Heart emoji banned, K-pop punished: Defectors share details on North Korea’s brutal controls

A young man executed for sharing K-pop. Heart emoji banned. Oppa, the word used by women and girls to refer to an older man or boy, is replaced by “dongji,” meaning “comrade.” These are just a few of the chilling details shared by North Korean defectors this week about the regime’s relentless efforts to purge foreign cultural influence — and the deadly consequences of defiance.

At an event hosted on Wednesday by the Seoul office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ohchr), defectors who fled the North under Kim Jong-un’s rule offered new testimony on public executions, extreme surveillance and worsening living conditions, particularly since the pandemic.

“A 22-year-old I knew was publicly executed for distributing three South Korean dramas and about 70 K-pop songs,” said Kim Il-hyuk, a North Korean defector. “There were public executions about twice every three months, and sometimes as many as 12 people were executed at once.”

In December 2020, North Korea enacted the “Law on the Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture,” which allows the death penalty for those distributing South Korean media and up to 15 years in prison for viewers.

A female defector said that mobile phone surveillance intensified in 2015.

“If you saved an older man’s name as ‘oppa’ on your phone, members of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League would tell you to change it to ‘comrade,’” she said. “Even using a heart emoji after someone’s name was banned.”

“In the past, if you were caught watching a South Korean drama or listening to South Korean music, you could quietly settle it for $300 to $400, but now the bribes demanded to avoid punishment are much higher,” the defector added. “I loved watching South Korean dramas too, so I lived in fear that I might one day be executed as well.”

Witnesses also described widespread starvation during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“More people died of starvation than from illness,” Kim Il-hyuk said. “Food and commodity prices soared, and violent crimes were rampant.”

“Before the pandemic, it was rare to see kotjebi [street children] in the marketplace, but after Covid, there was a sharp increase in children on the streets who had lost their parents,” said another defector, a woman in her 20s, who requested anonymity.

“As life became harder, women began to fear childbirth and a trend of not having children spread,” said another defector. “In response, starting in 2023, a law was introduced imposing a one-year prison sentence for divorce.”

Multiple defectors reported that North Korean women who choose divorce or abortion are sent to labor training camps, according to the 2024 North Korea Human Rights White Paper published by the Korea Institute for National Unification.

The Ohchr Seoul office has interviewed about 400 North Korean defectors. Their testimonies will be submitted as a follow-up report by the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea at the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council in September.

BY HYEON YE-SEUL [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]