North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un

NORTH KOREA: TWO WOMEN EXECUTED IN S. HWANGHAE PROVINCE FOR WATCHING S. KOREAN PROGRAMS

July 3, 2023:

Earlier this month, two female farm workers in Chongdam County, South Hwanghae Province, were publicly executed for breaking the channel lock on their television and secretly watching South Korean programs, Daily NK has learned. 
After their arrest by the Ministry of State Security in December, the two underwent preliminary examinations through June before being publicly executed in front of residents of Chongdam County, according to a Daily NK source in the province on June 26, 2023, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. 
According to the source, members of the Ministry of State Security exposed the wrongdoing of the women during a struggle session held before their execution. 
“The two quickly became close as they shared their ideology, corrupted as they discussed their curiosity about South Korea and the outside world,” officials at the struggle session alleged, according to the source. 
According to the source, someone from the two women’s neighborhood watch unit — envious of how the two neighbors were always hanging out with one another — found it suspicious that there were only children at one of the women’s homes. She barged in, discovered the television channel lock had been broken and learned from the children that the two women watched foreign videos while they were all asleep. The woman then reported the matter to the Ministry of State Security.
The Ministry of State Security proceeded to raid the homes of the two women, discovered that the television channel lock had indeed been broken, and confirmed details of their alleged crimes from the children. Determining that the woman’s report had not been false, the ministry immediately arrested the two women.
“Most of the people assembled [at the execution site] were shocked when the Ministry of State Security officials stated prior to the public execution that the killings ‘are aimed at clearly informing the public that unlocking the frequency lock to listen to the radio or watch television is an anti-state crime,’” the source said.
Ministry of State Security officials told those assembled that the crime would have earned the violator a sentence of short-term labor or, in serious cases, three to five years of reform-through-labor in the past. Officials emphasized, however, that due to ideologically corrupt behavior actively emerging in “today’s complex times,” the executions were to be carried out based on central government orders to “get everyone’s heads on straight.”
“After the executions, officials declared from the rostrum that there will be continuous executions,” the source said. “The call for additional executions frightened people, with some saying that almost everyone watches [foreign media content], and that the two executed women had merely been caught doing so.”