The Price of Entertainment
Imagine facing a firing squad for the crime of watching a television show. In North Korea, this is not dystopian fiction but documented reality. A comprehensive report released by Amnesty International reveals that citizens, including teenagers, are being publicly executed for consuming South Korean media such as the Netflix hit Squid Game, the military romance Descendants of the Sun, or listening to K-pop music by bands like BTS. The findings, based on detailed interviews with 25 North Koreans who escaped between 2012 and 2020, paint a harrowing picture of a state at war with cultural influence from its southern neighbor.
The report exposes a brutal contradiction at the heart of North Korean society. While foreign media consumption is widespread and often conducted openly among officials and security agents themselves, the consequences for ordinary citizens caught accessing this content range from years in forced labor camps to public execution. The severity of punishment depends not on the nature of the offense, but on the wealth and connections of the accused. Those without money face death; those with resources can buy their freedom.
Sarah Brooks, deputy regional director of Amnesty International, described the situation as a system of repression layered with corruption. She stressed that the authorities criminalize access to information in violation of international law, then allow officials to profit from those fearing punishment. This creates a two-tiered justice system where the same act, watching a South Korean drama, can result in either a warning or a death sentence.
A Law Written in Blood
In 2020, North Korea enacted the Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, a piece of legislation that codified severe penalties for accessing foreign media. The law defines South Korean content as rotten ideology that paralyzes the people’s revolutionary sense, mandating between five and 15 years of forced labor for simply watching or possessing South Korean dramas, films, or music. For those accused of distributing large amounts of content or organizing group viewings, the law prescribes the death penalty.
This legislation emerged as Pyongyang intensified border closures and internal controls during the COVID-19 pandemic, representing a formal escalation of restrictions that have existed since the state’s founding. The 2020 law builds upon decades of prohibitions but adds specific legal frameworks enabling authorities to impose capital punishment for cultural crimes. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry documented similar patterns in a landmark 2014 report that found North Korean crimes against humanity, including torture, execution, and forced labor, were without parallel in the contemporary world.
Despite these draconian measures, the Amnesty report suggests that consumption of South Korean media remains rampant throughout North Korean society. Interviewees described an open secret where workers watch foreign shows openly, party officials view them proudly, security agents consume them secretly, and police watch safely. Everyone knows everyone watches, including those who conduct the crackdowns.
The Corruption Economy
Within this repressive framework, a sophisticated bribery economy has emerged that determines who lives and who dies. Choi Suvin, a 39-year-old who escaped North Korea in 2019, provided testimony that illuminates the monetary cost of survival. She explained that people caught for the same act face entirely different fates based solely on their financial resources.
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.
Kim Joonsik, 28, who fled in 2019, was caught watching South Korean dramas three times but received only warnings because his family maintained ties to officials. He noted that high school students with wealthy families typically avoid legal punishment entirely. However, he witnessed three of his sisters’ high school friends receive years-long sentences in labor camps during the late 2010s because their families could not afford bribes. These sums, representing several years of average income, force families into impossible choices between shelter and survival, creating a market for mercy that leaves the poor to face firing squads.
The 109 Group and Enforcement
Enforcing these laws falls to a specialized unit known as the 109 Group, which operates nationwide conducting warrantless home searches and street inspections of bags and mobile phones. Fifteen interviewees from different regions mentioned this unit, indicating a systematic approach to surveillance that spans the entire country. The group represents the sharp end of North Korea’s information control apparatus, actively seeking evidence of foreign media consumption.
Members of the 109 Group have been documented soliciting bribes directly from arrestees and their families. One escapee quoted officers explaining that they did not want to punish harshly but needed to bribe their own bosses to save their own lives. This circular corruption suggests that the enforcement mechanism itself operates on the same financial incentives that determine sentencing, creating a predatory system where arrests generate revenue rather than justice.
The arbitrary nature of enforcement intensified during periodic crackdown campaigns ordered by Kim Jong Un in the late 2010s. During these periods, officials faced pressure to demonstrate enforcement results, temporarily disrupting the usual bribery economy. Kim Gayoung, who left North Korea in June 2020, recounted her cousin’s experience working at the People’s Committee. He reported that during intensive crackdowns, no one would help arrested individuals, even with bribes or connections, because the pressure from above had become so severe.
Classrooms of Cruelty
Beyond individual punishment, North Korea employs public executions as instruments of mass terror and ideological education. The Amnesty report documents systematic forced attendance at executions, with schoolchildren specifically targeted as audiences. Kim Eunju, 40, who fled in 2019, recalled being taken with middle school classmates at age 16 and 17 to watch people being executed for watching or distributing South Korean media.
People were executed for watching or distributing South Korean media. It’s ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too.
Choi Suvin witnessed a public execution in Sinuiju, North Pyongan Province, in 2017 or 2018, where authorities compelled tens of thousands of city residents to gather and watch someone accused of distributing foreign media meet their death. She explained that authorities execute people to brainwash and educate the population, using state violence as a pedagogical tool. Executions are carried out by firing squad, with one witness describing a squad of 10 people firing approximately 30 rounds at the condemned. Witnesses report that authorities sometimes place substances in victims’ mouths to prevent final words, while school assemblies serve as mandatory audiences for these state-sponsored killings.
