NKoreans risking lives for SKorean soap operas

[crisketch.livejournal.com]

SEOUL, South Korea — Teams of North Korean agents known as "109 squads" are sweeping through border towns at night, arresting smugglers and confiscating banned South Korean videos and music amid concerns about the popularity of soap operas from Seoul, a think tank said Thursday.

Those convicted of sneaking contraband movies into the communist country face harsh penalties — including public execution in some cases, researchers at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification said.

North Korea is one of the world's most isolated and repressive nations, with average citizens banned from watching or listening to anything but state TV and radio and prohibited from owning PCs. Listening to banned broadcasts can draw years of hard labor, and spreading illicit information can mean death, the institute said in a report released Thursday.

 

But North Koreans, from soldiers to civilians, appear to be risking their lives to smuggle in videos from China in a trend some see as a potential threat to the authoritarian power leader Kim Jong Il holds over the nation of 24 million.

"The control of information is one of the powers that Kim Jong Il has wielded over the last 15 years," Peter Beck, a Korean affairs expert who teaches at American University in Washington, said in Seoul. "His control on flow of information is weakening, and that I think poses a serious threat to his power."

He said Pyongyang may fear that North Koreans will become disillusioned with the regime after getting a glimpse from the videos of life on the other side of the border.

North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. Six decades later, North Korea is one of the world's poorest nations, while South Korea has the world's 13th largest economy.

North Korea has long tried to keep unwanted outside influences from seeping into the isolated country, particularly from rival South Korea.

But the popularity of South Korean movies and music — widely known across Asia as the Korean Wave — "is spreading (across the North) more than we thought" despite the heavy crackdowns, Park Young-ho, a senior fellow at the institute, said at a news conference Thursday to present its yearly "white paper" on human rights.

North Koreans are buying cheap, Chinese-made videocassette players and sneaking the tapes in by tucking them into other goods brought in from neighboring China. They're holding illicit screenings across Pyongyang or swapping tapes. If caught, they pay off security agents who turn a blind eye in favor of cash — or let them join them in watching the banned dramas, the report said.

The demand has spawned a black market for illicit videos. Defectors say cheap VCR machines and videotapes can be purchased discreetly at markets, with some even displaying "CD Sale" signs, the report said. Due to the popularity of videos, VCR repairmen are well-paid in North Korea, the report said.

Even Kim Jong Il, a reputed movie buff said to own a library stocked with more than 20,000 films, reportedly enjoys South Korean dramas. In 2007, the then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun gave Kim a gift of DVDs of popular South Korean films during their summit, according Roh's former spokesman, Chun Ho-seon.

But the regime has mobilized inspection teams to "purge" border cities of those smuggling in illegal foreign films and has publicly executed offenders as a warning against black market dealings in South Korean videos, the report said.

The nighttime "search and arrest" sweeps are meant "to prevent the intrusion of anti-Socialist ideas and cultures," according to a notice posted in one city, the report said.

"North Korea's control over its society may have weakened but the North won't stand for condoning the influx of outside influences if it puts the socialist system in danger," said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University.

Public executions, though dropping in number in recent years, are still carried out on the most serious offenders, the report said, noting that conviction for circulating foreign videotapes is among the offenses that carry the death penalty.

Even North Korean soldiers are watching DVDs in their barracks near the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, Park said.

Among the movies circulating in the North: the South Korean blockbuster "JSA: Joint Security Area," the report said.

Set inside the DMZ, the 2000 box office hit tells the fictional tale of two border guards — one South Korean, the other North Korean — who strike up an unlikely brotherhood amid an investigation into a tense border shooting.

The film reportedly was among those Kim Jong Il received in his gift pack from then-South Korean President Roh at a time of warmer relations between the two.

By KWANG-TAE KIM (AP)

source: 1

sorry but waddahale, public execution?! srsly...

Comments

[michi-michuu.livejournal.com]

What...the fuck?


o____o Public executions? Seriously?

[dominique-franc.livejournal.com]

public execution for fear that the people would become disillusioned? O_o

[dominique-franc.livejournal.com]

my sentence seems to be fractured?
it doesn't sound right...O_O

[pinkiyoojin.livejournal.com]

[hoyah.livejournal.com]

:/ N Korea is a scary scary place.

Also, JSA is awesome. :x And a movie that definitely hits close to home, regarding the N/S conflict. I kind of understand how threatening that might be to the regime, though nothing excuses whatever horrible punishments are being meted out for smuggling in movies.

[jia-zhang.livejournal.com]

The nighttime "search and arrest" sweeps are meant "to prevent the intrusion of anti-Socialist ideas and cultures".

Fucking moron. That ain't Socialism. Socialism is about the abolition of the State. I hate how countries like North Korea have really distorted what Communism and Socialism actually means.

