Joongang Ilbo: N. Korea executes 80, mostly for thoughtcrimes

The Joongang Ilbo reports that North Korea has carried out a wave of executions in seven different provincial cities for such “crimes” such as watching South Korean soap operas, watching pornography, prostitution, and possession of a Bible.

About 10 people were killed in each city, which included Wonsan in Kangwon Province, Chongjin in North Hamgyong Province, Sariwon in North Hwanghae Province and Pyongsong in South Pyongan.

In Wonsan, eight people were tied to a stakes at a local stadium, had their heads covered with white sacks and were shot with a machine gun, according to the source.

According to witnesses of the execution, the source said, Wonsan authorities gathered some 10,000 people, including children, at Shinpoong Stadium, which has a capacity of 30,000 people, and forced them to watch.

“I heard from the residents that they watched in terror as the corpses were riddled by machine-gun fire that they were hard to identify afterwards.” [Joongang Ilbo]

To make matters worse, the relatives and accomplices of the condemned have been sent to prison camps, where their deaths will take months.

The Joongang Ilbo report suggests that the executions were intended to terrorize the population, and infers that the executions imply a motive to suppress dissent in those places. According to Asia Press, the originators of Rimjingang, more videos with content critical of Kim Jong Un are being smuggled into the North, including documentaries and soap operas with subversive content. This has caused authorities to crack down (again) on video smuggling.

With stories from North Korea, there are always caveats, but in this case, the report is attributed to “a source familiar with internal affairs in the North who recently visited the country.” That means one anonymous person. An AFP reporter attempted to corroborate the story via the Daily NK’s sources, but the Daily NK isn’t corroborating the report. North Korea Intellectuals’ Solidarity, on the other hand, told AFP that its sources had heard rumors of a wave of public executions.

[Clandestine video of a public execution in North Korea in 2005]This is usually the part of the post where I snark at the AP and tell them to go do some investigative journalism from North Korea and tell us something we don’t know for once. In this case, it’s pretty doubtful that the AP could give us anything but a KCNA denial and some carefully chaperoned “interviews” with local residents, who’d deny everything, of course.

Aren’t there any western aid workers or businessmen in these places who can either confirm or deny that residents were summoned to some kind of spectacle on November 3rd — and who’d be willing to risk their access to the North by talking to a reporter? Sadly, probably not. This may be one of those stories where we’ll have to wait and see what other local residents tell us over their cell phones in the coming weeks.