Death penalty in Korea. Monstrous executions in North Korea: true or false? — You were allowed to select the main characters yourself

Unlike Europe, where only Belarus retains the death penalty, in East Asia the situation is far from being so progressive, rather the opposite. The only country in the region that has completely abolished the death penalty is Mongolia. In Japan, Taiwan, North Korea and China the death penalty exists and is applied; In fairness, it should be noted that in two special administrative regions of the PRC - Hong Kong and Macau - it has been cancelled. But in South Korea the question of capital punishment is in limbo. On the one hand, there is the death penalty in the Criminal Code. On the other hand, the last time a person was executed in South Korea was on December 30, 1997. The situation is familiar to Russians: in Russia, the death penalty was in the same legal state from 1996, when President Yeltsin placed a moratorium on it, until 2009, when it was permanently abolished by the Constitutional Court.

In South Korea, the moratorium on the death penalty, although unofficial, was observed for many years. It was de facto introduced by President Kim Tae-jung, based on his own unpleasant experience. A couple of decades before Kim Tae-jung came to power, he himself was sentenced to death: he was then the leader of the democratic resistance to the military dictatorship. Kim left the presidency in 2003, but the tradition of not executing criminals has already taken hold. South Korean parliamentarians twice tried to completely abolish the death penalty, but both times the bill remained a bill, despite the fact that the first time it was put forward by the right, and the second by the left.

Why did the South Korean courts decide to abandon this unspoken moratorium on capital punishment? The reason was a crime committed by a 23-year-old corporal surnamed Lim.

Crime

Lim served in the 22nd Infantry Division of the South Korean First Army, stationed in Goseong County. Koson is located near the Sea of Japan; This is the northernmost part of South Korea, captured from the DPRK during the Korean War. This is a calm, quiet and surprisingly picturesque place, and hardly anyone could have imagined that something terrible would happen there in June 2014.

On the evening of June 21, 2014, Corporal Lim, who served in a unit located near the inter-Korean border, was expected to return from his post to the unit. He was armed with a K-2 rifle, 75 rounds of ammunition and a hand grenade. Lim attacked his colleagues - first he threw a grenade at them, and then opened random fire from a rifle. He killed three people on the spot, wounded seven more, four of them seriously. Two wounded died after the massacre. By that time, Lim had already fled the unit.

The command immediately realized the importance of the incident: a first-degree alert was declared, which, for example, should be used in the event of a North Korean invasion, a kind of DEFCON 1. The roads leading from the unit were blocked by soldiers. Civilians were evacuated from areas adjacent to the scene. The maniac was caught two days later. During his arrest, Corporal Lim tried to commit suicide, but the attempt failed. Everything that happened made a much stronger impression on the South Korean public than a similar incident on the Russians, if it happened in Russian army: Almost all men serve in South Korea, so everyone who watched the news understood that in the place of the victims of the killer corporal it could have been me, my son or my brother, neighbor, classmate.

Punishment

Lim, who was arrested, was court-martialed by the division. When the prosecutor demanded the death penalty, no one was particularly surprised: it is common for South Korean prosecutors to demand a disproportionately severe punishment. Thus, the prosecutor demanded the execution of the captain of the sunken Sewol ferry, who cowardly abandoned hundreds of passengers to certain death, although, of course, there was no talk of premeditated murder there. Usually the demands of the prosecution remain demands - for example, the captain of the Sewol received his well-deserved 36 years.

Arrested Corporal Lim

IN in this case However, the tribunal made a sensational decision, agreeing with the prosecutor's office: Lima, taking into account the scale of the crime, was sentenced to death, life imprisonment and lifelong hard labor. If the verdict comes into force, the killer will be hanged - no other methods of execution are provided in South Korea.

The verdict is not final yet, and the defense of the maniac corporal, naturally, filed an appeal to the High Tribunal under the Ministry of Defense of South Korea. If the High Tribunal agrees with the verdict of the first instance, there remains one more step: the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court. However, the chances of revision are not very high, if you listen to the arguments of the lawyer.

