07 January 2023 , 11:25
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Four North Korean students have been expelled from school and forced to work in a coal mine because they sound like they have been listening to foreign entertainment, it is reported.
Kim Jong-un is known for taking a hard line on attempts to bring in music, films or television shows with smugglers believed to have been put to death.
Content such as “Squid Game” or “Crash Landing on You” is often brought in from South Korea on USB flash drives.
But the reclusive state is cracking down on imported entertainment after four students were arrested because they were using the softer accents typical of people in South Korea.
In addition, it is claimed they also used language from South Korea.
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The students have been sent to work in a coal mine in the Onsong region close to the border with China.
The students have been sent to work in a coal mine in the Onsong region close to the border with China (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image)Speaking in a Seoul dialect is seen as trendy for North Korean youth, said Radio Free Asia source, but for the regime it is considered counter revolutionary.
“The phenomenon of using a ‘puppet accent’ is defined by the Central Committee as an unforgivable act of sympathizing with the enemy’s plot to infiltrate bourgeois ideology and culture,” a resident of North Hamgyong province told the outlet.
Authorities are toughening up on their stance after a written apology used to be acceptable (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image)And it appears as though authorities are toughening up on their stance as a written apology from the person caught stating that they would not use the accent again would be in the past sufficient to end the matter.
But now a resident has said that the North Korean state has “ordered strong countermeasures, saying that the phenomenon of using the South Korean accent is a counterrevolutionary crime that can disintegrate our internal affairs.”
Kim Jong-un is cracking down on imported entertainment (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image)The four students were caught in December using South Korean terms with one overheard at a railway waiting room by an enforcement agent using a word that translates as “honey” in a South Korean accent.
The students were ordered to work in a coal mine after the case was taken to the provincial Workers’ Party of Korea committee.
Last month it was revealed two teens were killed for watching South Korean movies.
The two boys, aged between 16 and 17, were executed in-front of horrified locals on an airfield in Hyesan.