Squid Game Smuggling: Student sentence to death by Firing Squad in North Korea
A North Korean man has been sentenced to death by firing squad after smuggling a digital copy of the Netflix hit TV show Squid Game, it has been reported.
The student, is believed to have brought the series back on a hidden USB stick from China.
North Korean authorities reportedly caught him after receiving a tip-off from an unidentified source that he was selling copies to several people including fellow students.
He has since been sentenced to death by firing squad, Radio Free Asia has reported.
Another student who bought a drive has reportedly been handed a life sentence, while six others who watched the show have been sentenced to five years hard labour.
Teachers and school administrators have also been fired and risk being sent to work in coal mines or exiled to rural parts of the country, sources told RFA.
It is believed that the arrests took place in the country’s North Hamgyong province over the last week.
The recent arrests of the seven students mark the first time the North Korean government has applied the law on the “Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture” in a case involving minors, according to a source in law enforcement in North Hamgyong province.
Under the recently-passed law, any person found watching, keeping, or distributing media from capitalist countries, particularly from South Korea and the U.S, may be sentenced to death.
