North Korea censors Alan Titchmarsh's trousers
By Alistair Coleman
North Korea’s state television channel has censored a BBC gardening programme – by blurring out presenter Alan Titchmarsh’s trousers.
Central TV aired a 2010 edition of Alan Titchmarsh’s Garden Secrets for its morning audience, but made sure that viewers could not see his jeans.
Jeans are seen as a symbol of western imperialism in the secretive state and as such are banned.
North Korea’s rules prohibiting jeans have been in place since the 1990s.
Back then, leader Kim Jong-il declared denim trousers to be a symbol of Western – and specifically American – imperialism, which had no place in a socialist state, according to Seoul-based NK News.
In recent years, a crackdown on Western culture has reiterated this ban, with state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun telling citizens in 2020 to reject what it termed “bourgeois culture” in favour of a “superior socialist lifestyle”.
Current leader Kim Jong-un, himself a fan of voluminous legwear, is reportedly irked by skinny jeans and T-shirts bearing Western logos which are popular in South Korea.
