North Korea: Public Execution for Reading South Korean Literature

The Worker’s Paradise of North Korea, which has received soft treatment from an Associated Press reporter who recently visited there, just carried out the public execution of two people who read literature from South Korea. Family members of both were sent to prison camps just for being related to them. As Korea’s Chosun reports:

“Some 500 people in North Korea attended a public execution of a man and a woman caught reading South Korean propaganda, an activist claimed Sunday citing sources in the North. Choi Sung-yong, the head of Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea said security services rounded up some 500 people including 50 family members of South Korean prisoners of war and abduction victims and made them watch the execution.

The victims were a 45-year-old woman accused of reading a South Korean propaganda leaflet and failing to notify authorities and a high-ranking regional military officer charged with pocketing the dollar bills that were sent along with the leaflets.

Choi said the families of the two were sent to a camp for political prisoners in South Pyongan Province.”