Kim Jong-un’s ex-girlfriend has been executed by firing squad along with a dozen fellow North Korean musicians charged with violating laws against pornography, according to reports in a respected South Korean newspaper.
The Chosun Ilbo said performers from a well-known orchestra and light music ensemble were arrested on 17 August, accused of filming themselves having sex and then selling copies of the tapes.
While this breached North Korean anti-pornography laws, some of the musicians were also found to have Bibles in their possession and all were treated as political dissidents, according to the newspaper’s unnamed source.
They were executed in public by machine gun fire three days later, reportedly as the rest of the Unhasu Orchestra and Wangjaesan Light Music Band were forced to watch.
In accordance with the country’s rules on guilt by association, their families were then taken away to detention camps, according to the reports.
Among those killed was said to be singer Hyon Song-wol, who reached an international audience when she won a Hungarian competition in 2005 and released the hit single “A Girl In The Saddle Of A Steed” – often mistranslated as “Excellent Horse-Like Lady”.
