N. Korea threatens S. Korean media over Ri Sol Ju sex tape report
As Kim Jong Un’s reign approaches its second anniversary, it’s becoming more difficult to draw the line between truth and parody. Radio Australia offers some tantalizing details about that dubious-sounding, thinly sourced report that a North Korea executed a group of entertainers for making sex tapes:
Asahi said the rare execution of state performers, including a singer rumoured to be Kim’s ex-girlfriend, had been ordered to squash rumours of Ri’s decadent lifestyle while she was an entertainer.
It said police had secretly recorded conversations between the entertainers, who said “Ri Sol-Ju used to play around in the same manner as we did”. The source for the Asahi report was a “high-ranking North Korean government official who recently defected”.
[….]
The North’s state news agency KCNA said the reports were the work of “psychopaths” and “confrontation maniacs” in the South Korean government and media.
“This is an unpardonable, hideous provocation hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership,” KCNA said in a commentary. “Those who commit such a hideous crime…will have to pay a very high price,” it warned.
North Korea was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008. Discuss among yourselves.
But the good news is that South Korea is politely telling the North to shut it:
“Recent attacks by the North on South Korean news reports, though not new, is not a desirable development and must be stopped if inter-Korean relations are to move forward,” said South Korea’s unification ministry spokesman, Kim Eyi-do. [Yonhap]
The only way Kim Jong Un’s reign could become even more of a tragic self-parody would be if a Ri Sol Ju sex tape found its way to the internet. (Just imagine the North’s reaction to that!) Highly respected scholars and intelligence analysts from Farragut West to Chong-ro would lock themselves in their offices and emerge 30 minutes later, after clearing their browser histories.
Someone needs to track down that tape to prove or disprove this story once and for all. You know, for peace or something.