Kim Jong Un stands up to fight foreign jargon, jeans, and movies. Why?

Korean Yoon Mi-so was only 11 years old when she saw with her own eyes the public execution of a man sentenced to death for being caught holding a film made in South Korea.

All the people who lived in this man’s neighborhood were forced to witness his execution.

“If we don’t look, it would be considered treason,” Yoon Mi-so, who now lives in Seoul, the South Korean capital, told the BBC.

Officials involved in the execution tried to ensure that all observers knew that the punishment for smuggling illegal videos was death.

“I remember that man very clearly. She was blindfolded, I still remember the tears rolling down her cheeks. This is a traumatic image. The bandage on his eyes was drenched with tears, Yoon Mi-so recalls, “They tied him up and shot him.”

“War without weapons”

Imagine that you are constantly closed with no internet, social media, and television showing only a few state-controlled channels that are only meant to show and say what the government wants you to hear and see. This is life in North Korea.

Now the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, clenches his fist even tighter. He introduced the law against what the regime calls “reactionary thinking.”

Anyone caught with a large number of movies or series made in South Korea, the United States or Japan will face the death penalty. Recipients who watch foreign movies or series face the threat of 15 years in prison.

However, as the BBC writes, the point is not just what people see.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently published a letter in state media urging the country’s Youth League to combat “anti-socialist, individualistic and unpleasant behavior” among young people. He wants to end the use of foreign languages, foreign hairstyles and clothes. He calls all this “dangerous poison.”

Kim Jong Un is engaged in a war free of nuclear weapons and missiles.

The Seoul-based Daily NK, which has sources in North Korea, reported that the three teenagers had been sent to a re-education camp because their hair was cut in a style inspired by the goddesses of Korean pop music and the pants did not cover the ankles. .

All of this, the BBC writes, is due to Kim Jong Un’s involvement in a war free of nuclear weapons and missiles.

It is estimated that millions of people in the country go hungry.

Analysts say Kim Jong Un is trying to prevent any outside information from reaching the North Korean population as life in the country becomes increasingly difficult.

It is estimated that millions of people in the country go hungry. Kim Jong Un is working to ensure that the population continues to be fed by carefully planned state propaganda and is not overtaken by the brilliance of South Korean television dramas.

Last year, with the closing of borders due to a pandemic, the country was more isolated than ever from the outside world. Imports of vital goods from neighboring China have almost stopped. And although some goods are already entering the country, imports are still restricted.

This self-isolation, initiated by the North Korean government itself, has exacerbated the already collapsed economy, as the country’s monetary resources are being diverted to the regime’s nuclear amoebae. Earlier this year, Kim Jong Un himself admitted that “the country is in the worst position in history, which must be overcome ».

What does the law say?

The Seoul-based Daily NK was the first to receive a copy of the law.

“He says that if a factory worker is caught, his manager can also be punished. And if the offender is a child, his parents can be punished. The law aggressively reflects the mutual surveillance system of the North Korean regime, “Lee Sang Yong, editor-in-chief of the Daily NK, told the BBC.

According to him, the goal is to “destroy” the dreams and the fascination of the young generation for life in the South.

“In other words, the regime concluded that if the cultures of other countries were available, feelings of resistance could form in society,” said Lee Sang Yong.

The goal is to “destroy” the dreams or the fascination of the young generation for life in the South.

Choi Jong-hoon, one of the few criminals to escape North Korea, told the BBC that “the more difficult the times, the stricter the regulations, laws and sanctions become.”

“From a psychological point of view, if you watch a full-bodied South Korean movie, it’s probably free time. But when there’s no food in the country, people get upset,” says Choi Jong-hoon.

Will the law work?

Past encounters have only shown how resourceful people can be at distributing and watching foreign films that generally enter a country across the border from China.

For many years, movies have been transferred to USB sticks. According to Choi Jong-hoon, there are many in his country. USB sticks are easy to hide and can be encrypted with a password.

“If you enter the wrong password three times in a row, USB erases its content. You can even set the deletion to occur after entering the wrong password if the content is particularly sensitive,” he says.

“Often times, a USB storage device is set up so that the information on it can only be viewed once on a particular computer, so you can’t connect it to another device or transfer it to someone else. So even to spread information, it is not possible, ”says Choi Jong-hoo.

Yoon Mi-so, who now lives in Seoul, remembers that the people in her neighborhood have tried their best to overcome all kinds of obstacles to watching foreign films.

