The North Korean government is increasingly implementing the death penalty, including for people caught watching and sharing foreign films and TV dramas, a major UN report has found.
The dictatorship, which remains largely cut off from the world, is also subjecting its people to more forced labour while further restricting their freedoms, the report added.
The UN Human Rights Office found that over the past decade the North Korean state had tightened control over 'all aspects of citizens' lives'.
'No other population is under such restrictions in today's world,' it concluded, adding that surveillance had become 'more pervasive', helped in part by advances in technology.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated that if this situation continued, North Koreans 'will be subjected to more of the suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have endured for so long'.
The report, which is based on more than 300 interviews with people who escaped from North Korea in the past 10 years, found that the death penalty is being used more often. At least six new laws have been introduced since 2015 that allow for the penalty to be handed out. Watching and sharing foreign media content, such as films and TV dramas, can now lead to execution under these laws.
Escapees reported that since 2020, there has been an increase in executions for distributing foreign content, often carried out by firing squads in public to instill fear.
Kang Gyuri, who escaped in 2023, recounted witnessing the execution of a 23-year-old friend tried alongside drug criminals—a stark illustration of the regime's harsh penalties. 'People had become more afraid,' she noted.
Life under Kim Jong Un's rule has become increasingly dire. Many escapees noted they had little hope for improvement despite initial expectations that conditions would get better when he took power in 2011.
The UN report also highlighted that the government is relying more on forced labour, often deploying impoverished citizens to dangerous tasks like construction and mining. Recent years have seen them recruit orphans and street children to fill these roles.
In conclusion, the UN is calling for the international community to pressure North Korea to end these repressive practices. It urges action to abolish political prison camps, end the death penalty, and promote human rights education among citizens.
