North Korean authorities have executed and harshly punished teenagers, including school-age children, for watching or sharing South Korean entertainment such as the Netflix series “Squid Game” and K-pop music, Amnesty International said in a report that describes a growing campaign to crush foreign media as a threat to state control.
The human rights group said its findings are based on interviews with North Koreans who have escaped the country, and it framed the accounts as evidence of how far the government will go to block outside culture. The report comes as North Korea tightens information controls under a law aimed at stamping out “reactionary” ideology and culture, and as activists and researchers say South Korean dramas and music still circulate inside the country despite raids, phone checks and long prison terms.
Amnesty said it conducted 25 interviews with North Koreans who left the country, most of them in 2025, and used their accounts to describe punishments that range from public humiliation and forced labor to long stays in prison camps and executions. The report said some interviewees described hearing about, witnessing, or being forced to attend public executions of young people accused of consuming or distributing South Korean content. Amnesty said children were sometimes taken to execution sites as “ideological education,” a warning to avoid foreign entertainment that the state portrays as corrupt and dangerous.
In the report, Amnesty described an enforcement system that targets media consumption as a political crime. It said North Korea’s 2020 “anti-reactionary” law set severe penalties for people caught with South Korean music, television shows and slang, and it said punishment can be harsher for those accused of distributing content to others. Amnesty and other groups have long said the country treats information control as central to survival of the ruling system, and the new testimonies were presented as a snapshot of how that approach affects families and children.
The accounts described a climate of fear and surveillance in which a song, a drama episode, or a phone with forbidden files can bring life-changing consequences. Amnesty said some defectors told researchers that special police units and neighborhood watch groups conduct surprise inspections of phones and homes, looking for foreign videos, USB drives, and messaging apps. Interviewees described random street stops, checks at schools, and raids aimed at catching young people who use South Korean expressions, style their hair like celebrities, or watch dramas smuggled across the Chinese border.
Because North Korea blocks independent reporting and outside investigators have limited access, Amnesty said it could not document every case directly and relied on witness accounts from escapees and their networks. The report said the testimonies fit a broader pattern described in earlier research by the United Nations, foreign governments and other rights organizations, which have reported public executions and long prison sentences for political and social crimes. Amnesty said the goal of its report was to show how foreign media consumption, once treated as a lesser offense in some areas, has been reclassified as a core threat to ideology, with harsher penalties used to deter young people who are drawn to South Korean pop culture.
One interviewee described hearing from people with family ties inside North Korea that teenagers had been executed after being accused of watching “Squid Game,” Amnesty said. Another interviewee described public punishment sessions where people were forced to stand before crowds and confess to consuming South Korean content. Amnesty said the accounts often emphasized the age of those targeted, portraying children and teens as a key focus because authorities believe foreign entertainment changes how young people speak, dress and think about life outside the country.
Officials in North Korea do not publicly discuss executions in detail, and the state tightly controls domestic media. In past years, however, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has used speeches and party meetings to call for stronger discipline against “capitalist” and “anti-socialist” behavior, and state media has warned against foreign influence. Amnesty said its findings suggest those slogans translate into real punishment at schools, workplaces and neighborhood units, where people can be reported for minor deviations and where families can face collective penalties.
The report said corruption shapes who is punished and how severely. Multiple interviewees described bribery as a way to reduce sentences or avoid detention when someone is caught with foreign media, Amnesty said. Those with money or connections can sometimes pay their way out of trouble, while poorer families have fewer options and face harsher penalties. Amnesty said that uneven system creates another layer of fear, because ordinary people cannot predict whether a violation will bring a fine, a beating, a labor camp sentence, or something worse.
Alongside the Amnesty report, earlier accounts have claimed that “Squid Game” became a flashpoint soon after the series became a worldwide hit. In 2021, Radio Free Asia reported that a man who allegedly smuggled copies of the show into North Korea faced a death sentence and that students who watched the show faced severe punishment. Researchers who study North Korea say such stories are hard to verify independently, but they point to a consistent theme: the state treats South Korean dramas and music not as harmless entertainment but as a rival narrative about prosperity and personal freedom.
