(Source)
North Korea reportedly executed around 30 teenagers earlier this month for watching South Korean dramas. The deceased, all middle school students, allegedly consumed the banned content from USB sticks sent by balloons from Seoul by North Korean defector groups.
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The headlines determine: The students were shot in public. The executions underscore the harsh penalties under Pyongyang’s Law Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Culture, a 2020 law that punishes the possession, consumption or distribution of South Korean media – including films, videos, songs, books, photos and drawings – with years of labor or death. Earlier this year, rare footage made the rounds in international media showing two 16-year-old boys being sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for watching Korean dramas.
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Persistent resistance: Despite the country’s draconian laws, there is ongoing resistance from the younger generation – the so-called “Jangmadang generation” – who reportedly continue to seek out and engage with banned content, demonstrating a sustained resistance to the regime’s repressive control. Their stories were highlighted by eight defectors in a 2017 documentary.
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