In a bid to clamp down on the spread of
cultural content from South Korea, Pyongyang is planting informants among
students, a number of whom have already received harsh punishment from teachers for watching South Korean films.
“Surveillance and crackdowns on South
Korean TV dramas and movies has become more severe, but the number of students
who are enjoying such content continues to rise,” a source based on South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Wednesday.
“High school students recently received severe corporal
punishment and had to write letters of apology for watching a movie and
listening to music from the South.”
The source explained that the recent incident involved six or seven students gathered at one house to enjoy the contraband entertainment, smuggled in on a flash drive, but because of the informant, whom none of the students suspected, they were summoned by the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League. “The State Security Department culture of having people watch over
one another so that students cannot build trust is spreading within schools,” she said.
This most recent measure, enumerating among a host of ever-increasing efforts to crack down on the
spread of Hallyu [Korean Wave] appears to be related to socio-political classification, or songbun [family political background and loyalty. Last
November, leader Kim Jong Eun, during a visit to Sinchon Museum in South Hwanghae Province, an important anti-U.S. propaganda site, emphasized the need to intensify education of these doctrines. So far this year, he has
also emphasized the importance of songbun across the young generation through all mediums of media in the North.
Education on ideology and rank within
society is the responsibility of the youth league, and teachers are designated for each branch of these league by the respective Party cadres presiding over the region. These instructors are largely in their 20s or 30s and graduates of teachers’ colleges with a specialty in revolutionary history.
According to the source, transgressions previously subject to punishments–smoking, fighting, and dating–are frequently overlooked by leaders of the Kim Il Sung Socialist League in favor of catching students with media from the South, emphasizing its status as a serious crime. Not only does the monitoring organ employ a system utilizing members from within
the league, but “regular students as well, to more effectively keep tabs on and
expose students who covertly own flash drives with this content,” she noted.
If students are summoned by the teacher, who was tipped off by the informants, there is no investigation or opportunity for the accused to offer a defense. If they deny possessing or viewing the South Korean content, they are hit severely, only able to return home after composing a letter of apology and gaining final approval of a “sound ideological state” by the teacher.
As always, those born into privilege are largely exempt from such punishment. “Party cadres or parents with money buy a
few cartons of cigarettes as bribes for the teachers, but children of ordinary
workers have no choice but to write those letters and subject themselves to the possibility of abrasive condemnation at ‘ideological struggle
sessions,’ a more specialized and severe type of self or mutual self-criticism session,” she concluded.