They boil down to the fact that Lim was bullied in the unit and was driven out of his temper. Firstly, it is not clear what kind of persecution this is that should give Lim the moral right to kill people, despite the fact that the convicted person himself is in good health and recognized as sane. Secondly, Lim’s shoulder straps cast doubt on the lawyer’s words. The ranks of the rank and file of the South Korean army are assigned automatically based on length of service, and corporal is the most senior, it is received by a conscript who has served a year and five months out of the required year and nine. That is, we have before us a “grandfather” who has less than four months left before demobilization and who claims that he is a victim of hazing. Thirdly, four of the five killed were junior in rank to the killer, so it is quite difficult to even theoretically imagine how they could spread rot against Lim, the senior in rank. Fourthly, Corporal Lim himself does not regret anything and believes that the blame lies with his colleagues, that is, with those people whom he killed.

Therefore, both the High Tribunal and President Park Geun-hye, who has the right to pardon, will have to decide not so much the guilt of the defendant - it is clear that he is guilty and there are aggravating circumstances - but whether it is worth breaking the moratorium on death because of one murderer execution. At the same time, it will be much easier for the tribunal to make this decision than for the president: a pardon, unlike a sentence, is a political decision, and granting life to a murderer who believes that he did everything right will be a big blow to Ms. Park’s already not very high rating.

In addition, the idea of the death penalty enjoys high support in South Korean society: according to a survey conducted last year, 72% support the death penalty, while only 11% are clearly against it. Moreover, when the question was formulated more sharply: “Do you support carrying out death sentences?” – 69% were in favor anyway, and only 14% were against.

So there is no doubt that the rejection of the appeal by the High Tribunal and the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court will not be welcomed by the majority of South Korean society. And given what they want to execute Lim for, it is unlikely that the minority condemnation of the sentence will be particularly strong. In addition, for the military, the execution of Lim will be a good reason to demonstrate to society that such incidents will not happen again and they can safely send their children to the army. And with those who dare to shoot at their comrades in arms, the conversation is short: a rope around the neck.

The author of the film about North Korea “In the Rays of the Sun,” documentary director Vitaly Mansky, on the eve of the Latvian premiere on April 12, told the Delfi portal about how he, as a “friend of Putin,” filmed the first Russian-North Korean documentary according to a pre-written fake script with fake characters in fake scenery. And what does he think about the chances of other countries taking the Juche path?

It was assumed that Vitaly Mansky’s film would be shown both in the DPRK and around the world. It was not possible to fully complete the director's plan - instead of the three trips and three months of filming stipulated in the contract, Mansky's group managed to work in Pyongyang for only 40 days. They simply weren’t given another visa.

As a result, the idea had to be changed on the fly and assembled from what it was. They learned about the film's appearance in the DPRK when its international festival premiere was being prepared. As Vitaly Mansky said, “The North Korean Foreign Ministry sent a note of protest and a harsh statement from the Ministry of Culture, which wrote about a well-thought-out American action aimed at discrediting the country. They demanded that the film be destroyed, any screenings banned, measures taken against the provocateurs who organized everything, etc. All this was written when representatives of the DPRK could not even physically see the film.”

In Latvia, the premiere of “In the Rays of the Sun” will take place at a significant moment - right now the Seimas is discussing the so-called “spy” amendments to the Criminal Law, which could seriously restrict freedom of expression. We have the opportunity to see to what absurdity the authorities can reach in their zeal.

The film will be shown in Korean with Latvian subtitles. The first two sessions are with Russian voice-over. The film is sold out worldwide; in neighboring Estonia the theaters were full, and the film itself received the prize for best director in the feature film competition of the Tallinn Dark Nights film festival. To date, the film has participated in 25 of the most prestigious festivals and received many prizes. It is released in cinemas in Germany, South Korea, the USA and other countries.

They knew about me that I was the main documentarian of Russia and personally filmed the leader of Russia

Delfi.lv: When ten years ago a report by the famous Internet hooligan Artemy Lebedev about a trip to North Korea appeared on LiveJournal, the first thought that arose was: are they really letting people like that there... You don’t hide your free spirit, but you were even entrusted with making a film about this closed country. By what criteria do they get there?

Vitaly Mansky: I think the North Koreans had no idea who one of the most popular bloggers on the Runet was. Despite the fact that they have entire departments for receiving and working with Russian guests, even there people do not have access to the Internet and actually believe fragmentary information about a person and his profile.