Schools also serve as venues for public humiliation short of execution. Kim Yerim, 26, who escaped in 2019, witnessed 10 high school seniors subjected to hours-long public criticism sessions for watching foreign television. Authorities gathered students from elementary, middle, and high schools to observe as officials from the Youth League and Party organizations berated the accused, accusing them of having corrupted spirits and lacking ideological preparedness.
Digital Smuggling and Cultural Penetration
Despite the risks, South Korean culture continues to penetrate North Korea through sophisticated smuggling networks. Content arrives primarily on USB drives from China, watched on notetels, portable devices that function as notebook computers with built-in televisions. The technical sophistication of smuggling networks has evolved rapidly, with defectors in South Korea sending balloons carrying USB sticks and leaflets across the demilitarized zone, creating a cat-and-mouse game between information activists and border guards.
Interviewees mentioned specific contemporary titles reaching North Korean audiences faster than in previous decades, including Crash Landing on You, noted for its North Korean setting, and Descendants of the Sun, which features military themes. The irony of North Koreans watching Crash Landing on You, a romance depicting life in their own country through a South Korean lens, illustrates the complex cultural dynamics at play. The global phenomenon Squid Game, which itself depicts a dystopian competition where cash-strapped contestants face deadly consequences, has reportedly led to executions when smuggled copies reached North Korean students.
In 2021, Radio Free Asia documented the execution of a student in North Hamgyong Province for distributing Squid Game, while those who merely watched received sentences of life imprisonment or hard labor. The Korea Times reported that same year on teenagers punished for listening to BTS. An interviewee with family connections in Yanggang Province reported hearing that people, including high school students, were executed for watching Squid Game. These specific examples demonstrate that the regime targets not just political content but pure entertainment, viewing cultural influence as an existential threat to its ideological control.
The Architecture of Repression
The current crackdown fits within a broader architecture of repression that has remained largely unchanged for decades. A 2011 Amnesty International report used satellite imagery to document political prison camps holding an estimated 200,000 people, with the facilities showing significant expansion over the preceding decade. Satellite images revealed six major camp complexes sprawling across remote mountain valleys in South Pyongan, South Hamkyung, and North Hamkyung provinces, with comparative photography showing 15 additional guard towers at Yodok camp alone between 2001 and 2011.
A 2024 United Nations human rights assessment found that North Korea’s human rights situation has not improved over the past decade and, in many instances, has degraded. The report cited worsening food shortages affecting more than 40 percent of the population, widespread forced labor, and tight restrictions on movement and expression. The U.S. State Department’s 2024 Country Report on Human Rights Practices documented continued brutality, citing executions, physical abuse, and arbitrary detention as central tools of state control. In August 2024, two women were reportedly publicly executed in the north-eastern city of Chongjin after being found guilty of attempting to help people flee the country, while up to 30 state officials were allegedly executed for corruption related to widespread flooding in July.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report in 2024 identifying six types of forced labor, including state-assigned jobs, military conscription, and school children sent on work trips. The report suggested that forced labor in prisons, where detainees work under threats of physical violence, may amount to the crime against humanity of enslavement. Former inmates describe receiving three meals of 200 grams of corn gruel daily, with food withheld for incomplete work, and torture including confinement in cube-shaped cells too small to stand or lie down.
International Response and Calls for Action
Amnesty International has issued specific demands to the North Korean government, calling for the repeal of all laws criminalizing access to information, including the 2020 Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act. The organization urges the abolition of the death penalty for all offenses, an immediate moratorium on all executions including public executions, and specific protections for children from exposure to state violence. The report also calls for ending arbitrary detention and ensuring equal application of the law regardless of wealth or social status.
The international community faces significant challenges in influencing North Korea’s internal behavior. The regime has consistently denied the existence of political prison camps and rejected offers of humanitarian aid even as food shortages worsen. Diplomatic relations between North and South Korea have become increasingly strained, reducing channels for pressure or dialogue. COVID-19 border closures have made escapes extremely rare since 2020, cutting off the flow of testimony that documents these abuses.
Sarah Brooks emphasized that the government’s fear of information has effectively placed the entire population in an ideological cage, suffocating their access to the views and thoughts of other human beings. She stressed that the arbitrary system built on fear and corruption violates fundamental principles of justice and internationally recognized human rights, and must be dismantled so that North Koreans can enjoy the freedoms to which they are entitled.
At a Glance
- Amnesty International interviewed 25 North Korean escapees who fled between 2012 and 2020, documenting executions and labor camp sentences for watching South Korean media.
- North Korea’s 2020 Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act mandates 5 to 15 years of forced labor for possessing foreign media and the death penalty for distribution.
- Punishments vary by wealth: families pay $5,000 to $10,000 in bribes to avoid execution, while poor citizens face firing squads for identical offenses.
- The specialized 109 Group conducts nationwide warrantless searches for foreign media, operating within a corruption-based enforcement economy.
- Schoolchildren are forced to attend public executions as ideological education, with witnesses describing firing squads of 10 shooters firing 30 rounds.
- Popular content includes Squid Game, Crash Landing on You, Descendants of the Sun, and K-pop by BTS, smuggled via USB drives from China.
- An estimated 200,000 people are held in political prison camps, with satellite imagery showing facility expansion over the past decade.
- The UN reports that 10.7 million North Koreans, over 40 percent of the population, suffer from undernourishment.
