NKorea slams Obama’s ‘monkeying’ around
Print Edition
NORTH Korea yesterday blasted United States President Barack Obama as a “monkey” for inciting cinemas to screen a comedy featuring a fictional plot to kill its leader, and threatened “inescapable deadly blows” over the movie.
The powerful National Defense Commission also accused the US of “disturbing the Internet operation” of North Korean media outlets.
North Korea suffered Internet blackouts this week, triggering speculation that US authorities might have launched a cyber attack in retaliation for the hacking of Sony Pictures — the studio behind madcap North Korea comedy “The Interview” — which Washington said was carried out by Pyongyang.
The NDC accused Obama of taking the lead in encouraging theaters to screen “The Interview” on Christmas Day. Sony had initially canceled its release after major US theater chains said they wouldn’t show it, following threats to movie-goers by hackers.
“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” a spokesman for the NDC’s policy department said in a statement published by the KCNA news agency.
“If the US persists in American-style arrogant, high-handed and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite (North Korea’s) repeated warnings, the US should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows,” the NDC spokesman said.
He accused Washington of linking the hacking of Sony to North Korea “without clear evidence” and repeated Pyongyang’s condemnation of the film, describing it as “a movie for agitating terrorism produced with high-ranking politicians of the US administration involved.”
The movie, which has been panned by critics, has become an unlikely symbol of free speech thanks to the hacker threats that nearly scuppered its release.
It took in 1 million dollars in its limited-release opening day, showing in about 300, mostly small independent theaters. It was also released online for rental or purchase.
A file sharing website reported the film had been illegally downloaded more than 750,000 times.
Online services for Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles, which decided to release the film online, went down on Thursday, allegedly attacked by hackers.
The NDC spokesman called again for a joint investigation, which has already been rejected by the US, into the Sony hack “in camera,” while accusing the US of “beating air after being hit hard by others.”
“In actuality, the US, a big country, started disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the DPRK (North Korea), not knowing shame like children playing a tag,” he said.
From Monday night, websites of North Korea’s major state media went dead for hours. The cause of the outages has not been confirmed.
The US has refused to say whether it was involved in the shutdown.
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