The two boys were reprimanded for "not reflecting on their mistakes" / screenshot, BBC network
A rare public document obtained by the BBC shows the public trial of two North Korean teenagers who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for watching a South Korean series.
The video, believed to have been taken in 2022, shows two 16-year-olds handcuffed in front of hundreds of students in a stadium, while uniformed officers scold them for "not reflecting on their mistakes".
North Korea bans the consumption of South Korean entertainment, including TV series.
Even so, there are those who are willing to take the risk to watch South Korean dramas, which are popular around the world.
In general, records from within North Korea are extremely rare.
Kim Jong Un's regime prohibits the leaking of photos, videos and other evidence of daily life in the closed communist country to the outside world.
The person who provided this video to the BBC is the South and North Development Research Institute (SAND), which works with defectors from the North.
The video shows that the regime intensified its punishment in such incidents.
This video was reportedly distributed within North Korea as part of the regime's indoctrination and to warn citizens against watching "degenerate recordings".
The video includes an announcer, reciting the regime's propaganda.
"The rotten culture of the puppet regime has spread even among boys," the announcer said, referring to South Korea.
"They are only 16 years old, but they destroyed their future."
The officers even revealed the names of the boys and their residential addresses.
In the past, boys who broke the law in this way were sent to youth labor camps instead of prison, and the sentence was usually less than five years.
However, in 2020, Pyongyang enacted a law stating that viewing or distributing South Korean entertainment could even be punishable by death.
A defector from the north previously told the BBC that he had to watch a 22-year-old man be shot to death.
He said the man was accused of listening to South Korean music and sharing movies from the South with his friend.
Afraid of the fusion of South Korean culture.
Kim Jong Un/Reuters
The CEO of Sand, Choi Kyung-hui, said that Pyongyang sees the spread of South Korean TV shows and music as a danger to its ideology.
It goes against the monolithic ideology that makes North Koreans adore the Kim family," she said.
North Koreans began getting a taste of South Korean entertainment in the 2000s, during the South's "Sunshine Policy" years, in which it offered unconditional economic and humanitarian aid to the North.
Seoul stopped the that policy in 2010, saying she found that aid did not reach ordinary citizens and that it did not bring about "positive changes" in Pyongyang's behavior. Even so, South Korean entertainment content continued to flow into the North via China.
"If you are caught watching an American drama series, you can get away with a bribe, but if you watch a South Korean drama, you get shot," a North Korean defector told the Korean-language BBC network. "For the North Korean citizens, South Korean dramas are a 'drug' that helps them forget their harsh reality," the defector said "
In the North we learn that the South lives much worse than us, but when you watch South Korean dramas, it's a completely different world.
The North Korean authorities seem to fear this," said another North Korean defector in her 20s.
More on the same topic:
North Korea