A massacre appears to have occurred in North Korea, with South Korean media reporting that 30 teenagers were publicly executed at a high school last week.
“Chosun TV” and “Korea JoongAng Daily” report that the high school students were executed for watching foreign films and series, which had been stored on USB drives smuggled across the border by North Korean defectors.
An anonymous official from South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told “Korea JoongAng Daily” that it is widely known that North Korean authorities strictly monitor and harshly punish residents based on three “evil” laws.
One of these laws is the Law for the Rejection of Reactionary Ideology and Culture, which prohibits the distribution of media from South Korea, the United States, or Japan.
It is unclear if these restrictions also apply to foreigners, such as Russian students planning to attend summer camps in North Korea.
This is not the first incident of executions for consuming South Korean content. As reported by the United Nations Secretary-General in 2022, a man in Kangwon province was executed for selling South Korean digital content.
