A North Korean man believed to have illegally brought a copy of “Squid Game” into the country has been sentenced to execution. The man, a student, is believed to have brought the series back on a hidden USB stick from China.
North Korean authorities reportedly caught him after receiving a tip-off from an unidentified source that he was selling copies to several people including fellow students.
After selling several copies to high school students on USB Drives and SD cards, authorities caught him and awarded him the death penalty while six other students were sentenced to five years of hard labor. Teachers and school administrators have also been fired and risk being sent to work in coal mines or exiled to rural parts of the country, sources told Radio Free Asia (RFA).
“This all started last week when a high school student secretly bought a USB flash drive containing the South Korean drama Squid Game and watched it with one of his best friends in class,” a source in law enforcement told RFA’s Korean Service.
“The friend told several other students, who became interested, and they shared the flash drive with them. Government censors received a tip, and the students were arrested.”
The arrest of the seven students marks the first time that the government is applying the newly passed law on the “Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture,” in a case involving minors, according to the source. The law, promulgated last year, carries a maximum penalty of death for watching, keeping, or distributing media from capitalist countries, particularly from South Korea and the U.S.
Squid Game grabbed eyeballs with its edge-of-the-seat story. The nine-episode series tells the story of a group of desperate people who sign up to play mysterious children’s games in the hope of winning a hefty cash prize.
North Korean authorities reportedly caught him after receiving a tip-off from an unidentified source that he was selling copies to several people including fellow students.
After selling several copies to high school students on USB Drives and SD cards, authorities caught him and awarded him the death penalty while six other students were sentenced to five years of hard labor. Teachers and school administrators have also been fired and risk being sent to work in coal mines or exiled to rural parts of the country, sources told Radio Free Asia (RFA).
“This all started last week when a high school student secretly bought a USB flash drive containing the South Korean drama Squid Game and watched it with one of his best friends in class,” a source in law enforcement told RFA’s Korean Service.
“The friend told several other students, who became interested, and they shared the flash drive with them. Government censors received a tip, and the students were arrested.”
The arrest of the seven students marks the first time that the government is applying the newly passed law on the “Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture,” in a case involving minors, according to the source. The law, promulgated last year, carries a maximum penalty of death for watching, keeping, or distributing media from capitalist countries, particularly from South Korea and the U.S.
Squid Game grabbed eyeballs with its edge-of-the-seat story. The nine-episode series tells the story of a group of desperate people who sign up to play mysterious children’s games in the hope of winning a hefty cash prize.