A fairly proven way to obtain a visa is to enroll in courses for Juche friends at the North Korean Embassy in Moscow, which last longer than six months, where you can prove yourself to be a true adherent of the Juche ideology. Over the years, investigative journalism star Roman Super and no less famous reporter Andrei Loshak have enrolled in these courses (attention!). Both ended up in North Korea and were not exposed.

— Maybe it is assumed that after such treatment the cadets are automatically imbued with the Juche ideology?

— The bacillus of leftist ideology (even if not in its exotic form) is actively walking around the world even without Juche. Among its bearers there are many serious and internally filled people. It sounds beautiful: peace, equality, from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. I wouldn't mind either. But with one condition: society will not determine my needs. Alas, this does not happen.

I know and another one effective method hits Pyongyang. One very large Russian businessman, apparently at the request of the Kremlin, provided assistance to North Korea in the amount of a million dollars, for which he received ten entry visas as a gift from the “brotherly” country. When Ksenia Sobchak found out about this, she asked to give her one of the visas as a birthday gift. Handing over the documents, the businessman said to her: I’m giving you $100,000...

You don't need to examine the secret files of the FSB to understand my attitude towards North Korea. But, as it turned out later, their whole idea of me consisted of two topics: that I was the main director of documentary films in Russia, and that I was the director who personally filmed the leader Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. Their further logic is easy to read: since he made a film about Putin, which was shown on TV, it means maybe about their leader.

— How did the work on the script go?

Context

Escapees from North Korea: the country has no future

Asahi Shimbun 10/15/2015

Sanctions? No, we haven't heard

Sankei Shimbun 03/18/2016

North Korea: sanctions don't work

Nihon Keizai 02/10/2016

North Korea poses new challenges

Asahi Shimbun 02/05/2016 - It was entirely written by the North Korean side - detailed, with all the dialogues. They wouldn't do it any other way. Since I knew in advance that they wanted to use me as a medium who would convey to the world their ideas about beauty, mass parades and majestic facades, I tried to use the “tail wags the dog” technique: I threw in them ideas that did not destroy their illusions, but allowed me to realize my plan.

According to the script, a North Korean girl spends a long time preparing for the greatest event in her life, joining the pioneers, receives her first pioneer assignment, to take part in the Ayran holiday - to become part of a giant living picture of flags, their image of happiness, which was supposed to be included in the Guinness Book of Records. In my film, it would eventually become one of the millions of pixels in the picture. Alas, in the end the script was about thirty percent realized—we only got to the moment when the girl was accepted into the dance studio of the Palace of Pioneers.

— Were you allowed to select the main characters yourself?

“Actually, they assumed that there was no need for me to get acquainted with the heroes in advance, but I insisted on being given the opportunity to choose the heroine myself. And so they brought five girls into the school principal’s office, informing them in advance that I had 10 minutes to do everything, they say, the girls are very busy (in North Korea, where time simply froze, this sounded absurd. I chose Zin Mi - it was attractive, that her dad worked as a journalist, and this would help get some information. However, in the script he was already presented as an engineer at an exemplary garment factory. When we already started filming, I discovered that the other four girls still participated in the film, in as Zin Mi's girlfriends.

Filming took place in the luxurious apartment where, according to them, the Zin Mi family lives - in the most beautiful house in Pyongyang overlooking the Juche Idea Monument. But it was obvious that they didn’t even spend the night there: the cabinets and refrigerator were empty, we didn’t find any toothbrushes or slippers. In addition, even in that first conversation during the casting, the girl let slip that she and her parents and grandparents live in a one-room apartment near the station.

— That is, you were going to make a documentary film, but it turned out... an artistic feature.

“And yet for me this is an absolutely documentary film - it demonstrates the methodology for creating a substitution of reality. Figuratively speaking, I did not film the Potemkin village, passing it off as real, but filmed how it was built. I walked along the same path to Ekaterina, recording the last moments of adjustment, touch-up and installation of plywood facades.

