North Korea executes people for watching banned TV shows

DAVID BOROFF nydailynews.com North Korea is believed to have publicly executed approximately 80 people earlier this month, including some for apparently watching the wrong TV shows. Group executions were carried out in seven cities on Nov. 3, a source told JoongAng Ilbo, a daily newspaper in Seoul. Officials at the North Korea Intellectual Solidarity, a defector-run website, said it heard rumblings of upcoming executions earlier this year, Agence France-Presse reported. Most of the executions were apparently for the crime of watching South Korean TV shows, smuggled in via DVDs and flash drives. More than 10,000 people were reportedly packed into a sports stadium in Wonsan to watch eight people die from a firing squad. "The regime is obviously afraid of potential changes in people's mindsets and is pre-emptively trying to scare people off," a North Korea Intellectual Solidarity official told AFP. It's a tense time for the country and their young despot Kim Jong-un. Last month North Korea warned the U.S. of "disastrous consequences" for moving a group of ships into a South Korean port.