The North Korean government is increasingly imposing the death penalty, even for trapped people watching and sharing foreign films and television dramas, according to an important UN report.
According to the BBC, the report revealed that the dictatorship, which remains largely separate from the world, is also forcing more citizens to work while further restricts freedoms.
The UN Human Rights Office discovered that during the last decade, the State of North Korea had pressed control over “all aspects of citizens’ lives.” He concluded: “No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world,” added that surveillance had become “more generalized”, helped by advances in technology.
The UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned that if the situation continued, the North Koreans “will be subject to more suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have suffered for so long.”
Based on more than 300 interviews with people who escaped from North Korea in the last 10 years, the report revealed that the death penalty is being used more frequently.
Since 2015, at least six new laws have been introduced that allow capital punishment, even to observe and share content of foreign media.
The escapes told UN researchers that since 2020, more executions had been carried out to distribute foreign content, with farewell squads that carry out public murders to instill fear.
Kang Gyuri, who escaped in 2023, told the BBC that three of his friends were executed for having South Korea content.
He recalled to have attended the trial of a 23 -year -old friend who was sentenced to death. “He was tried together with drug criminals. These crimes are treated the same now,” he said.
When Kim Jong one came to power in 2011, many North Koreans expected life to improve. But the report says that living conditions and human rights had “degraded” after Kim left diplomacy with the West in 2019 and focused on expanding its nuclear weapons program.
Almost all escaped said they lacked food, with three meals a day described as a “luxury.” During the Covid pandemic, many reported shortage and severe deaths.
At the same time, the government took energetic measures against informal markets and tightened border controls, ordering the troops to shoot those who tried to flee.
“In Kim Jong Un, we had some hope, but that hope did not last long,” said a woman, who escaped in 2018 at age 17.
“The government gradually blocked people to make a living independently, and the same act of life became a daily torment.”
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The UN report said the government had exercised “almost total control over people, leaving them unable to make their own decisions” in the last 10 years. He also highlighted the growing use of forced labor, with people from poor families recruited in “shock brigades” for dangerous tasks such as mining and construction. Orphans and street children have also been pressed in this work, according to the findings.
The last report follows an investment from the UN 2014 that found that North Korea was committing crimes against humanity. He confirmed that at least four fields of political prisoners remain in operation, while torture, abuse and malnutrition deaths persist in prisons. Some escaped reported “a slight decrease in violence by the guards”, although the general conditions remain serious.
The UN has requested that the situation be sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but this would require the approval of the UN Security Council, where China and Russia have blocked past sanctions efforts.
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