In our idea of exposing fakes, it was very helpful that, under the guise of a sound engineer, we brought a Korean language teacher from Moscow State University to Pyongyang - she secretly translated for us all the conversations in our environment. And we knew more than they realized. The main topic of their conversations was concern that we would not see or understand anything unnecessary.

- How did they achieve this?

“They immediately took away our passports, and without passports we couldn’t go out on the street.” So it was impossible to take a step without accompanying people. I think if I had rushed to do something, not caring about all their conventions, it would have ended with people in civilian clothes (they have practically no police) escorting us back to the hotel, and from there, on the first flight, to Russia . Most likely, in this case, our materials and equipment would be confiscated. Therefore, we did not allow ourselves such rude demarches.

Filming was reminiscent of an intelligence operation, when under the cover of one thing you do something else.

— How, with such total surveillance, did you manage to look behind the façade of glossy reality?

“We were lucky that we weren’t sent to a hotel on the island, where all foreigners are usually accommodated - we wouldn’t have seen anything there at all.” But, knowing this custom of theirs, I made it a categorical condition in advance that we live in the city. So we ended up in an exemplary hotel, where they accommodated some advanced workers who came to certain special events to Pyongyang - they were brought up on buses, with bouquets and orders.

During our two months of staying there, we never met more than 10 people at breakfast - this was for the entire huge restaurant with luxurious chandeliers and “Versailles” chairs. It’s funny that with all the surrounding “luxury”, for breakfast they gave a tablespoon of jam, a cube of butter, bread, an egg and three mugs of cucumber.

- What about lunch?

— We had a good lunch - in a currency restaurant. For money that is quite reasonable by our standards - 10-15 euros. Although by their standards this is years of work. As I found out, the salary of the editor of their film studio, which employs more than 800 people, in our money, is 75 cents a month.

For example, I watched as a whole family took care of a piece of roadside lawn near our hotel every day: they carried water in bowls and pulled out weeds with tweezers. For whom and why did they do this? If I really need to throw dust in my eyes, then there is rolled grass in the world for that.

As filming progressed, we kept stealing as much as we could and whatever we could. For example, according to the script, the girl had to go to school by bus. They brought us a brand new vehicle, we got in, and on the way, pretending that we were filming a girl, we managed to capture the city. They wouldn’t have allowed us to photograph the city just like that. Or we filmed the laying of flowers at the Monument of the Leaders, and we ourselves, using long optics, filmed the scenes further away. All this was reminiscent of an intelligence operation, when under the cover of one thing you do another.

— That is, in fact, Pyongyang is a giant Hollywood studio with expensive sets in which actors play their roles. For life.

- Absolutely so! At the same time, if we recall the observations of the same Artemy Lebedev, when those accompanying him took him to the observation deck of the top of the Juche monument in order to capture the ceremonial view of the city with avenues and high-rise buildings on the other side of the river, it was enough for him to turn 180 degrees to photograph what they obviously they didn’t want to show him - the beggarly barracks, indicating real life behind the Potemkin facades. I think that’s why they limit the arrival of guests in order to more carefully control everyone and bring them to the “correct” angles.

— I wonder what would happen if you were caught filming the wrong angles?

— I don’t think that I, as a “friend of Putin,” was threatened real danger for life. After all, Russia is the main friend and partner of North Korea, which became one of the 10 world powers that recognized the annexation of Crimea - brothers forever. But my indulgence lasted for two trips. We were not given the third visa that was originally promised - something had apparently gotten through to them.

North Koreans are confident that their country is at war with America, people are dying

— In the name of what is all this majestic fake being created?

— Frankly speaking, I still cannot understand the meaning of the titanic work of an entire nation to create a kind of papier-mâché reality. When Putin held the Winter Olympics in subtropical Sochi, it was clear that he wanted to show the world a picture of Russia's absolute power and his personal triumph. And this product of his will be “consumed” by hundreds of millions of people. Later, it was precisely in the heat of his Olympic triumph that he took Crimea, launched the Ukrainian and then the Syrian campaigns...

In the situation with North Korea, the labor costs and investments in glossing pictures of the entire country are disproportionately large. Their Olympics began seventy years ago and never ends. Of course, they do not have the technologies of the civilized world, but they have the scale, power and coherence. Living pictures of universal happiness created by thousands of people with flags according to labor costs are cooler than the laser show in Sochi. But the Korean “Putin” does not have the same audience as the Russian one. Rarely does a tourist go there. So it’s unclear to me who all these decorations are intended for.

