North Korea executing citizens for watching foreign films, TV – UN report

North Korea leader, Kim

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

Surveillance, according to Reuters, “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.

The Reuters report on Friday quoted Head of the U.N. Human Rights Office for North Korea, James Heenan, as telling 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. Punch