It was under the gaze of North Korean leader Kim Yong Un and his sister and close advisor Kim Yo Jong that soldiers demonstrated martial arts at a defense exhibition. All smiles, he looked at a man lying on broken bottles on whose chest a concrete block was placed before being broken with a sledgehammer, according to images broadcast on Tuesday by KCTV channel. “These soldiers, embraced and raised by our party, have shown the whole world the strength, bravery and morale of the Korean People's Army,” commented Ri Chun-hee, the regime's favorite presenter, Ri Chun-Hee. Ms. Ri did not fail to point out that the strength of the participants was "conferred on them by our dear leader Kim Jong Un".
This sequence is part of the demonstration of resistance organized by the North Korean army during this exhibition on defense, which was an opportunity to present the weaponry possessed by this country endowed with nuclear power, in particular the immense Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) unveiled last year during a military parade. Other soldiers - some in uniform, others shirtless - smashed several layers of concrete bricks with fists or their heads. Others were hit with hammers in the arm or hand, and a brick was broken on the chest of a soldier lying on a bed of nails. The leader watched the demonstrations cheering and smiling, surrounded by officers and his sister, Kim Jong Un,appointed at the end of September to the highest organ of the country's executive.
Korea has a long tradition of martial arts, and it is notably the birthplace of taekwondo which is the art of self-control.
It was developed after Japan occupied Korea by a South Korean general who later fell out with dictator Park Chung-hee, backed by the South Korean military.
He then traveled regularly to Pyongyang, where he died in 2002. When the exhibition opened on Tuesday, the North Korean leader said that the United States is the "root cause" of the instability in the country. the Korean Peninsula.
It was organized on the occasion of the anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party in Pyongyang.