Tag: North Korea

  • ’Squid Game Smuggler’ sentenced to death in North Korea

    ’Squid Game Smuggler’ sentenced to death in North Korea

    North Korea announced a death sentence to a man who smuggled and sold copies of the popular South Korean Netflix web series, ‘Squid Game’ which is banned in North Korea.

    The authorities caught seven high school students watching the worldwide hit Korean show, reports the RFA.

    A copy of Squid Game was smuggled from China into North Korea and was sold through the USB flash drives containing the Korean show.

    One of the students who bought the banned show was sentenced to life imprisonment whereas other students, who watched the pirated show received five years of hard labour.

    In schools, administration including teachers were also fired and exiled to isolate parts of the country to work in mines.

    According to analysts, there is a hard censorship policy in North Korea under the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un to ‘prevent the influence of capitalist countries.’

    A new law which is officially named “Law on the Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture,” was passed in North Korea last year to curb the impact of the outer world. It carries a maximum penalty of death for viewing, possessing, or delivering ‘capitalist content’, especially from South Korea and the United States of America (USA).

  • South Korea says North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is ‘alive and well’

    South Korea says North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is ‘alive and well’

    Officials in South Korea are calling for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has died after a botched heart surgery or may be severely ill, emphasising that they have detected no unusual movements across the border in the north.

    At a closed-door forum on Sunday, South Korea’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees engagement with the North, said the government has the intelligence capabilities to say with confidence that there was nothing unusual happening, Al Jazeera reported.

    Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader’s health began after he did not appear at a key state holiday on April 15. He has not been seen in public since.

    READ: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un reportedly dead after botched heart surgery

    “Our government’s position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, a special adviser on national security to the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. “Kim Jong-un is alive and well.”

    The adviser said that Kim had been staying in Wonsan – a resort town on the country’s east coast – since 13 April, adding, “No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”

    “We have nothing to confirm and no special movement has been detected inside North Korea as of now,” the South’s presidential office said in a statement last week.

    Speculation about Kim grew after Daily NK, a Seoul-based online media outlet that employs North Korean defectors, claimed he was recovering after undergoing a “cardiovascular procedure” earlier this month.

    Citing a single unidentified source inside the country, it said Kim, who is believed to be 36, had required urgent treatment due to heavy smoking, obesity and fatigue.

    Soon afterwards, CNN reported that Washington was “monitoring intelligence” that Kim was in “grave danger” after undergoing surgery, quoting what it said was an anonymous US official.

    Meanwhile, it has also been reported that Kim has sent a message of gratitude to workers building a tourist resort in Wonsan.

  • North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un reportedly dead after botched heart surgery

    North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un reportedly dead after botched heart surgery

    North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has died, or is on his death bed with no hope for recuperation, multiple Chinese and Japanese media outlets have reported.

    As per the details, a vice director of Hong Kong Satellite Television (HKSTV) — a Beijing-backed broadcast network in Hong Kong — claimed that Kim was dead, citing a “very solid source”. Her post on the Chinese messaging app Weibo has been shared widely on social media, according to a report in the International Business Times.

    The claim comes hours after a Japanese magazine reported that the North Korean dictator was in a “vegetative state” ever since he underwent heart surgery earlier this month.

    Other unconfirmed reports, attributed to senior party sources in Beijing, said an operation to insert a stent went wrong because the surgeon’s hands were shaking so badly.

    The weekly Shukan Gendai reported Friday that a Chinese medic sent to North Korea as part of a team to treat Kim believed a delay in a simple procedure left the leader severely ill, Reuters reported.

    A Chinese expert told the magazine that Kim, believed to be 36, clutched his chest and fell to the ground on a visit to the countryside earlier this month. A doctor accompanying Kim performed CPR and took him to a nearby hospital.

    North Korean media hasn’t mentioned Kim’s health or whereabouts, even though reports by foreign media outlets have sparked international speculation about his well-being.

    The hashtag #KimJongUndead continues to trend on Twitter without any proof of the leader’s death.

    According to Independent, if rumours of Kim’s health are true, his sister, Kim Yo-jong, will emerge as the custodian of power in North Korea.

    She is the youngest daughter of former supreme leader Kim Jong-il and an alternate member of the politburo — principal policymaking committee. Yo-jong is also the vice director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea.