homes to avoid punishment. "People are caught for the same act, but punishment depends entirely on money," the 39-year-old said.

"People without money sell their houses to gather $5,000 or $10,000 to pay to get out of the re-education camps." This inequality was further evidenced by the case of Kim Joonsik, who was caught three times watching South Korean dramas, but avoided punishment because his family had connections. The 28-year-old, who left the country in 2019, said: "Usually when high school students are caught, if their family has money, they just get warnings.

"I didn't receive legal punishment because we had connections." He contrasted his fate with that of three of his sister's school friends. In the late 2010s, the girls were condemned to years-long sentences in North Korea's labour camps because their families could not afford bribes.

'Executions to brainwash' People, including schoolchildren, were made to attend public executions as part of their "ideological education.