Kim Jong-un brands K-pop a 'vicious cancer' corrupting North Koreans’ hairstyles & threatens to EXECUTE fans
KIM Jong-un has threatened to EXECUTE K-pop fans after he branded the South Korean pop culture a “vicious cancer” which is corrupting the state’s hairstyles.
South Korean music, movies and television shows have been smuggled into the totalitarian state – and the North Korean leader fears it will influence young people in the country and impact his regime.
Cultural life in North Korea is strictly dictated by the state, but young people across the country have been secretly enjoying k-pop using flash drives snuck across the border.
Now Kim has clamped down on the culture, which he believes is corrupting his country’s “attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviours”, reports The New York Times.
In December the Communist state introduced a new law which means anyone watching or possessing South Korean entertainment can be shipped to a labour camp for 15 years.
And anyone caught smuggling the music, shows or movies into the country can even face the death penalty.
The legislation is also calling for those who “speak, write or sing in South Korean style” to face two years hard labour.
The punishments have come to light after internal documents were smuggled out of the country by Daily NK, a Seoul-based news site.
The new law comes after Kim’s months of slamming outside influences which he believes could damage his regime.
According to reports he has warned that a “serious change” is on the way in the “ideological and mental state” of North Korea’s youth.
It comes after Jong-un reportedly gave mullets the chop – banning the retro hairstyle along with skinny jeans in a swipe at "Western decadence."
North Korea recognizes 15 approved haircuts, Yahoo News reported citing an editorial by the North Korean newspaper The Rondong Sinmun.
“We must be wary of even the slightest sign of the capitalistic lifestyle and fight to get rid of them,” the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea read.
He also banned T-shirts that featured slogans and nose and lip piercings.
Last month a man in North Korea was shot by the firing squad in front of 500 people for illegally selling music and films.
The engineer, whose surname was Lee, was executed as his family were forced to watch, standing in front of the 500 people, 40 days after he was arrested in Wonsan, Gangwon province.
Lee was caught by the daughter of his “people’s unit” or neighbourhood watch group leader while secretly selling CDs and USBs with the South Korean content.
After the authorities recited the guilty verdict, the sound of twelve shots rang out before Lee's "lifeless body was rolled into a straw sack and loaded into a box, and then taken somewhere,” a Daily NK source said.
The leader previously banned Chinese medicines in Pyongyang hospitals after an official reportedly died from a dose of a Chinese-manufactured medicine cocarboxylase.
The medicine is used to treat patients who suffer from fatigue.
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