Here’s a story that will make you sit up straight: North Korea reportedly executed its vice premier for education, Kim Yong-Jin, by firing squad after he slumped over in a meeting with Kim Jong-Un.
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The official said before the execution, Yong-Jin first faced an investigation because of the way he was seated during a June meeting attended by the Leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea expects absolute obedience to its ruling Kim family, who are described as quasi-deities in state propaganda.
According to the reports that said by the officials to media, “Kim Yong-Jin was criticized for his bad sitting posture on the platform during an assembly of parliament of North Korea and then went through a questioning session that exposed others”.
South Korean President Park Geun Hye said on Monday the defections signal a “serious fracture” within the North Korean regime and raise the prospects of fresh provocations as Kim seeks to maintain control.
Two other senior officials reportedly were punished.
Nonetheless, North Korea’s leader is widely seen as more authoritarian than his predecessors.
The report came after Kim Jong-un’s administration reportedly executed a vice premier and banished two other top officials to rural areas for dreaded “re-education”.
Kim Yong Chol and Choe Hwi escaped execution; however, they both received “revolutionary punishments” and were sent to the country for re-education training through hard labor.
NORTH Korea has executed its education chief because he “slouched in a meeting”.
Education minister Kim Yong-Jin, 63, was shot by a firing squad after his “bad sitting posture” in parliament incurred the wrath of the 32-year-old tyrant.
The most notorious was Kim’s own uncle and former second-in-command Jang Song-thaek, who was executed for charges including treason and corruption in December 2013.
If confirmed, they would be the latest in a series of killings and dismissals carried out since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took power in late 2011.
Kim Yong Chol was sent to a re-education farm for a month until mid-August, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. The South Korean government is concerned that Kim Yong Chol, who was given the job of overseeing Pyongyang’s policy toward the South earlier this year, may feel the need to show his loyalty by taking a hard-line approach toward Seoul.
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JoongAng Daily’s report has yet to be independently verified, and North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency has remained silent on the subject.
