SEOUL – Communist North Korea has staged a rare public trial for a man accused of possessing South Korean music, in what one analyst described Friday as an intensified crackdown on foreign cultural influences.
Film footage broadcast this week by South Korea’s MBC television station shows the April 28 trial in the western border city of Sinuiji.
The footage, available on YouTube, shows one man on trial for possessing a movie and 75 songs from South Korea, and another accused of encouraging prostitution in the city.
Crowds gathered at the scene of the open-air trial were shown chatting and carrying on with their business as the defendants stood on a stage. It was unclear what happened to them.
The Daily NK, an online newspaper in Seoul run by the regime’s opponents, said the public trial is “the latest sign that North Korea is focused on cracking down on outside influences and instilling fear in the people”.
It said nine suspects in all went on trial for crimes violating “socialist culture” including prostitution. The paper quoted defectors as saying the suspects were probably sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Jeong Jai-Sung, an analyst at Daily NK, said such public trials are rare and may have been held to send a message of deterrence.
“Crackdowns have been going on ever since last December but it’s not working, so they might be putting on public trials to create such an atmosphere,” Jeong told AFP.
The North has battled for decades to bar foreign news sources or culture.
But a growing stream of pirated DVDs and music CDs smuggled from China has made the capitalist South’s pop culture increasingly popular.
“Since a public trial is held less than once a year in each city, the holding of a public trial in Sinuiju means they are trying to block the wind from South Korea by threatening the people,” The Daily NK quoted an unidentified defector as saying.
“Nobody, nobody but you…”: North Korea wants no part of the growing influence of the capitalist South's pop culture. AP