North Korea's military uses footage of soldiers punished for watching forbidden entertainment to warn other personnel against consuming foreign media, according to Radio Free Asia. Recordings published by the outlet on 12 October 2026 show how individual cases become ideological training material, with civilian phones presented as a route to betrayal.
RFA obtained recordings of a screen showing the training video, which it reports is believed to have been produced in 2023. Sources inside North Korea told the outlet it remains in use during training sessions. The dates of the underlying punishment cases are unclear.
The material combines accounts of labour sentences with demands for execution. Its warning extends beyond the accused, telling other soldiers that watching foreign entertainment threatens their freedom, their standing and their loyalty to the country.
Civilian Phones Become Evidence of Betrayal
Soldiers are banned from using civilian mobile phones, but the video shows confiscated smartphones and flip phones that its narrator links to forbidden foreign media. It accuses personnel of using the devices to buy, watch, store and share recordings, including South Korean television and Hollywood films.
Passenger-vehicle drivers are among those accused of accessing the recordings while carrying out their duties. The video does not specify which activities each person is accused of, instead presenting watching and distributing foreign entertainment as part of the same ideological threat.
That framing turns the allegations into an accusation about loyalty. The narrator blames the US and South Korea for spreading hostile culture and portrays soldiers who consume it as traitors, making access to foreign entertainment a matter of allegiance, not simply a breach of military phone rules.
Labour Sentences Sit Alongside Execution Demands
A speaker in the video says Ju Chol Bom and several other offenders received five or more years of hard labour, adding that the seriousness of their offences excludes them from a general amnesty. The narrator goes further, demanding summary execution for people she describes as steeped in imperialist ideology and culture.
That demand is distinct from the sentences reported in the footage. It does not establish that Ju or the other featured soldiers were executed.
The video presents Ju's confession as a warning about the consequences of watching foreign entertainment. Shown in detention, he expresses regret and says the recordings gradually filled his mind with South Korean speech patterns and capitalist ideology, although the reports do not establish whether his confession was voluntary.
His case is directed at other soldiers as an example of a life ruined by forbidden media. The narration extends that warning to those who have not been caught, telling personnel that offences involving personal connections will eventually be exposed.
Recorded Punishment Extends the Warning's Audience
North Korean law treats watching foreign media differently from certain forms of distribution. Amnesty International says the 2020 Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act prescribes five to 15 years of forced labour for watching or possessing South Korean dramas, films or music, with heavier penalties, including death, for distributing large amounts or organising group viewings.
The military video does not identify the precise charges against each offender. Those legal provisions therefore cannot, on their own, explain the basis for the sentences it reports.
Beyond the penalties themselves, older civilian accounts describe punishment being used to instruct others. Escapees interviewed by Amnesty in 2025 recalled being required to attend public executions and public criticism sessions as ideological education, although their departures by June 2020 mean their testimony does not verify these military cases.
The military video gives individual punishment cases a wider audience through training sessions. Soldiers beyond the original proceedings are shown the consequences attributed to foreign-media offences, turning the punishment of particular individuals into a warning for their colleagues.