For them, such life in the scenery is an absolutely natural form of existence. Over the course of several generations, no resistance mechanisms of the body or the thinking apparatus are activated. They say that a person once had a tail, from which what remained was the tailbone, and among the North Koreans something similar happened to their consciousness - it died out as unnecessary.

- Do you think they are happy in this state?

- Yes, this is a certain form of happiness.

- Maybe this happens because they have nothing to compare with?

— The main slogan of the DPRK, sung in poems and printed in all newspapers and on money, “We envy no one!” For them there is no outside world at all. Even the next door neighbor South Korea for them, it is a part of the common Korea occupied by the Americans, which must be freed from the yoke in order to live together and happily.

The North Koreans are absolutely confident that right now their country is in the active phase of the war with America, in which even today people are dying. At the Pioneer admission ceremony, I was shown eight-year-old children dressed in military uniforms, and was told that these were orphans whose parents... died in the war with the Americans.

- So, after all, their parents did something bad, maybe freethinking, since they were sent “to die in the war”?

“I think the maximum of them was stealing corn from the field to stupidly eat.” I don’t think that these were any dissident impulses - it’s hard to imagine there even in its rudimentary form. There is no irony about the leaders there.

-Have you seen them Lenin?

— They took me to the Mausoleum to see Kim Il Sung. They said with a breath that there was a plan to introduce me to the leader. But I’m even glad that this didn’t happen: I wouldn’t be able to refuse, and this whole Korean ceremony would definitely be filmed and used for their ideological purposes. I was constantly asked to write in their guest books, and the translator immediately sat down to translate. I understood that I couldn’t write everything I thought; I had to invent Aesop’s fables.

Actually, my entire film, which was not fully realized, was supposed to become such an Aesopian fable. I went to North Korea to make a film that would tell the world about this state as convincingly and cinematically as possible. At the same time, so that viewers in North Korea could watch my film with pleasure, which would turn into horror if the regime in North Korea fell. Leni Riefenstahl did exactly the same thing when she shot a picture proclaiming the triumph of the will of Adolf Hitler - it was these shots that later became material for the Nuremberg trials and the most obvious evidence of the horror and grief that Nazism brought to the civilization of the 20th century.

— So you were going to film “Triumph of the Will of Kim Il Sung”?

- Yes. A modern interpretation of “Triumph of the Will” by Leni Riefenstahl.

— What do you know about the fate of your characters after filming ended so abruptly? Weren't they sent to the "American War"?

“I’m sure they weren’t sent to the “war.” Because the more attention the film receives in the world (and it goes to dozens of festivals and box office in many countries), the more important it is for the Korean side to have the opportunity, if requested (and there were some), to present this family to the world and show that everything is fine with it . They care about their image.

No one is going the way of North Korea. Even Russia, and especially Latvia

— Of course, I’m happy that the Soviet government eventually collapsed, but I must admit that the Soviet Union was a much more vegetarian system. In any case, if we talk about the period from the late 60s, which I consciously remember. I admit that I could more or less organically exist in the Soviet Union all my life, having a certain space of personal freedom. Yes, it would not be the freedom that I enjoy now, yes, I would have to speak in a more Aesopian language, make more metaphorical films, not fly around the world so much and consider a trip to Bulgaria a great success. But if suddenly I had a choice - life in North Korea or the death penalty, I would certainly choose the second. I wouldn't doubt it for a second.

— Stalin walked in approximately the same direction as the leaders of the DPRK. Why didn't you get there?

— To be honest, I myself do not fully understand Stalin’s time. Stalin instilled animal fear, but even during the years of severe repression there was a great and free culture - Platonov, Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak wrote, Meyerhold directed, Eisenstein filmed, Rodchenko, Vertov were active... Yes, we all know who hanged himself, who They shot him, but the cleansing system was not completed - Stalin died.

Stalin hasn't died yet. Their “Stalinist period” was realized several generations ago, and all new generations were born in a coordinate system where an absolute vacuum of freedom reigns. This is a unique social structure, which has no analogues even in the history of civilization. I think Korean “Stalinism” is a special hybrid of socialism and totalitarianism with Eastern culture.

