Amnesty warns North Korea is killing teens for “Squid Game”
North Korea is executing schoolchildren for watching South Korean TV shows and listening to K-Pop, including Netflix’s hit series “Squid Game,” according to Amnesty International.
In a new report, the human rights group said escapees described teenagers and even middle school students being publicly executed, sent to labor camps, or subjected to harsh public humiliations for consuming foreign media banned by the regime.
Amnesty said the findings are based on 25 in-depth interviews conducted in 2025 with North Koreans who fled the country between 2012 and 2020. Most were between 15 and 25 years old when they escaped.
One interviewee told Amnesty that people, including high school students, were executed for watching “Squid Game” in Yanggang Province near the Chinese border. Radio Free Asia separately reported that an execution linked to distributing the show took place in neighboring North Hamgyong Province in 2021.
“Taken together, these reports from different provinces suggest multiple executions related to the shows,” Amnesty wrote.
The report says the crackdown has intensified under leader Kim Jong Un, particularly since the regime introduced the 2020 Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act. The law labels South Korean media as “rotten ideology that paralyses the people’s revolutionary sense.”
Under the law, watching or possessing South Korean dramas, films, or music can result in five to 15 years of forced labor, Amnesty said. Harsher punishments, including death, may apply for distributing content or organizing group viewings. Escapees also said punishments are often influenced by bribery and social status.
“People are caught for the same act, but punishment depends entirely on money,” said Choi Suvin, 39, who fled in 2019. “People without money sell their houses to gather $5,000 or $10,000 to pay to get out of the re-education camps.”
Kim Joonsik, 28, said he was caught watching South Korean dramas three times before leaving in 2019, but avoided legal consequences due to family connections. “Usually when high school students are caught, if their family has money, they just get warnings,” he said. “I didn’t receive legal punishment because we had connections.”
He added that three of his sister’s high school friends were sentenced to years-long labor camp terms in the late 2010s because their families could not afford bribes. Several escapees described being forced, as children, to attend public executions as a form of state intimidation.
“When we were 16, 17, in middle school, they took us to executions and showed us everything,” said Kim Eunju, 40, who fled in 2019. “People were executed for watching or distributing South Korean media. It’s ideological education: if you watch, this happens to you too.”
Amnesty also said a police unit known as the “109 Group” carries out warrantless home raids and street searches for foreign media. Despite the risk, foreign entertainment remains widespread, the report said, smuggled into the country from China on USB drives.
“Workers watch it openly, party officials watch it proudly, security agents spy on it, and police watch it safely,” one interviewee said. “Everyone knows everyone watches, including those who do the crackdowns.”
“These testimonies show how North Korea is enforcing dystopian laws that mean watching a South Korean TV show can cost you your life unless you can afford to pay,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director.