Chilling footage shows North Korean teenagers handcuffed in front of huge crowd at outdoor stadium and sentenced to 12 years hard labour for watching K-dramas

• Rare footage shows two boys, 16, being handcuffed by two uniformed officers

Chilling footage has emerged showing two North Korean teenagers being sentenced to 12 years of hard labour for watching K-dramas. 

The rare footage, which is said to have been filmed in 2022, shows the two 16-year-old boys being handcuffed by uniformed officers in front of hundreds of students at an outdoor stadium at an unknown location.

The youngsters were arrested for not ‘deeply reflecting on their mistakes’ after they were caught watching South Korean television, which is banned in the North along with K-pop music. 

The clip shows the two boys, wearing grey uniforms, standing in front of a panel of officials as they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labour. 

A sea of young students, all of whom were wearing face masks and matching uniforms, are seen watching the two youngsters as they are handcuffed and taken away. 

Footage from inside the hermit nation is rare, with Kim Jong Un’s North Korea forbidding the release of any video and photos of life in the country from being shown to the outside world.

Yet the clip, obtained by the BBC from the SAND institute which works with North Korean defectors, was reportedly shown to North Koreans as a warning of what would happen to them if they watched ‘decadent recordings’. 

In the ‘educational’ video, a narrator can be heard parroting state propaganda. Referring to South Korea, they said: ‘The rotten puppet regime’s culture has spread even to teenagers. 

‘They are just 16 years old, but they ruined their own future.’ 

Foreign media, particularly anything deemed to be ‘Western’, is strictly prohibited in North Korea – which brainwashes its population to support the ruling regime.

In the past, youngsters who watched or distributed K-dramas would be sent to youth labour camps rather than being jailed. 

But in 2020, North Korea imposed a sweeping ‘anti-reactionary thought’ law that made enjoying South Korean entertainment punishable by death. 

In December 2022, it emerged that two teenagers in North Korea had been executed by firing squad for watching and selling films from the South. 

The pair, both boys thought to be aged between 16 and 17, were shot on an airfield in front of terrified locals in the city of Hyesan, on the border with China, back in October 2022 – though news of their deaths only emerged two months later.

A third boy of the same age was executed alongside them for murdering his stepmother, with locals told the crimes were ‘equally evil.’

Two sources who were forced to watch the executions confirmed what had happened to Radio Free Asia.

One said: ‘Hyesan residents gathered in groups at the runway. The authorities put the teen-aged students in front of the public, sentenced them to death, and immediately shot them.’

Kim Jong-un views South Korea as an American puppet state, and is sensitive to any of its media crossing the border.

But despite strict controls, such items are often smuggled into the country on USB drives or SD cards.

These are typically brought over the border from China and then bartered among North Koreans.

The ruling Communist regime uses informants recruited from the general population in order to catch those selling the drives.

In the case of the two teenagers who were executed in 2022, one of these spies reported them for hawking thumb drives containing the programmes in the local marketplace.

Such executions are rare in North Korea but not unheard of, and are typically used to terrify people into obedience when authorities are worried about rule-breaking.

North Korean youth caught watching foreign movies face being sent to a disciplinary labour centre, one source in Hyesan said.

A second offence means being sent to a correctional camp for five years along with their parents, as punishment for failing to discipline their children.

But anyone caught distributing or selling South Korean movies can face the death penalty, even if they are minors, the source added.

Indeed, in 2021 it was reported that a North Korean man was shot by firing squad for illegally selling South Korean films and music. 

The father, whose surname was Lee, was arrested in Wonsan, Gangwon province in 2021 before being executed in front of his family who were forced to watch. 

Lee, who was a chief engineer at the Wonsan Farming Management Commission, was accused by authorities of ‘anti-socialist acts’ for trading the South Korean videos, a source told Daily NK at the time.

The publication claimed that Lee was caught by the daughter of his ‘people’s unit’ leader, or neighbourhood watch group, while secretly selling the films and music.

Lee was executed just 40 days after he was arrested while his wife, son and daughter were forced to stand in the front row and watch his final moments.