Subscribe
E-Paper
By Kim Hyo-jin
North Korea threatened to execute South Korean journalists and heads of their newspaper companies, Thursday, claiming they insulted the state dignity in their recent review of a book about the isolated country.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) denounced the articles published by the conservative Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo newspapers, claiming they falsely described North Korean society as highly capitalist based on the content of the book, "North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors," whose South Korean title is "Capitalist Republic of Korea," a parody of the country's official name, "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (DPRK).
"The Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo committed a hideous crime of seriously insulting the dignity of the DPRK with the use of dishonest contents carried by the propaganda book authored by two British journalists," it said.
The book has been recently published as a Korean edition about two years after the English version of "North Korea Confidential" was published by Seoul-based Reuters correspondent James Pearson and former Economist correspondent Daniel Tudor.
The book is based on interviews with defectors and people who travel regularly to North Korea. It details daily life inside the country, where the role of money and foreign media has become increasingly important as it erodes state control.
The KCNA did not directly take aim at Pearson and Tudor, other than claiming the book "viciously slandered" North Korea's reality. The statement said the British journalists were "bums."
It also took issue with a photo of the book cover showing the dollar mark in the country's official seal which replaced the red star.
Saying its central court will sentence the Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo reporters and the papers' "director-generals" to capital punishment under the DPRK Criminal Code, it added, "The criminals hold no right to appeal and the execution will be carried out at any moment and at any place as soon as the objects are confirmed."
Later in the day, Seoul's unification ministry sternly responded, saying the North should immediately stop threatening South Korean citizens.
"We strongly denounce North Korea for making a senseless threat of extreme punishment while revealing the journalists' names and criticizing their normal activities as journalists," it said in a statement.
