North Korea Imposes Death Penalty for Teaching South Korean Speech Styles

Adoption of the 'Peace Culture Language Protection Act'
Up to 6 Years Imprisonment for Using Only South Korean Dialect

North Korea has enacted a law stipulating that using South Korean language results in imprisonment of more than six years, and teaching the South Korean dialect can lead to the death penalty, demonstrating a strong determination to block foreign influences. This is interpreted as an extension of the policy established three years ago with the enactment of the 'Anti-Reactionary Ideological and Cultural Rejection Law,' which aimed to punish distributors of South Korean media with the death penalty.

On the 5th, Radio Free Asia (RFA) obtained and reported a document titled "On Fully Understanding and Strictly Observing the Requirements of the Newly Adopted Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Law," which contains parts of the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Law adopted in January.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Article 58 of the law states, "Anyone who speaks or writes in the 'Goerye' (a derogatory term for South Korea) dialect, exchanges notifications or emails, or produces printed materials, recordings, edited works, paintings, photographs, or scrolls written in Goerye language or script shall be sentenced to more than six years of labor reform."

Article 59 states, "Anyone who teaches the Goerye dialect to others or distributes printed materials, recordings, edited works, paintings, photographs, or scrolls written in Goerye language or script to others shall be sentenced to more than ten years of labor reform." In particular, it adds, "In cases of severe offenses, the sentence shall be life labor reform or death penalty."

Article 63 announces, "If items written in Goerye language or script are displayed for sale or concealed, the business shall be closed."

The term 'Goerye language' is defined as "a mongrel language whose vocabulary, grammar, and intonation have been Westernized, Japanized, and Sinicized, completely losing the essence of the Korean language, and is a filthy and disgusting garbage language that does not exist in the world."

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