[spindriftt.livejournal.com]

fucking this.

[dandycat.livejournal.com]

Word.

[finalfantasyo13.livejournal.com]

holy crap..:O
chill North Korea..seriously..

[xcherryblossomx.livejournal.com]

Seems that hillary clinton told them they were just like a attention whore kid and NK got even more mad at the states. Thats atleast what my mexican newspaper reported today.

[puchuu.livejournal.com]

OSHI-
maybe the north koreans will rebel 8DDDDDD~

[kyurisma.livejournal.com]

Six decades later, North Korea is one of the world's poorest nations, while South Korea has the world's 13th largest economy.

I couldn't help but LOL at this.

[finalfantasyo13.livejournal.com]

same here i lol'd pretty hard. :D

[solitarydesire.livejournal.com]

I saw in a documentary once that they shut off the power for the block and then raid homes because then they wont be able to get the tape out of the vcr in order to hide it.

it's fucked up..

But I like how the north Korean boarder patrol is like.. watching My Girl >D

[nubby-tail.livejournal.com]

Wow that's messed up. D: What documentary was this?

And lol at your last sentence.

[vi-ii-i.livejournal.com]

this doesn't shock me

i read an article on that one guy who was born in and escaped from that nkorean concentration camp and i had nightmares about it

[xcherryblossomx.livejournal.com]

I think thats the video I saw. It was so sad D: especially the part in which he says that he doesnt know if the guy who told him about life outside the ccamp made it or not.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

You just cant stop the korean wave bbz.

[xcherryblossomx.livejournal.com]

Sadly is that there is even people that dont know they are other countries. I saw a video about a guy who was born in one of those concentration camps (seems that in NK they punish a person and the next 2 generations). The guy was born because his parents behaved and were allowed to get married why in the camp. So this guy basically had no idea there was something else outside of the c.camp. It was only until he met some old man and he told him about NK. Both escaped, who knows if the old man made it or not. And the guy said in the interview that the biggest shock in his life was when he saw the real NK. He also said that even after all the yrs he is been in SK he still cant understand what freedom is.

I cried, it was soo sad D:

[springtides.livejournal.com]

same here. i didn't understand why there was an entertainment booming south korea and why it wasn't the same for north korea until i found out how hard they come down the people.

[she-devil666.livejournal.com]

this is may sound ignorant of me but i've always envisioned n.korea to be some primitive culture that's afraid of the outside world AKA The Village >.> this article just re-enforces that thought (although I know they are not primitive but still)...

[booksandsarcasm.livejournal.com]

I think it's moreso the fact that people are brainwashed into thinking that what the government over there does is okay and acceptable. I don't think they're so much as primitive. Especially since it's: You better believe this or get your ass tortured till you do. One article I read even said that when NKoreans escape to live in the South or other places they often have to have help adjusting to the culture shock and getting used to not living in a constant state of paranoia. Some of them never really get past that. :/

[purkin.livejournal.com]

Somebody actually took pictures of an arcade inside of North Korea...



For people who haven't seen it before, it's pretty mindblowing. (http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2008/09/inside-north-korean-arcade.html/) There are so many people here that have no idea just what is going on there.

[booksandsarcasm.livejournal.com]

Gosh... maybe this is ignorant of me but why the hell is Kim Jong Il living so damn long? Ugh... well... at least now his health is failing. :/ It already feels awful even to say such a thing... but a guy who would let his own people starve to death while he lives it up watching his movies, eating lobster is insanely disgusting. Those poor people... x.x ugh...

[booksandsarcasm.livejournal.com]

:/ Though I guess Evil people do seem to tend to cling onto life more... which maybe explains how he's still hanging in there when he should have gtfo ages ago...

[v-rosesandwine.livejournal.com]

gosh, i feel like sending over 590375893457943598342 dramas over to them. poor blokes

[tyreling.livejournal.com]

... that's just sick. Those poor people in N Korea. Everything there is controlled by Kim Jong Il. And he claims he's doing what's best for N Korea. Psh.

[cakedomination.livejournal.com]

Even North Korean soldiers are watching DVDs in their barracks near the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, Park said.

As batshit crazy North Korea is, I couldn't help but lol at the idea of soldiers sitting in front of a tv weeping over Stairway To Heaven.
Maybe they sekritly fanboy.

[seungie.livejournal.com]

I've watched a few documentaries about N. Korea and I still find it so hard to fathom that a place like that really exists. I wish there was more awareness about their situation... it seems like the only people who really have a grasp are people who are already interested in it.

[miss-o-laneous.livejournal.com]

That is some crazy junk!

[thereisdiscord.livejournal.com]

Just, what the fuck. Hopefully China will be embarrassed by the terrible name NK is giving communism and end this shit.