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| North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks as his wife Ri Sol-ju looks on during a ceremony to mark the completion of houses built for professors in Pyongyang, Wednesday. Ri made her first public appearance since Sept. 15. Yonhap |
By Kang Seung-woo
If Ri Sol-ju were not North Korea's first lady, one report would not have attracted as much attention as it has.
In a normal country, rumor-level reports would be dismissed or confirmed. But it took three weeks to put an end to speculation that she was involved in a pornography scheme.
The answer to weeks of such reports came in the form of one photo in which she appeared together with her husband North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
What was intriguing was the background against which she disappeared from public view as well as the angry reaction by the North Korean media to reports insinuating its first lady was a porn star. To trump them all, nobody can know for sure the truth about the original report and what the latest photo of the couple laughing together says about it.
The head of the South's spy agency recently confirmed that a porn CD making ring was caught and executed in the North but failed to say it was connected to Ri.
Defectors and North Korea watchers predict that Ri's involvement may never be confirmed for sure.
Amid growing rumors over porn videos involving Ri, she made her first public appearance Wednesday after a nearly one-month absence in what seemed to be an apparent attempt to squash the speculation, Pyongyang watchers said Thursday.
The state-run Korean Central Television (KCTV) showed Ri attending a ceremony marking the completion of houses for professors in Pyongyang, along with Kim.
Her public appearance is the first since she was last seen on Sept. 15 on a visit to a stadium to watch an Asian judo competition.
While she was out of the public eye, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported last month that some members of the North's Unhasu Orchestra and an art troupe were executed for making pornography and that the execution was designed to cover up Ri's involvement. Before marrying Kim in 2012, she was a singer with the orchestra.
Nam Jae-joon, chief of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), told lawmakers on Tuesday that those who know the truth were killed in order to put a lid on any embarrassing incident that could undermine Kim's leadership, hinting Ri's absence may have been to do with the scandal.
However, Nam added that while he knew people were executed, he could not verify if they were connected in any way to Ri.
"Ri's reappearance was already expected because if she didn't show up until the Party Foundation Day (on Oct. 10), the scandalous speculation could travel far and wide both inside and outside North Korea," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute.
"The appearance is seen as the North trying to quell speculation over its first lady."
While it is impossible to confirm or deny the speculation, which emerged out of the alleged execution of the members of the orchestra, a North Korean defector said that pornography involving its members was not out of the question.
"When I was in North Korea, the Unhasu Orchestra was not widely known to people," said the defector, who arrived in South Korea in 2008.
"At that time, they were secretly regarded as Kim Jong-il's (so-called) Pleasure Brigade."
The brigade is a troupe of attractive young women whose function was to help Kim and his officials "relax."
In addition, the spread of porn videos was viral in the North in the early to mid-2000s, the defector said.
"Until 2007, there were no barbed wire fences on the border in Hoeryong, North Hamgyeong Province, so there were many smugglers and North Korean people had easy access to such videos," she said.
However, there were negative comments as to whether the scandal involved Ri.
"As the NIS chief said, there seems to be little chance to confirm Ri's involvement," Cheong said.
He added that Hyon Song-wol, Kim Jong-un's ex-girlfriend, was shot to death for taking part in the alleged pornography according to media outlets, and this was confirmed.
The government is cautious about confirming whether something happened to Ri just because she stayed out of the public eye on a few occasions.
