22-year-old man killed in North Korea for watching K-Pop: report

South Korea said that in 2022, a 22-year-old man was publicly executed by North Korea for sharing and listening to K-pop music and South Korean films. The information is taken from testimonies by North Korean defectors published in a report on human rights by the South Korean unification ministry.

According to the reportthe man from South Hwanghae Province was accused of listening to 70 K-pop songs, watching 3 South Korean films and distributing this banned media.

North Korea has strict control over the information that its citizens consume, includes strict rules regarding the consumption of entertainment and has very severe punishments for those who violate them.

The report also reveals that North Korea strengthened its control over external culture in 2020 with a law banning “reactionary ideology and culture”. This law is seen as a tool to protect citizens from Western influences, which the North Korean government considers harmful.

North Korea has consistently denied accusations of human rights violations, calling them attempts to undermine its leadership.

The K-pop ban is part of an effort to protect North Koreans from the negative influence of Western culture. This campaign began under the former leader, Kim Jong-il, and became more intense under his son, Kim Jong-un.

In 2022, Radio Free Asia, funded by the US government, reported that the regime was cracking down on “capitalist” fashion and hairstyles. This included skinny jeans, t-shirts with foreign words, and dyed or long hair.

Experts believe that allowing South Korean popular culture into North Korean society could threaten the ideology that demands total loyalty to the “infallible” Kim dynasty, which has ruled the country since its founding in 1948.

Despite these strict measures, the influence of South Korean culture, including recent television shows, appears unstoppable, according to a recent North Korean defector.