KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 — A dance instructor in North Korea and several of her students have been arrested recently after they were caught learning foreign dance moves.

The instructor, in her 30s, was caught by the hermit kingdom’s Anti-Socialism Inspection Group, while teaching teenagers disco dances at Yangji-dong in Pyongsong City, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.

North Korea had in 2020 passed the draconian Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, which punishes citizens for a wide variety of offenses, mostly related to watching, keeping or distributing media from capitalist countries, particularly from South Korea and the US. 

The law carries the death penalty for serious offenders.

The law has been used to punish drivers for tinting their car windows, students for using South Korean-style speech and slang, and now, dance instructors, for teaching youth to emulate the moves of foreign pop stars.

Quoting a local source, RFA reported that the Anti-Socialism Inspection Group had been intensively cracking down on people who watched South Korean movies and distributed foreign media.

The source added that residents dared to enjoy South Korean movies or listen to foreign songs thinking authorities would be more lenient in enforcing the rules during the Lunar New Year holiday.

This year, however, the Anti-Socialism Inspection group was more vigilant in enforcing the thought and culture law.

"At the scene of the crackdown, a thumb drive containing foreign songs and dance videos had been plugged in next to the flat screen TV,” the source said.

"Teenagers were learning how to dance by imitating the choreography on screen. 

"The Anti-Socialism Inspection Group seized the thumb drive and took the instructor and all of the students to their headquarters.”

Another source said the instructor had majored in choreography at the Pyongsong University of the Arts. and was assigned to the Okchon high school in Pyongsong to teach.

"But it was difficult to live on her monthly teacher’s salary of only 3,000 won (RM10.48), so she decided to operate a private dance academy out of her home,” the source said, adding that students attend her lessons twice per week.

"They preferred to learn to dance like they do in South Korea, China and America, rather than in the North Korean style. So, she taught them how,” the source added.