The appeal of South Korean entertainment inside North Korea has been documented for years by defectors, academic researchers and human rights organizations. South Korean dramas offer a view of modern city life, fashion and romance that contrasts sharply with North Korea’s heavily controlled society. K-pop, with its polished production and massive fandoms, has also become a symbol of what young people are curious about. Amnesty said the state’s response is designed to keep that curiosity from turning into doubt about the government.
Amnesty said its report also describes a sprawling enforcement apparatus, including a group often referred to by escapees as the “109 Group,” which defectors said carries out raids and checks focused on illegal media. The report said such units can seize phones and computers, demand passwords, and search for South Korean words in text messages. Interviewees described youths being made to unlock phones in the street while officials scrolled through photos, videos and chat histories, and they said fear of surprise checks has changed how people hide files and share devices.
The report’s timing matters because North Korea has been tightening control as it faces deep economic strain and diplomatic isolation. Analysts say the country has not returned fully to pre-pandemic levels of cross-border trade and movement, even as it reopens in limited ways. North Korea has also expanded weapons testing and hardened its stance toward South Korea and the United States, emphasizing internal unity. In that setting, rights groups say the government is likely to see foreign media as especially dangerous, because it can undermine narratives about outside enemies and the superiority of the state.
South Korea’s government has also collected defector testimony about North Korea’s punishments for foreign media. In 2024, South Korea’s Unification Ministry released a report based on a larger pool of defector interviews describing intensified crackdowns and harsh penalties for watching and distributing South Korean content, including accounts of executions for cultural offenses. Rights advocates say the details vary by region and time, but the pattern is consistent: as the state pushes harder against foreign influence, the risk rises for ordinary people who consume content that is commonplace elsewhere.
In North Korea, the issue is not only the content of a show but the fact that it is South Korean. Amnesty said the authorities treat South Korean culture as “puppet” influence and a direct threat because it comes from a rival Korean state with the same language and shared history. That makes South Korean dramas more difficult to frame as alien propaganda. Instead, the government tries to block them entirely, while also policing speech patterns that borrow South Korean slang and accents. Amnesty said the report includes descriptions of students being punished for how they speak, not just what they watch.
For families, the crackdown described by Amnesty creates an impossible choice: protect children from foreign media and risk being left behind socially, or allow them to watch and risk punishment that could ruin the entire household. The report described parents hiding USB drives, warning children not to talk, and paying bribes when possible. Interviewees also described the psychological effect of public punishments, including forced attendance at executions or public trials, which the state uses to reinforce fear and obedience.
Amnesty called on North Korea to end executions and stop criminalizing access to information and culture. The group also urged governments and international bodies to keep pressure on North Korea over human rights abuses and to expand efforts to document violations. North Korea has long rejected such accusations, calling them hostile acts, and it has limited cooperation with U.N. investigators in past years. The country’s diplomats have frequently argued that outside criticism ignores security threats and sanctions, while defectors and rights groups say the abuses described are part of the system’s foundation.
What happens next is likely to be more testimony, more debate, and little direct access to confirm details inside North Korea. Rights researchers say evidence often comes years later through defectors who fled after the events they describe, meaning reports can be delayed and incomplete. Amnesty said its interviews were recent enough to suggest a continuing trend, but it also acknowledged the challenges of verification. For South Korea and other governments, the report adds to a record used in international forums, even as diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang remains limited.
For now, the Amnesty report stands as a stark warning about the risks of everyday media consumption in one of the world’s most closed societies. It describes a government that treats streaming-era pop culture like a political weapon and uses extreme punishment to keep its people from seeing a different version of Korean life. The next milestone is expected to be further documentation by rights groups and government researchers, as well as any response from North Korea, which has not publicly addressed the specific claims in the report.
Author note: Last updated Feb. 9, 2026.