A man has reportedly been sentenced to death in North Korea for smuggling in and distributing copies of Netflix’s nine-part South Korean series “Squid Game” – the biggest global TV hit of the year.
Radio Free Asia (via Variety) reports that the man had brought the show into the country from China on USB drives and sold them to high school students who were subsequently caught watching the show.
The smuggler is reportedly expected to be executed by firing squad, the student who bought the drive has been given life imprisonment, and six others have been sentenced to five years hard labor.
Even the teachers, the principal and other administrative staff have been fired and “face banishment to work in remote mines”.
The penalties fall under North Korea’s new Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture law act that prohibits the dissemination of foreign cultural material in the country.