NK College Students are Punished for Watching South TV Drama
North Korean authorities have sentenced college students to forced labor and even denied them academic diplomas for watching a South Korean television drama about a North Korean actress who was executed by Kim Jong Il.
A source said that, “About five students at Kim Il Sung University, Kim Hyong Jik University of Education and Pyongyang Railroad College who watched ‘Until the Azalea Blooms’ were sentenced to forced labor at a prison camp.”
In addition to those five, thirty students who confessed to North Korean authorities have been sent to work at construction sites, and those who were about to graduate received only a certificate, not diploma, he said.
Regardless of persecution, the drama“Until the Azalea Blooms” is still popular among students and intellectuals in Pyongyang, due to its realistic depiction of North Korean society under the regime of the former leader Kim Il Sung(1948-1994). They also like the drama because they want to better understand their current leader Kim Jong Un, whose behavior and actions resemble those of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, a college student in Pyongyang said.
The show deals with Woo In Hee, an actress who was executed in the early 1980s. She was known to be one of the mistresses of Kim Jong Il. She was publicly executed for speaking out about the relationship.
In the midst of the popularity, the source added that “All universities in Pyongyang received the instruction that students watching the South Korean television drama … voluntarily surrender themselves to the low-level Workers’ Party committee.”
[source: Radio Free Asia]
