NORTH KOREA: TWO TEENAGE BOYS CONVICTED FOR SHARING SONGS

North Korea is in the news with the visit of RUSSIA’S President Putin, but little continues to be shared about the country’s atrocious abuse of human rights, as SHOWN by the brutal punishment of two teenage boys for using and sharing songs and videos from South Korea. 

Two teenage boys in North Korea have been heavily punished for possessing and distributing South Korean pop music, and singing songs and performing South Korean dance routines in public. One has been given 15 years’ hard labour, with the other given a life sentence.

According to NK Today, the two boys had often played songs and videos of South Korean bands on USB flash drives, and sang and performed to them at school and in their community. They were reported to the state by a security informant.

At the trial – which was made public as a warning to others – the authorities said ‘the two boys can’t be allowed to live in the same society as other North Koreans’. The boys’ mothers wept aloud and fainted as they heard the verdicts.

“This inhumane punishment shows that Kim Jong-un is serious about prosecuting people who possess ‘illegal’ materials,” says Brother Simon*, Open Doors coordinator for ministry among North Koreans.

“They are using these poor boys to set an example,” he continues. “Recently, North Korea expanded the laws that deal with the possession of foreign media and increased the sentences. Kim Jong-un is afraid that the people will be corrupted if they are immersed in South Korean series, movies and music. But there are also special stipulations for possessing or spreading ‘superstitious materials’, by which they mean the Bible and other Christian resources.”

“Christianity is completely forbidden and the Bible is a book that’s almost always hidden, in case there are random house searches,” he adds. “Parents are afraid to tell their children about God. Instead, they are forced to teach them about the deeds of the leaders.”

Please pray for these two boys, and for many more Christians who have been imprisoned because of their faith in Jesus… prayer points below.