UPDATE 18TH MAY 2014: Hyon Song-wol, after a year or so has been spotted being interviewed on the telly box in North Korea. It turns out she’s not dead at all! North Korean news agencies have always dismissed the rumours and blamed them on “psychopaths” in the South Korean government.
Everyone’s least favourite Draconian fatty has hit the news again this month. He’s doing what he does best: acting like a power crazed psycho.
Around 10 years ago Hyon Song-wol, singer with the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble, started a relationship with Kim Jong-un, but his father Kim Jong-il of Team America fame forced him to end it. He married someone else but is rumoured to have continued his fling with Hyon over the years.
The Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble, Unhasu Orchestra and the Wanghaesan Light Music disbanded after being accused of making sexy films. Then last month, Hyon and the 11 others were arrested for alleged pornography offences and machine gunned to death in front of their friends, family and band mates. The onlookers were then shipped off to prison camps, because of North Korea’s guilt by association rules.
Hyon’s band were well known for creating awesome, patriotic songs, with her biggest hit coming in the form of a solo track in 2005 called “Excellent Horse-Like Lady.” Here’s the video for that little ripper:
So why were they really killed? Well, we’ll never know, it could really, simply be that Kim Jong-un is mental. Or, his current wife Ri Sol-ju who had been in the same band as Hyon Song-wol may have kicked up a stink about their continued relationship and manufactured the situation. A third, but not final option, may have involved the fact that some of them were found carrying bibles, which has historically been an unpopular move in the communist state.
Although Kim Jong-un’s policy on religion hasn’t been clearly defined to the outside world, his grandfather was a lot clearer on the matter. When Kim Il Sung took the throne, he obliterated all forms of religion as best he could. Christianity was hit hard as it was perceived as the American religion and was popular in the more wealthy classes.
Some of Kim Jong-un’s actions truly are that of a mad man. The vice minister of his army was executed in October 2012 for allegedly carousing and drinking during his father’s official period of mourning. Kim Jong-un ordered that there be “no trace of him behind, down to his hair”. He wasn’t executed in a bog standard fashion, no: he was blown up by mortar fire. Literally exploded into tiny pieces.
North Korea is scary.
