A few months back, the South Korean drama ‘Squid Game’ was released on Netflix and quickly became a worldwide sensation and Netflix’s most popular series. Despite all the sensation and madness around the show, its entry is still prohibited in North Korea and anyone who breaks this law will face severe punishment.
Despite the ban, a man in the country smuggled the copies of the smash hit into the country and now as a punishment he’s reportedly sentenced to death for bringing back a copy of the show.
As per an American agency, the man has sentenced to death a man after authorities caught seven high school students watching the Korean-language global hit show, sources told.
The series was smuggled in from China on USB drives. Sources said his sentence would be carried out by firing squad.
A student who bought a drive received a life sentence, while six others who watched the show have been sentenced to five years hard labor, and teachers and school administrators have been fired and face banishment to work in remote mines or themselves, the sources said.
A source in law enforcement in North Hamgyong province of North Korea told RFA’s Korean Service, “Early last week, seven high school students from Chongjin City, North Hamgyong Province, were caught watching ‘Squid Game.’ They were caught by the 109th Joint Command of Staff’s inspection.”
This is the first time minors in North Korea were convicted under the law, ‘Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture’ for watching the series. Last year, in December, North Korea passed the low, which prohibits the entry and dissemination of cultural material like films, plays, music and books in the country.
The nine-part thriller follows the story of a cash-strapped contestant playing childhood games with deadly consequences in a bid to win 45.6 billion won ($38 million).
Meanwhile, the director of the dystopic South Korean TV series on Netflix, expressed confidence that the wildly popular show will return for a second season.
“We are in the talks for Season Two,” writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk said in an interview on Monday. “It’s all in my head. I have the basic storyline, the broad plan, so we`re in the brainstorming stages.