North Korea | Daughter of high-ranking cadre along with boyfriend publicly executed for watching, distributing South Korean films

The daughter of a high-ranking cadre along with her boyfriend have been publicly executed for watching and distributing South Korean films, soap operas, and entertainment programs. North Korea is apparently intensifying its “fear politics” based on a law to eradicate “reactionary thought and culture.”

According to a Daily NK source in South Pyongan Province on 25 February 2022, a young woman in her 20s identified as “A,” along with her boyfriend “B,” were publicly shot in Munhwa-dong, Pyongsong, in mid-January.

The woman was the daughter of the head of the political department of the South Pyongan Province branch of the Ministry of State Security (MSS). A graduate of the Pyongyang Han Tok Su University of Light Industry, she had worked in foodstuff production.

Recently, however, she was essentially unemployed, having returned to her hometown of Pyongsong. On paper, she was employed at a production base under the provincial branch of the MSS, her father’s employer. However, she was making monthly payments to avoid showing up at the office, a practice known as “Aug. 3 work” in North Korea.

Her boyfriend — reportedly the son of a laborer — was a computer technician who graduated from the automation department of a natural sciences university.

The couple apparently enjoyed South Korean food programs such as “Baek Jong-won’s Alley Restaurant” and “Hard Life Rich People,” and even considered selling dishes based on what they saw in the programs. Later, they began watching other kinds of South Korean videos, and started to earn money by copying and distributing the videos.

According to the judgment handed down at their public trial, the couple imported a computer from China to copy the videos. They were also crafting a plan to engage in professional distribution activities by copying videos and printed materials from overseas, operating a photo studio with photo editing and printing equipment as a front.

In fact, according to explanatory materials for the law to eradicate “reactionary thought and culture” obtained by Daily NK in January of last year, Article 27 of the legislation calls for sentences of 5 to 15 years of correctional labor against people caught watching, listening or possessing “films, recordings, publications, books, songs, drawings or photos from South Choson [South Korea],” and life sentences of correctional labor or even death for individuals who import and distribute such materials.

North Korean authorities judged that the couple was able to avoid registering their imported computer with the MSS and engage in illegal copying of videos because they were protected by A’s father, a high-ranking cadre at the provincial branch of the MSS.

A’s father was originally an administrative cadre but was promoted to the MSS based on his reputation for eliminating “reactionary” individuals and dissidents.

Ultimately, A was publicly executed. Though the lives of her father and other family members were spared, they were sent to a political prison camp. About 20 people accused of taking part in distributing the videos along with MSS officials were given front row seats to the execution. Immediately after the shooting, all these spectators were arrested for participating in or overlooking the illegal distribution of videos.

Prior to this, North Korean authorities ordered that a certain number of people from institutions such as the local inminban (people’s unit), MSS, and prosecutor’s office participate in public trials. Accordingly, about 300 people reportedly watched the execution.

The source said intense crackdowns to eradicate the import and distribution of foreign videos are continuing.

Source: dailynk.com, Staff, March 3, 2022

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Idaho | How Bryan Kohberger’s Guilty Plea Move Could Be His Death Sentence

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

Iran executes 20-year-old protester as fears grow for other detainees

Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old protester Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday morning, according to information obtained by Iran International, amid concerns that several other detainees could also face execution. Kheirkhah was arrested during the January protests and sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court on charges including moharebeh , or “waging war against God.” He was transferred to solitary confinement on Wednesday ahead of the execution. His family gathered outside Shahroud prison on Friday night in an attempt to stop the sentence from being carried out. According to information received by Iran International, Kheirkhah told his family in a final conversation: “Don’t let them forget me. We stood up for the liberation of our homeland. Don’t let the path we chose be silenced.”

After Nearly 30 Years and a Supreme Court Reversal: Assessing the Likely Result of Richard Glossip’s Oklahoma Retrial

DPN asked Grok for a legal analysis of Richard Glossip’s upcoming murder retrial and its likely disposition. Most likely outcome of Richard Glossip’s retrial: acquittal or a hung jury leading to dismissal or no further prosecution, rather than a conviction for first-degree murder. A conviction remains possible but is the less probable result given the severely damaged core evidence and the state’s own prior admissions. Death is off the table. Case background

Texas | New Evidence Challenges Rodney Reed Death Penalty Conviction

AUSTIN, Texas — Nearly three decades after Rodney Reed was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Stacey Stites, prosecutors and law enforcement officials are urging Texas’ highest criminal court to fully examine new evidence they argue raises serious questions about his conviction before the state carries out an irreversible punishment. Fair and Just Prosecution, joined by the Law Enforcement Action Partnership and 29 current and former prosecutors and law enforcement officials, filed an amicus brief urging the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to fully review new evidence in Reed’s death penalty case, according to an FJP press release.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Doctors warn against Tennessee death penalty protocols

Tennessee’s execution protocol is medically unethical and should be revamped before further executions occur, nearly 40 health care professionals said in a letter to Gov. Bill Lee. Like the coalition of faith leaders who asked for a moratorium on executions earlier this month, the physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals who signed the July 28 letter said they were motivated to speak up after the gruesome and botched execution of Tony Carruthers in May. Carruthers spent 90 minutes bleeding and writhing in agony as an attending physician made repeated unsuccessful attempts to insert an IV into the inmate’s chest after being unable to find useable veins in the arms, legs, and feet. Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve after the ordeal.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog