North Korea executes people for sharing foreign films and TV, UN report says

By Emma Farge

North Korea has executed people for distributing foreign media, including television shows like popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a U.N. human rights report said on Friday.

Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher -- including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said.

The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page U.N. report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had fled the country and reported the further erosion of freedoms.

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James Heenan, head of the U.N. human rights office for North Korea, told a Geneva briefing that the number of executions for both normal and political crimes had increased since COVID-19 era restrictions.

An unspecified number of people have already been executed under the new laws for distributing foreign TV series, including the popular K-Dramas from its southern neighbour, he added.

"Under laws, policies and practices introduced since 2015, citizens have been subjected to increased surveillance and control in all parts of life," the report's conclusion said.

The sweeping U.N. review comes more than a decade after a landmark U.N. report found that North Korea had committed crimes against humanity. The new report covered developments since 2014.

North Korea's Geneva diplomatic mission and its London embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The DPRK said in response to U.N. rights investigators that it rejected a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution authorising the latest report.

Sometimes children are made to work in forced labour, including so-called "shock brigades" for tough sectors such as coal mining and construction, Heenan said from Seoul.

"They're often children from the lower level of society, because they're the ones who can't bribe their way out of it, and these shock brigades are engaged in often very hazardous and dangerous work," said Heenan.

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The report also found some limited improvements, such as reduced use of violence by guards in detention facilities, and new laws that appear to strengthen fair trial guarantees.