She recounts how they once borrowed a car battery and hooked it up to a generator to get enough electricity for the TV. You remember watching the South Korean drama Stairs to Heaven this time.

This movie, about a girl who fights with her stepmother and then faces cancer, was popular in South Korea two decades ago. Choi Jong-hoo says that at that time, the North Korean people’s interest and admiration for foreign products began: cheap CDs and DVDs from China helped.

Start of coping

But at some point, the Pyongyang regime began to notice all of this. Choi Jong-hoo recalls that during a raid around 2002, more than 20,000 people were found in a university. CD.

“It just came to our attention then. Can you imagine how many such discs there were in the whole country? The government was shocked. That’s when they tightened the sanctions for that,” says Choi Jong-hoo.

Can you imagine how many records of this type there were in the whole country?

Kim Geum-hyokui 2009 m. He was only 16 years old when he was captured by officers of a special unit created to catch and arrest those who shared illegal videos.

The guy was arrested for giving a friend several DVDs of South Korean musicians that his father had brought from China.

He was treated as an adult and was transported for questioning to a secret location where the guards would not allow him to sleep. He says they beat and kicked him for four days.

“I was terribly scared,” said the BBC guy in Seoul, “I thought my world was coming to an end.” They wanted to know how I got this video and how many people showed it. After all, I couldn’t say that it was my father who brought those DVDs from China. What can I say? After all, this is my father. I didn’t say anything, I just repeated, “I don’t know, I don’t know. Please release me.”

Kim Geum-hyoko’s family belonged to Pyongyang’s elite, so his father eventually managed to bribe the officers to release him. But now, with the introduction of Kim Jong Uno’s new law, a similar evasion will be virtually impossible.

Many people who were arrested for similar crimes were sent to labor camps. However, this proved not to be a sufficient deterrent, so the penalties were increased.

The two-hour movie can turn into a three-year field of work.

“Initially, the punishment was approximately one year in a labor camp, then it became three years. Currently, if you enter a field of work, more than 50 percent. young people are there because they saw foreign productions, ”says Mr. Choi Jong-hoo.

“A two-hour movie can turn into a labor camp in three years. This is a big problem, “he continues.

According to BBC sources, some North Korean prison camps have increased in recent years. Choi Jong-hoo believes this is due to strict new laws.

“Seeing a movie is a luxury. You must first eat and only then can you think of watching a movie. When it is difficult to even get food and send a family member to a labor camp it can be devastating, ”says Choi Jong-hoo.

Why do people still do this?

“We took a lot of risks watching those movies. But no one can beat curiosity. We wanted to know what was happening outside the border, ”says Kim Geum-hyokas.

When she learned the truth about her native country, Kim Geum-Hyoko’s life changed. He was one of the few privileged people who were allowed to study in Beijing. There he discovered the Internet.

We took a lot of risks watching those movies. But no one can beat curiosity.

“At first I couldn’t believe what was being written about North Korea. I thought people in the West were lying. But what my mind told me and what my heart felt were completely different things,” he says.

“So, I’ve seen a lot of documentaries about North Korea, I’ve read a lot about it. Then I realized that what is shown and written about North Korea is probably true. I realized that everything I saw and read was logical, ”says Kim Geum-hyokas.

“When I realized that my thinking was changing, it was too late, I couldn’t go back to North Korea,” says Kim Geum-hyokas. Finally, he fled to Seoul.

After escaping from North Korea, Yoon Mi-so is working at his dream job today – he’s a hairstylist. The first thing he did when he came to South Korea was visit all the places he saw in the movie Stairs to Heaven.

But stories like Yoon Mi-so’s are getting weirder nowadays.

Leaving the country became almost impossible. At the strictly controlled border, there is the current “shoot to kill” order. It’s hard to hope that Kim Jong-uno’s new law won’t have even more brutal consequences.

They need to be awakened by someone.

Choi Jong-hoo, who had to leave his family in North Korea, believes that after watching a movie or two, the ideological control that has existed for decades will not go away. However, in their view, North Koreans already feel that state propaganda is not true.

“The seeds of pain have been sown in the hearts of the North Korean people. But they still don’t know what their pain is leading to,” he says, “It’s pain without direction. It hurts me that they don’t understand what is really happening, even when they I mean this directly. They need someone to wake them up. “