Eight young people in Musan County put on trial for imitating characters in S. Korean TV programs and films
A source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Monday that the eight were arrested by the Ministry of State Security and publicly tried when locals reported them to the authorities for watching South Korean films, TV programs and music videos.
According to the source, ever since North Korea enacted a law to eradicate “reactionary thought and culture” in December, the authorities have been encouraging residents through their inminban (people’s units) to actively report one another if they discover infractions.
Members of one inminban tipped off the Ministry of State Security about the young people who watched the South Korean videos. After their arrest, they were publicly tried in the courtyard of a middle school in the county seat on Aug. 21.
“Seven legal officers from the provincial unified command [on non-socialist and anti-socialist behavior] convened the public trial, sitting on classroom chairs brought outside and neatly placed on a dais,” he said. “At the trial, they placed the eight youths from Musan in front of them and called them a ‘gang’ that imitated characters in South Korean videos and conveyed or spread the content of those videos to locals.” ......
[Source: Daily NK]
