North Korea Cracks Down on ‘Korean Wave’ of Illicit TV
‘Authorities in North Korea are intensifying a crackdown on imports of South Korean popular culture, especially television dramas, but the South’s “Korean Wave” may already have taken a strong hold in the isolated Stalinist state.
South Korean music, soap operas, and movies have already taken the rest of East Asia by storm, and, according to North Koreans now living in the South, the South’s arch-rival North Korea is no exception. [..]
“There have been two or three reports of public executions of North Korean young people in major cities including Chungjin, as punishment for having illegally copied and distributed South Korean visual material,” said Kang Chul Hwan, vice-chairman of the Seoul-based Committee for the Democratization of North Korea.
“It is not an overstatement to say that the Kim Jong Il regime is waging war on the South Korean TV drama,” he said, adding that the North Korean authorities have intensified surveillance and searches to prevent South Korean videos from entering North Korea.’
