In North Korea, watch Squid Game and it's game over for you
In Kim Jon-Un’s North Korea, to compensate for entertainment, you pay with your life. Yes, you read it right. A man has been sentenced to death by firing squad in North Korea after he was caught distributing copies of the hit South Korean web series Squid Game, said a report on Radio Free Asia.
Not only this, seven high school students who were watching the web series in their classroom, have been sentenced to rigorous punishment. The person who got a copy of Squid Game on a pen drive has been handed life imprisonment, while the rest of the others have been sentenced to 5 years of hard labour.
It doesn’t end with this. The school’s headmaster, teachers and even the administrators have all been held responsible for this. Radio Free Asia also quoted a source as saying that all these people will be 'expelled from the [Workers'] party' and sent to toil in coal mines or rural parts of the country'.
The incident came to light when an unidentified source gave a tip off to 109 Sangmu, the North Korean government’s surveillance service. The authorities zeroed in on the man after they caught high schools watching the show in their classroom.
It was found later that the man smuggled the show in on a USB stitck from China and sold it to a school student, who later shared it with his friends, said the Radio Free Asia report.
A BIZARRE KOREAN LAW
So, why is this all happening? (Yes, we know it's North Korea and anything can happen there at any point of time, but still...) Because a new North Korean law on ‘Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture’ prohibits distributing and watching anything from capitalist countries like South Korea and America. The maximum penalty under this law is death. All this for entertainment. Scary!
The authorities haven’t stopped at this. According to a source talking to Radio Free Asia, officials have been thronging the markets to check memory devices that might contain foreign media. Means more people on the list.
They also alleged that those who bribe the officials can get away even when it's death penalty on the other hand.
Nonetheless, whether you are rich or poor, North Korea is probably the worst country to be in.
NOW, THE TWIST.
Several Twitter accounts have called out the Radio Free Asia report as 'fake', given that it is based on what one 'anonymous source' had to say. Here's one: