North Korean authorities recently produced a video that shows the public humiliation of people who were caught enjoying and distributing South Korean TV shows and music.
Daily NK recently obtained the video, which is entitled “Let’s Wage an Even More Intense Struggle to Wipe Out All Anti-socialist and Non-socialist Phenomena in the Capital.”
The video shows individuals who appear to have been arrested for consuming or distributing media from the outside world being publicly berated by a mob.
The individuals criticized in the video are of different ages and sexes, suggesting that information from the outside world is spreading among everyone — men and women, old and young.
In fact, according to a Unification Media Group and Daily NK survey of 50 North Koreans, the results of which were announced in October, South Korean TV programs such as “Crash Landing on You,” “Penthouse” and “Squid Game” are quite popular among North Koreans.
VIDEO AIMS TO INSTILL FEAR IN YOUNG PEOPLE
The video harshly condemns the crimes of a young woman born in 2003, showing her picture and listing her personal information, including her name, date of birth, address and workplace.
The profiling of the woman seems aimed at instilling fear in young people, the core age group consuming and distributing foreign media in North Korea.
According to the video, the woman gave about 50 South Korean videos and 30 South Korean songs to numerous people over several occasions from May of last year to early April of this year.
When she was arrested, she was also accused of going around singing South Korean songs, having written down the lyrics of some of them in a notebook, and sharing foreign videos with her coworkers.
The video said the girl was admonished and beaten by her father for watching “impure recordings” at home last year, but “she still couldn’t get her act together.”
“She continued to watch and distribute puppet [South Korean] recordings afterwards, and was criminally punished,” the video’s narration claimed.
However, the video narration did not reveal what kind of punishment she received.
S. KOREAN AND WESTERN CULTURES ARE “DANGEROUS TOXINS”
North Korea has been handing out stern punishments to people who watch or distribute foreign videos and media since enacting the “anti-reactionary thought law” in late 2020.
In fact, the video fully demonstrates the North Korean authorities’ attitude toward the viewing and distribution of foreign content.
It harshly condemns South Korean, Western and US cultures “that usually target depraved, toxic and perverted desires,” calling them “dangerous toxins that instill delusions about the enemy countries and paralyze the revolutionary and class consciousness.”
The video further accuses the South Korean “puppets” and “enemy forces” of holding fast to their “ideological and cultural invasion schemes,” and claims their “wicked goal” is to “weaken from the inside” North Korean socialism by “infiltrating reactionary culture and spiritually and culturally corrupting the people.”
The video accuses some “ideologically and spiritually distorted and ethically corrupt people and students” of “openly distributing the impure music and videos” sent into North Korea “by the South Korean puppets and enemy forces to spread reactionary and decadent thought and culture.”
Meanwhile, given that the number “3” was attached to the title of the video, there appears to be at least three such propaganda videos, and possibly more. This suggests that the North Korean authorities are using videos in Pyongyang and other regions of the country to stoke fear among the population.
In fact, the video’s narration said an “intense, great mop-up operation to boldly smash anti-socialist and non-socialist phenomena that weakens our internal power and blocks our drive is now being intensely waged across the entire society.”
This suggests that an intensive mop-up operation is being waged against South Korean pop culture and information from the outside world not only in Pyongyang, but throughout the entire country as well.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