— Is it impossible for him to appear in the West? For example, when in Latvia there was a danger that the Seimas would adopt amendments to the Criminal Law limiting freedom of speech and opinion, a debate immediately began about whether we were moving along the path of North Korea. Even more often such comparisons are made with modern Russia.

— Of course, no one is moving along the path of North Korea. Even Russia. Build a second North Korea in modern world impossible. Because what happened there is an absolute anomaly. As a result of a certain “Chernobyl” accident, an exotic creature was born, like a bull with three heads. Perhaps it would soon die as non-viable, but Soviet Union contained it, and it survived crisis period, gave birth to millions of three-headed bulls and hung in such an outlandish form.

In Russia, no matter how hard Putin tries, he will ultimately be swept away - he will not succeed in North Korea. And even more so from Latvia. This does not mean that restrictions on freedom of speech and criticism of government can be allowed. Any government strives to implement various projects without public control - it’s faster and more convenient. She is sure that she wants good for unreasonable people (Kim Il Sung also wanted good), but here there is endless resistance with posters. But society must have the opportunity to influence the government so that it feels under control and does not go overboard.

Yes, there are enough problems in Latvia, there are a lot of offensive things, but this is a free country where you can be happy, and if you don’t like it at all, go to live in London, get a job as a babysitter, give birth to eight children, receive benefits for each and visit Latvia for the holidays. You can come back after some time. You can choose politicians, or you can not choose... Nothing like this is possible in North Korea. Even our conversation would not have taken place there.

The director of the film, Vitaly Mansky, has been living and working in Latvia since 2014, where the film “In the Rays of the Sun” was filmed. Mansky is a partner of the Riga International Film Festival and hosts ArtdocfestRiga.

Execution from anti-aircraft guns and labor camps: How they deal with officials in the DPRK

Kim Jong-un AFP

The world most often learns about the fate of officials in North Korea from the South Korean press, which of this is true, and which is the product of a propaganda machine, we may never know

News about executions in the Korean People's Republic Democratic Republic come to Big world through South Korean agents and intelligence officers, bit by bit passing on information to their curators, who then pour it drop by drop into the media of their country.

Stories about the executions of high-ranking officials in one of the most closed countries in the world have almost become commonplace, and if previously sophisticated reprisals caused surprise, now, one might say, Kim Jong-un, who led North Korea in 2011, has begun to repeat himself. Or are South Korean news agencies repeating themselves?

It is impossible to verify the fate of certain officials; from time to time those who were declared dead in South Korea “resurrect” in the ranks of the Korean People's Party again. We have collected several versions of the South Korean media about how, according to their version, North Korean officials suspected of corruption, lack of loyalty, or simply disagreeing with Kim Jong-un’s line end their lives.

First steps in mortal affairs

A little less than six months have passed since Kim Jong Il died and his son took his place. During these six months, information appeared in the South Korean media about mass purges by his son in the ranks of his father’s supporters and associates - the young ruler fundamentally did not agree with the views of the “old guard” . Or did the old people not share the fervor of the new leadership? However, the reports of mass executions were anonymous; they were about party functionaries close to the top of the government, but still not about the “cream” of the Labor Party.

Lee Young Ho 20read

In July 2012, a report appeared that North Korean intelligence services tried to arrest the previously dismissed Chief of the General Staff of the People's Army Lee Yong Ho, the general's guards opened fire, a shootout broke out, and 20-30 people were killed on both sides, including a retired official.

Family ties are powerless against hungry dogs

Until December 2013, Jang Song Thaek was considered the second person in the state and eminence grise ruling party, but he was unexpectedly removed from all posts and sent to trial. He was accused of attempting to seize power and overthrow Kim Jong-un, and he admitted his guilt.

Jang Song Taek's arrest Xinhua

Jang Song Thaek was not just a North Korean party leader - he was also Kim Jong-un's uncle - the husband of his aunt. The South Korean version of the official’s death is that he was given over to be torn to pieces by 120 hungry dogs. It was this version that remained on the front pages of world publications for a long time.

