North Korean teenagers ‘executed for watching Squid Game’ as regime wages war on TV and pop music

‘They took us to executions and showed us everything,’ said one former student

Schoolchildren are being executed by North Korea for watching K-pop dramas and TV shows, including Netflix’s Squid Game, according to harrowing new testimony shared with Amnesty International.

The group included 25 individual in-depth interviews with North Koreans, including 11 who fled the country between 2009 and 2020. Most of the interviewees were aged between 15 and 25 at the time of fleeing.

Watching South Korean dramas such as Crash Landing on You, Descendants of the Sun and Squid Game, or listening to K-pop, led to severe and humiliating punishments, including death in the most extreme instances, according to the escapees.

Those without money or connections face the harshest consequences in the communist state, with wealthy families able to pay off officials in exchange for clemency, according to the report.

“When we were 16, 17, in middle school, they took us to executions and showed us everything,” said Kim Eunju, 40.

People have been killed in North Korea for watching particular movies and films, says Amnesty, including Squid Game (Netflix)

“People were executed for watching or distributing South Korean media. It's ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too.”

Another North Korean escapee, Choi Suvin, personally witnessed the public execution of a person accused of distributing foreign media in Sinuiju in 2017 or 2018.

“Authorities told everyone to go, and tens of thousands of people from Sinuiju city gathered to watch,” she said. “They execute people to brainwash and educate us.”

She explained: “People without money sell their houses to gather $5,000 or $10,000 to pay to get out of the re-education camps.”

Kim Joonsik, 28, said he was caught watching South Korean dramas three times before leaving the country in 2019. He was able to avoid punishment because his family had connections, but said three of his sisters’ high school friends received years-long labour camp sentences in the late 2010s because their family could not afford to pay the bribes.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un participates in a commemorative photo session with soldiers in North Pyongan Province, North Korea (KCNA/AFP/Getty)

“Usually when high school students are caught, if their family has money, they just get warnings,” he said. “I didn't receive legal punishment because we had connections.”

In 2020, the introduction of the Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act outlawed the consumption of South Korean content and mandated five to 15 years of forced labour for those caught watching or in possession of South Korean drama, music or films. The law describes the media as a “rotten ideology that paralyses the people's revolutionary sense”.

The death penalty is prescribed for distributing “large amounts” of content or organising group viewings.

Last year, a 22-year-old citizen was publicly executed for listening to and sharing K-pop music and films, according to South Korea’s unification ministry.

A UN report, authored by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), warned of new laws, policies, and practices leading to increased surveillance and control over citizens.

“These testimonies show how North Korea is enforcing dystopian laws that mean watching a South Korean TV show can cost you your life – unless you can afford to pay,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International's deputy regional director.

“This is repression layered with corruption, and it most devastates those without wealth or connections.”