UN: North Korea rights worsen with executions and surveillance

A United Nations review released Friday says human rights in North Korea have worsened over the past decade, with the isolated state expanding mass surveillance, tightening legal controls and increasingly resorting to public executions, including for the distribution of foreign films and television dramas. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the findings are based on interviews with 314 people who fled the country and consultations with experts, and that the trend has intensified since 2014 across the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

The 14-page report says Pyongyang has enacted at least six laws since 2015 that widen the scope of offenses punishable by death and that enforcement has grown harsher since about 2018 and again after 2020. James Heenan, head of the UN human rights office for North Korea, told reporters that executions have increased since the Covid-19 era and that an unspecified number of people have been executed under the new statutes for distributing foreign media, including popular South Korean dramas. Escapees interviewed by UN researchers described public firing squad executions staged to instill fear and deter others from...