In North Korea, foreign series cross the border despite the control of the regime

The Squid Game series, Netflix's hit in 2021, was seen in North Korea bypassing censorship.

(illustration photo) REUTERS - KIM HONG-JI

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

Since the start of the pandemic, North Korea has been more closed than ever, with strict border and population control.

But an NGO has carried out a study on access to foreign information in the country and the results are quite surprising: part of the population manages to access series from China or South Korea despite the more intense control of the regime.

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With our correspondent in Seoul

,

Nicolas Rocca.

Conducting an opinion poll without direct access to

a country that has been locked

down for more than three years is a seemingly impossible mission.

Lee Kwang-baek and his teams at Unification Media Group still managed to get results.

“

This summer, we interviewed fifty residents in North Korea and a hundred defectors in Seoul

, says the president of this NGO.

Our results show what tools North Koreans use to gain access to foreign information and how they consume it

.

»

98% of respondents claimed to have consumed videos from abroad, and nearly half of them would even do so once a month.

An act made possible by the presence of laptops, USB keys or SD cards often imported from the Chinese border and exchanged between acquaintances or on the black market.

A severely sanctioned practice

Those who consume this content, however, expose themselves to repression.

"

Since the beginning of the Kim Jong-un era, the blocking of foreign content has intensified

," recalls Lee Kwang-baek.

In 2020, North Korea enacted a law against reactionary thoughts that strictly prohibits consumption and access to any foreign content.

Since then, around 1,700 North Koreans have reportedly been sent to labor camps.

These kinds of human rights violations have really intensified in recent years

.

»

Despite everything, some still manage to circumvent the restrictions.

North Koreans interviewed by Unification Media Group even claimed to have seen South Korean content released during the pandemic, such as the

Squid Game

series , global success of the Netflix platform in 2021, or Itaewon Class.

► To read also: Chinese video players to circumvent North Korean censorship

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