Mick Hartley

It's these "minor" infractions that really show the horror of living in North Korea: teenage boys, aged 14-15, sentenced for using ‘foreign’ gaming nicknames. Every aspect of life must be controlled. From the Daily NK:

Three teenage children of North Korean army security officers were sentenced to unpaid labor for “nonsocialist behavior” earlier this month.

“Investigators from the General Political Bureau discovered that three teenage boys, whose parents are state security officers with the IX Corps, had used South Korean-style nicknames while playing video games. The Bureau determined this matter required serious consequences and sentenced the teenagers to two months of unpaid labor,” a source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK recently.

According to the source, the three middle school students, aged 14-15, chose video game nicknames that used the South Korean spelling “Lee” instead of the North Korean “Ri” and included English words like “dragon” and “king.”

Their nicknames were flagged during a General Political Bureau investigation into nonsocialist behavior within the military.

“Using ‘Lee’ instead of ‘Ri’ clearly represents South Korean cultural influence, while terms like ‘dragon’ or ‘king’ are obvious examples of Western culture,” the Bureau stated in its decision to punish the teenagers.

“Since these teenagers are all children of senior military security officers, the Bureau concluded that mere self-criticism statements would be insufficient. They notified the Socialist Patriotic Youth League branch at the teenagers’ school about the behavior and requested special measures,” the source said.

The teenagers subsequently faced harsh criticism from the Youth League’s school branch and were required to write multiple self-criticism statements over several days.

Their punishment extended beyond this – they were also ordered to perform two months of unpaid labor, with the case escalated to the provincial Youth League branch….

The punishment shocked both the families and the broader community.

“Such incidents rarely happen in Chongjin,” the source noted.

“The parents are experiencing severe distress watching their children subjected to forced labor. Local residents were stunned to learn that young boys could be forced into unpaid labor.

“The teenagers themselves suffered the greatest shock. Having always believed their powerful parents in military security would protect them, they were terrified and astonished that this could happen to them,” the source added.