It is quite possible that this information was spread from North Korea deliberately - to intimidate and demonstrate the cruelty of the leader. A few years later it turned out that he had been shot. The fate of the family is unknown, although the press says that all of them - the wife and children - were sent to prison, where they were poisoned.

Flamethrower to the rescue

In April 2014, another execution was leaked to the South Korean press from across the world's most secure border. Now Minister of Public Security Oh Sung-heon has been deprived of his life. According to the South Korean intelligence services, Kim Jong-un personally burned him alive with a flamethrower. For corruption.

Kim Jong-un (center) and Pyong In-song (left) Reuters

And since the end of 2014, there have been a whole series of disappearances of high-ranking North Korean officials, whose departments did not give the effect that Kim Jong-un needed. The South Korean media wrote about all of them that they were executed. The methods of execution were not disclosed - nothing out of the ordinary, execution. The list of ineffective officials included the head of military operations in the army, Pyen In Song, and Ma Won Chun, who headed the commission for supervising construction.

Non-small caliber

In April 2015, information about a new execution appeared in the media. This time, the Juche regime “ate” the DPRK Defense Minister Hyun Yong Chol. Although he was officially accused of ineffective work and disloyalty, the media persistently circulated the version that the minister was guilty of falling asleep during Kim Jong-un’s speech. And they took the life of the minister not with a simple bullet, but by shooting him from a large-caliber ZPU-4 anti-aircraft gun at a training ground and in the presence of several hundred spectators.

Hyun Young-chul Reuters

Already in August of the same year, the country's Deputy Prime Minister Choi Yong Gon was executed - the caliber of officials who are being “cleansed” continues to grow. But here there were no chilling details - he was simply shot for poor results in implementing Kim Jong-un’s program for the deployment of forestry enterprises.

Choi Young Gon Reuters

2016 executions

In February, the media reported the treasury of North Korean Chief of General Staff Ri Yong Gil. Togo has traditionally been accused of corruption, although some sources indicate the general’s disagreement with a number of Kim Jong-un’s appointments.

Ri Yong Gil and Kim Jong Un BBC

But today information appeared in the media about the execution of two ministers - the former minister Agriculture Hwong Ming and the head of the Ministry of Education, Ri Yong-Jin. One of them was executed for dozing off during a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. He was also accused of corruption. The second is for inaccurate implementation of government recommendations in their work. And again - not a simple bullet, but an anti-aircraft mortar.

It is almost impossible to verify all these death reports. Which of the stories and rumors about the life of the Juche country is true and which is false, perhaps the world will never know. How the lives of the guilty ministers actually ended is anyone’s guess.

Not by officials alone

In 2010, after the end of the FIFA World Cup, the press wrote about the unenviable fate of the North Korean national team and its coach. The press wrote that after the game with Portugal, which ended with a score of 7:0 in favor of the Europeans, the athletes were publicly reprimanded, and the coach was sent to labor camps to work as a construction worker.

Weightlifter Kim Kuk-hyang during the medal ceremony at the 2016 Olympics Xinhua

After a number of the world press became concerned about them future fate behind the barbed wire of the DPRK border.

Illustration copyright Reuters Image caption South Korean intelligence claims that the DPRK Defense Minister was shot from an anti-aircraft gun

The Minister of Defense, shot from an anti-aircraft gun. A high-ranking official thrown to the dogs... All this news from North Korea is terrifying and raises a reasonable question: is it really true?

The most recent story in this series is the alleged execution of Defense Minister Hyun Yong Chol, who was shot from an anti-aircraft gun on April 30. At least that's what South Korean intelligence reported.

The Yonhap news agency adds shocking details: the official’s fault was that he fell asleep in the presence of the supreme leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong-un, and also did not comply with the leader’s orders.

Moreover, the execution took place in the presence of many witnesses, thus turning into a demonstrative massacre.

The problem with this and many other messages coming from the DPRK is that it is not possible to verify their authenticity: North Korea is too closed a state.

A series of deaths

In April this year, media reported that 15 people were executed on Kim Jong-un's orders, including two members of the government and four musicians from the national orchestra, who were accused of leaking secret information about the family of the national leader.

