North Korean TV erases presenter Alan Titchmarsh's pants while broadcasting an old episode of "Garden Secrets" (social networking sites)

North Korean state television partially censored an old episode of "Garden Secrets" by blurring presenter Alan Titchmarsh's pants.

The British Daily Star newspaper said, “Last Monday, North Korean television broadcast an old episode of the Garden Secrets program from 2010, but the lower half of BBC presenter Alan Titchmarsh was unclear.”

Read also

list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4

North Korea boasts of launching a nuclear submarine

list 2 of 4

North Korea threatens to destroy American spy satellites, and the space conflict rages on

list 3 of 4

North Korea constitutionally enshrines its status as a nuclear state

list 4 of 4

“The Moving Castle” is the story of the train that the North Korean leader took to Russia

end of list

The newspaper justified the matter by saying that wearing jeans is considered a sign of “Western imperialism” in the communist country, where it has been banned since 1990, adding, “The 74-year-old broadcaster is considered very shocking to North Korean state television because he wears jeans.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Daily Star (@dailystar)

In the episode broadcast on North Korean television on Monday, which takes place in the gardens of a house located in the British county of Hertfordshire dating back to the 17th century, Titchmarsh can be seen sitting on the soil in the garden, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, plant pots and pruning shears at the ready.

North Korean censors cut the original hour-long episode, which was first shown in the United Kingdom in 2010, into just 15 minutes.

Titchmarsh told the BBC: “The jeans I was wearing were not very tight, but they are clearly unacceptable in North Korea. I have never seen myself as a dangerous subversive imperialist; I am generally seen as somewhat comfortable and not "Somewhat harmful."

The late leader Kim Jong Il announced in 1990 that jeans are a symbol of Western - especially American - imperialism, which has no place in a socialist state.

In recent years, the state has tightened its crackdown on Western culture, with state newspaper Rodong Sinmun calling on citizens in 2020 to reject what it called "bourgeois culture" in favor of a "superior socialist lifestyle."

Western programs are extremely rare on North Korean screens, as the ruling regime prohibits the introduction of foreign culture into the country, and owning or trading in foreign media is considered illegal.

While the sale or acquisition of satellite dishes and access to the global Internet is prohibited except to a very few trusted groups in Pyongyang, foreign media products find their way into the country, often via memory cards smuggled across the Chinese border.

North Korean television also sometimes pirates foreign content, by blurring the logos that appear on the screen to hide the original source, and this is often the case when broadcasting English Premier League matches, the European Champions League, and other international football events.

In 2014, during one of North Korea's periods of rapprochement with the West, the possibility of gifting British television programs to Pyongyang was discussed as a means of demonstrating so-called "soft power." The Sunday Times revealed at the time that the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Foreign Office were hoping to "open... "The North Korean people's eyes are on the outside world without offending the regime."

The newspaper quoted a British official as saying, “The programs sent to North Korea must be inoffensive, such as Mr. Bean, EastEnders, Miss Marple, or Poirot.”

North Korea.. a country of strangeness

In one of North Korea's oddities, its leader, Kim Jong Un, arrived in Russia on September 12, 2023, riding a train with armored vehicles painted dark green and decorated with a yellow stripe.

Due to the weight of all the extra equipment, the train moves at only 55 kilometers per hour, so Kim's trip to Vietnam to meet Trump took 65 hours. But the train has major advantages over the plane, as it provides greater flexibility in unexpected circumstances, including attacks.

Since assuming power in 2011, Kim has made 7 international trips and crossed the border into South Korea twice, using the train, most notably his trip to Beijing in 2018 and during his participation in the Hanoi Summit in 2019, which witnessed his meeting with then-US President Donald Trump.

The Kim family owns several almost identical trains produced by a factory in Pyongyang, and the carriages used by Kim Jong Il and his father and predecessor, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, are now on display at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, where the bodies of the two leaders lie.

Among the strange decisions of its leader, Kim Jong Un, is to specify hairstyles that distinguish married women from unmarried women, and to specify 28 haircuts for men, provided that the sideburns are shaved to above the ears, and the length of the hair is not more than 5 centimetres.

Among the controversial decisions was his issuance of a decree prohibiting citizens from laughing for an 11-day period of mourning on the tenth anniversary (last year) of the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December.

Imprisonment is a punishment for watching foreign films

Among the strict decisions that put violators in prison or lead to death are watching foreign films or listening to Western music.

The North Korean authorities recently issued decisions to execute dozens of citizens who watched series from its rival neighbor, South Korea, and series from the United States of America, while viewers of Indian films, for example, were punished with imprisonment.

It is also forbidden to make international communications and calls, or to show disloyalty, such as sleeping while the president is speaking, which leads to execution. Likewise, an individual committing a crime may lead to the imprisonment of his family, grandparents, and children, in order to prevent escape from prison, as reports spoke of the existence of more than 200,000 prison camps.

Since the laws do not allow citizens to leave the country, anyone who tries to cross the border is shot on the spot, and for tourists, a person is imposed on them by the authorities as a tour guide, and anyone who tries to bypass the tour group or talk to the locals is thrown into prison.

In North Korea, it is forbidden to give newborns the name of leader Kim Jong Un, in order to immortalize his name after him.

Source: Al Jazeera + websites + social networking sites