Hyon Song-wol

Hyon Song-wol
Nationality	North Korean
Other names	현송월 玄松月 Hyŏn Song-wŏl
Occupation	singer
Known for	suspected political execution

Hyon Song-wol (현송월 玄松月 Hyŏn Song-wŏl; allegedly died August 20, 2013) was a North Korean pop singer who was formerly the vocalist for the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble, a pop group which became well known in North Korea in the early 2000s. Her better-known songs include the numbers "Footsteps of Soldiers", "I Love Pyongyang", "She is a Discharged Soldier" and "We are Troops of the Party".

Life and career

Her biggest hit was the song "Excellent Horse-Like Lady" a 2005 song extolling the virtues of a Stakhanovite textile factory worker. The accompanying music video stars Hyon in the role of the Girl In The Saddle Of A Steed, "dashing around a sparkling factory with a beatific smile, distributing bobbins and collecting swatches of cloth at top speed." The lyrics include:

Our factory comrades say in jest,

Why, they tell me I am a virgin on a stallion,

After a full day's work I still have energy left...

They say I am a virgin on a stallion,

Mounting a stallion my Dear Leader gave me.

All my life I will live to uphold his name!

Hyon disappeared from public view in 2006 when, according to reports in the Japanese media, she married a North Korean army officer with whom she had a child. She was reported to have known Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, since they were both teenagers. South Korean government sources told the media that Hyon and Kim Jong-un had been romantically involved in the early 2000s after he returned to North Korea from his studies at a private school in Switzerland. His father reportedly disapproved of the relationship and the younger Kim and Hyon broke it off.

Following Kim Jong-il's death in December 2011, Kim Jong-un was thought to have resumed the relationship. According to South Korean intelligence sources, "rumors about the two having an affair have been circulating among Pyongyang’s top elite."

In March 2012, Hyon made her first public appearance in six years when she performed, while heavily pregnant, in an event in Pyongyang to mark International Women’s Day. Fresh interest in Hyon was kindled in July 2012 when she was misidentified in footage taken by the North Korean state television station showing a dark-haired woman sitting next to Kim Jong-un at a musical performance. It was thought at first that she might have been a previously undisclosed wife of Kim or his younger sister, but South Korean intelligence officials identified her as Hyon. Some suggested that she may have been given the job of running the state art troupe. However, North Korean television announced that the woman was in fact Kim Jong-un's wife, Ri Sol-ju, and not Hyon.

Execution

On August 29, 2013, The Chosun Ilbo reported that Hyon had been executed by firing squad on the orders of Kim Jong-un along with eleven other performers who had allegedly made illegal pornographic videos. According to a source quoted by the newspaper, "They were executed with machine guns while the key members of the Unhasu Orchestra, Wangjaesan Light Music Band and Moranbong Band as well as the families of the victims looked on." The families were subsequently sent to prison camps.

The reported reasons for the executions have been questioned by Professor Toshimitsu Shigemura of Tokyo's Waseda University, an authority on North Korean affairs, who comments, "if these people had only made pornographic videos, then it is simply not believable that their punishment was execution." He suggests that they were killed for political reasons, perhaps related to factional conflicts in the North Korean elite, or simply as a result of a grudge: "as Kim's wife (Ri Sol-ju) once belonged to the same group, it is possible that these executions are more about Kim's wife."

See also

• Music of North Korea