Amnesty International reports that North Korea has executed teenagers, including schoolchildren, for consuming South Korean media, such as K-pop and the TV series Squid Game, Fox News reported.

Axar.az reports that the findings are based on testimony from defectors and escapees, particularly from Yanggang Province.

According to witnesses, punishment depends heavily on family wealth and political connections: some offenders receive warnings, while others face public executions or long-term forced labor. Defectors described being forced to witness executions as students, a practice intended to instill fear and deter exposure to foreign culture.

Amnesty says the regime criminalizes access to outside information while allowing officials to profit through bribery, calling it repression compounded by corruption, with the harshest consequences falling on the poor and unconnected.