North Korea strictly prohibits its citizens from having any contact with the outside world. An association has just revealed a breathtaking scene: two teenagers were publicly tried for daring to watch a South Korean television series.
The trial was captured from all angles by the North Korean regime. In the public square, two sixteen-year-old teenagers discover the sentence in front of hundreds of young people: 12 years of forced labor each. Your crime? They were caught red-handed while secretly watching series filmed in South Korea. “Judging by the severity of the verdict, the North Korean authorities really want these images to be used to raise awareness. It is a warning to all residents of North Korea,” said Choi Kyong-Hui, president of the Sand Institute (South and South Korea). North Development) and Korea specialist at the University of Tokyo in the video at the top of this article.
A fight against the “reactionary culture”
The propaganda video would have been filmed in 2022. But it took more than a year for it to cross the border. Pyongyang has its own waterproof internet network to control its population. And since 2020, the regime has been waging a bitter battle against so-called “reactionary culture”, i.e. films or music produced abroad, but also certain Western practices such as coloring eyes, hair or wearing Capri pants.
“There is a certain panic on the part of the government that sees young people escaping this because the temptation to watch this content is high. It's difficult to ask young people to join in when they're already there. “There's a much simpler life elsewhere,” explains Marie-Orange Rivé, a lecturer at the University of Paris-Coté. Foreign content loved by Kim Jong-il, the father of the current dictator and known for his huge collection of videotapes, including some Hollywood films.
The editorial team of TF1info TF1 | Report Matthieu Desmoulins, Léonard Attal