{"id":1053503,"date":"2021-11-24T22:29:10","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T03:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1053503"},"modified":"2021-11-24T22:29:14","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T03:29:14","slug":"north-korean-sentenced-to-death-for-smuggling-squid-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/north-korean-sentenced-to-death-for-smuggling-squid-game\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korean Sentenced to Death for Smuggling Squid Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnorth-korean-sentenced-to-death-for-smuggling-squid-game%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1053503&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-17-at-1.46.39-PM-640x335-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\"><span>North Korea banned South Korea\u2019s international hit TV show <em>Squid Game<\/em>, but it still became popular with North Koreans thanks to bootleg video. <\/span><span>Radio Free Asia<\/span><span> (RFA) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/korea\/squidgame-11232021180155.html\">reported<\/a>&nbsp;Tuesday that the communist regime sentenced a man to death for smuggling USB flash drives containing <em>Squid Game<\/em>&nbsp;episodes into North Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/title\/81040344\"><span><em>Squid Game<\/em><\/span><\/a><span>&nbsp;is a gruesome over-the-top satire of heartless capitalism: desperate people participate in an underground game show where the prize is a huge pot of money, but the penalty for losing various children\u2019s games is instant death. One of the more sympathetic participants in this bizarre contest is a North Korean refugee.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>These attributes might seem to make the show palatable to the brutal communist regime in Pyongyang, but it maintains a strict ban against all South Korean entertainment. While North Korean state media <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/national-security\/2021\/10\/12\/north-korea-squid-game-proves-corruption-and-immoral-scoundrels-are-commonplace-in-capitalism\/\"><span>took advantage<\/span><\/a><span> of the show\u2019s popularity to launch a few cheap shots at the \u201ccorruption\u201d of South Korea\u2019s \u201cbeastly\u201d society, the regime <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/11\/17\/squid-game-illegal-hit-north-korea\/\"><span>fears<\/span><\/a><span> its captive citizens might notice parallels with their own ugly government and miserable lives. There is one Korea where people really are mercilessly executed for violating trivial laws, and it isn\u2019t the southern one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Case in point: RFA reported on Tuesday that officials caught seven high school students illegally watching <em>Squid Game<\/em>, so they arrested the smuggler who allegedly sold them a USB drive containing episodes of the show and sentenced him to death by firing squad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cA student who bought a drive received a life sentence, while six others who watched the show have been sentenced to five years hard labor, and teachers and school administrators have been fired and face banishment to work in remote mines or themselves,\u201d RFA added.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>According to a source in North Korean law enforcement, a single high school student bough<\/span><span>t the USB drive from the smuggler, watched it with a friend, and then passed the drive around to others when the show became an underground word-of-mouth hit. The <\/span><span>UK <\/span><i><span>Daily Mail<\/span><\/i> <span>on Wednesday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10237767\/North-Korean-sentenced-execution-copy-Squid-Game-hed-smuggled-country.html\">said<\/a> the \u201csmuggler\u201d is himself another student at the school.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Someone reported the children to Surveillance Bureau Group 109, the government \u201cstrike force\u201d that arrests and kills people who watch forbidden videos. The North Korean regime passed a law last year on the \u201cElimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture\u201d that authorizes eliminating anyone who gives forbidden capitalist media to a minor.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"9.6119873817035\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">North Korea has sentenced to death a man who smuggled and sold copies of the Netflix series \u201cSquid Game\u201d after authorities caught seven high school students watching the Korean-language global hit show, sources in the country told RFA.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LU5Bt65xkk\">https:\/\/t.co\/LU5Bt65xkk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Radio Free Asia (@RadioFreeAsia) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RadioFreeAsia\/status\/1463555848526049283?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 24, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>The law apparently authorizes torturing the minors who watch forbidden media until they hand over everyone involved in procuring and watching the material:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"22\">\n<p><span>\u201cResidents are engulfed by anxiety, as the seven will be mercilessly interrogated until the authorities can find out how the drama was smuggled in with the border closed due to the coronavirus pandemic,\u201d said the source.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIt means that the bloody winds of investigation and punishment will soon blow,\u201d said the source, implying that a lengthy investigation would reveal the chain of distribution as each new person under investigation would be forced to tell where they got their copy from and who else they shared it with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Punishments will not stop with the smuggler and students who viewed the video, however, as others with no connection to the incident will also be held responsible, according to the source.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>RFA\u2019s source said the government wants to make an example out of the <em>Squid Game<\/em>&nbsp;incident, so it has issued harsh penalties against school officials whose negligence ostensibly allowed the videos to circulate through their institution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Another source, however, passed on rumors that at least one of the students who watched <em>Squid Game<\/em> was able to escape harsh punishment by paying a $3,000 bribe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cResidents are complaining that the world is unfair because if parents have money and power even their children who are sentenced to death can be released,\u201d the source said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>So, to recap: North Korea\u2019s elite censorship commando unit is about to shoot someone for watching a show about people who get shot for losing at children\u2019s games, and several high-school students will be tortured into making confessions, but one of them avoided torture because his rich parents paid a bribe. You can see why the regime in Pyongyang is nervous about allowing its captive population to watch <em>Squid Game<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Korea banned South Korea\u2019s international hit TV show Squid Game, but it still became popular with North Koreans thanks to bootleg video. Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported\u00a0Tuesday that the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}