Atrocious reports reveal students are forced to attend and watch public executions of peers as part of "ideological education"
A nightmarish reality regarding life inside North Korea has been revealed by Amnesty International, bringing to light testimonies from defectors describing a regime of absolute terror under Kim Jong Un. The allegations are shocking, confirming that children and teenagers are being sent to the firing squad for reasons deemed trivial by the rest of the world, such as the consumption of Western culture. According to the harrowing accounts, the regime utilizes the death penalty as a means of public intimidation. Teenagers are executed publicly if they are caught watching the popular South Korean series Squid Game or listening to foreign music, with a particular emphasis on K-Pop. An equally abhorrent element of the reports is that students are required to be present and watch the public executions of their classmates as part of their so-called "ideological education."
The 'reactionary thought' law and the price of life
In 2020, Pyongyang enacted the draconian law on the "Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture." This law provides for:
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Death penalty for the possession, distribution, or viewing of content from South Korea and the US.
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Forced labor camps and public humiliation for lesser offenses.
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Collective responsibility: In cases of violations, the students' teachers are dismissed and exiled to work in mines. In this environment of misery, survival is turned into a trade. Those with financial means resort to bribing officials to save their children, with many families forced to sell even their homes to buy back a life.
The USB stick that led to death
The severity of the regime is captured in an incident reported by Radio Free Asia in 2021: A man was executed for smuggling and selling digital copies (USB sticks) of the series Squid Game. One student was sentenced to life imprisonment simply for purchasing the USB. Six teenagers were sentenced to five years of forced labor for watching the material. North Korea remains a closed "black box," where access to information is considered a crime against the state and adolescence is sacrificed on the altar of absolute ideological purity.
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