N.Korea Cracks Down on Karaoke Bars & Internet Cafes

Via Middle East Times -

SEOUL -- North Korea has ordered the shutdown of karaoke bars and Internet cafes as part of a battle to stem a flood of South Korean pop culture, activists and media reports said Wednesday.

A directive issued by the ministry of people's security July 3 called for the closure of all unauthorized karaoke bars, video-screening rooms, Internet cafes, and online game rooms, South Korean aid agency Good Friends said.

The directive was plastered on the wall of a government building in a northwestern border town, the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper said, without saying how it acquired its copy.

The move is part of a campaign to curb South Korean pop culture, which has been spreading fast in the hardline communist country, the paper said.

"The directive called for heavy punishment against those who spread an anti-socialist ideology regardless of their social status," Good Friends said.

Defectors say that South Korean pop songs and movies are popular in the isolated country, despite a steady campaign to weed out what state media has termed "decadent foreign culture and ideals."

Videotapes and CDs of South Korean films, music, or TV soap operas enter mainly via neighboring northeast China.

Good Friends said that the North carried out door-to-door searches last month, especially along the border with China, to seize South Korean VCDs, along with mobile phone and CDs.