North Korea has sentenced to death a man who smuggled and sold copies of the Netflix series “Squid Game” after authorities caught seven high school students watching the Korean-language global hit show.
According to Radio Free Asia, the unnamed man was caught illegally distributing the South Korean survival drama series.
It was gathered that he smuggled copies of the series on USB drives from China into North Korea.
One of the seven high school students caught watching the series is said to have received a life sentence.
Six other students who watched the series were said to have been sentenced to five years of hard labor while some teachers and school administrators have been fired and faced banishment to work in remote mines.
Sources in the know of the case were quoted as saying that the man’s execution will be carried out by firing squad.
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The case, RFA said, is the first time North Korea enforced on minors its “elimination of reactionary thought and culture” law that sets execution as the penalty for “watching, keeping, or distributing media” from capitalist states.
The law enforcement stated;
This all started last week when a high school student secretly bought a USB flash drive containing the South Korean drama Squid Game and watched it with one of his best friends in class. The friend told several other students, who became interested, and they shared the flash drive with them.
‘Squid Game’ tells the story of a contest where 456 players are drawn from different walks of life.
Deeply in debt, they play children’s games with deadly penalties for those who lose — with the sole aim to win 45.6 billion won ($38.31 million).
Following its release, ‘Squid Game’ quickly became a global phenomenon, becoming Netflix’s biggest series ever.
Reports had claimed that the show’s dystopian world, where marginalised people are pitted against one another with the losing players put to death, resonates with North Koreans in risky occupations and insecure positions.
