Teenagers from North Korea were given hard labor prison sentences for viewing Korean dramas.
Two adolescent guys are publicly sentenced to 12 years of hard work in North Korea for viewing K-dramas, according to rare footage that BBC Korean was able to secure.
The video, which looks to have been taken in 2022, shows two 16-year-old males in an outdoor stadium being handcuffed in front of hundreds of pupils.
The youngsters are also shown being chastised by uniformed cops for not "deeply reflecting on their mistakes".
The North forbids North Korean culture, including television.
Despite this, some people are willing to face harsh penalties to watch K-dramas, which have a sizable international fan base.
This kind of footage is uncommon since North Korea prohibits the release of images, films, and other records of daily life there to the outside world.
The South and North Development (Sand), a research organization that collaborates with North Korean defectors, gave this film to the BBC.
It implies that authorities are taking these kinds of situations more seriously. The video is said to have been shown to North Koreans as a teaching tool for ideology and as a warning against watching "decadent recordings".
A narrator who is reciting official propaganda appears in the video. The speaker appears to be referring to South Korea when it states, "The rotten puppet regime's culture has spread even to teenagers." "They are just 16 years old, but they ruined their own future,"
Officers also disclosed the boys' addresses and named them.
When juveniles violated the law in this way in the past, they were typically sentenced to fewer than five years in youth labor camps as opposed to being put in jail.
However, Pyongyang passed a rule in 2020 that made it illegal to distribute or consume South Korean media.
A 22-year-old man was forced to watch him be shot to death, a defector earlier told the BBC. According to him, the individual was charged with watching South Korean movies with a companion and listening to music from that country.
Choi Kyong-hui, CEO of Sand, Pyongyang views the growth of K-pop and K-dramas as a threat to its ideology.
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