In December 2013, the execution of Kim Jong-un's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was responsible for negotiations with China and was considered a supporter of economic reforms, was widely discussed throughout the world.

Jang was married to the sister of Kim Jong Il, the former leader of North Korea and the current father. It is believed that he was his nephew's closest adviser when he first took the country's highest office in 2011.

In total, according to Yonhap Agency estimates, during the four years of his rule, Kim authorized the execution of 70 senior government officials.

Fabrications

However, some of these messages turned out to be fictitious.

For example, a loud sensation about the execution of the famous singer Hyon Song Wol in the DPRK, who was credited with an affair with Kim Jong-un.

In 2013, world media reported that she and 11 other famous musicians were shot for producing pornography. And they shot him with a machine gun. The DPRK authorities denied these reports, and a year later Hyun appeared alive and well on state television.

Illustration copyright Reuters Image caption The uncle of North Korean leader Jang Song Thaek was accused of attempting a coup and was shot

Another hoax was probably the news that Kim Jong-un threw his uncle to the dogs. All the media that wrote about this quoted an anonymous Chinese blog, stylized as a news site.

Truth or lie?

It is very difficult to understand the flow of news about North Korea. Often all we have are some reports from the South Korean intelligence services. And they have their own reasons for whether or not to make public certain messages.

The story of the shot Minister of Defense seems plausible to a number of specialists in the region. Former British Consul General to North Korea James Hoare said that he is ready to believe this, although there cannot be 100% confidence in this in the absence of facts confirming these reports.

BBC correspondent John Sudworth also calls for caution in assessments.

“When it comes to North Korea, we are too willing to give in to the worst and darkest sensations, even if we don’t really believe in them,” he says.

However, he adds, the situation in the country is indeed quite gloomy and permeated with a spirit of secrecy.

While in Russia they are only discussing whether we should return the death penalty in the event of a possible withdrawal of the country from the Council of Europe, in South Korea, which is not bound by any obligations to Strasbourg, this issue has already been decided for itself. For the first time after a long, thirteen-year break, the South Korean authorities decided to break the unofficial moratorium on executions and impose a death sentence. Unlike Europe, where only Belarus retains the death penalty, in East Asia the situation is far from being so progressive, rather the opposite. The only country in the region that has completely abolished the death penalty is Mongolia. In Japan, Taiwan, North Korea and China, the death penalty exists and is used; In fairness, it should be noted that in two special administrative regions of the PRC - Hong Kong and Macau - it has been cancelled. But in South Korea the question of capital punishment is in limbo.

On the one hand, there is the death penalty in the Criminal Code. On the other hand, the last time a person was executed in South Korea was on December 30, 1997. The situation is familiar to Russians: in Russia, the death penalty was in the same legal state from 1996, when President Yeltsin placed a moratorium on it, until 2009, when it was permanently abolished by the Constitutional Court.

Why did the South Korean courts decide to abandon this unspoken moratorium on capital punishment? The reason was a crime committed by a 23-year-old corporal surnamed Lim.

Crime

The command immediately realized the importance of the incident: a first-degree alert was declared, which, for example, should be used in the event of a North Korean invasion, a kind of DEFCON 1. The roads leading from the unit were blocked by soldiers. Civilians were evacuated from areas adjacent to the scene. The maniac was caught two days later. During his arrest, Corporal Lim tried to commit suicide, but the attempt failed. Everything that happened made a much stronger impression on the South Korean public than a similar incident on the Russians would have happened in the Russian army: almost all men serve in South Korea, so everyone who watched the news understood that in the place of the victims of the killer corporal there could have been me, my son or my brother, neighbor, classmate.

Punishment

In this case, however, the tribunal made a sensational decision, agreeing with the prosecutor's office: Lima, taking into account the scale of his crime, was sentenced to death, life imprisonment and lifelong hard labor. If the verdict comes into force, the killer will be shot - this is exactly the method of execution provided for the military in South Korea.

If the generals and judges do not have the courage to defy public opinion, and Lim's death sentence is confirmed and carried out, the death penalty will return to South Korea after a long hiatus. Someday this return will turn out to be what it always turns out to be: the execution of an innocent man, and the list of people who died because of Corporal Lim will be replenished with new names.