USE of the death penalty has increased dramatically in North Korea since the country closed its borders during the pandemic: at least 144 executions of at least 358 people were carried out, including that of a pregnant woman, an NGO reports.
A report by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a human-rights NGO based in South Korea, has mapped 13 years of executions since the accession to power of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The study draws on interviews with hundreds of defectors, satellite images, and media sources, and documents a 117- per-cent rise in executions since 2020, when the country closed its borders because of the pandemic. The country’s borders remain closed, except for some limited access for Russian nationals.
The report finds that there has been a shift away from executions for violent crimes, such as murder, and towards offences tied to ideology. These include the practice of religion and the consumption of foreign media. New laws introduced since 2020, such as the Reactionary Thought and Culture Protection Law, have increased punishments for viewing and sharing foreign culture, especially from South Korea, including K-pop music and dramas. Watching Korean films or TV, or listening to music, can now result in the death penalty and execution — a fact also documented by Amnesty International earlier this year.
The TJWG report says: “Offences related to foreign culture, religion and ‘superstition’ experienced the largest growth. These categories showed a 250 per cent increase in executions and a 442.9 per cent increase in death sentences compared to the pre-Covid period.”
Of the 144 executions, at least 29 were for religious and “superstitious acts”, the report says. There was also a sharp rise in the number of political prisoners condemned, from four to 28, since 2020.
At least 70 per cent of executions were also carried out in public, and families and associates of the condemned were forced to watch, alongside other members of the public. Most were carried out by shooting, but there were some hangings, and two deaths by blunt instruments: a hammer and an iron mace.
Researchers have been able to document 46 execution locations, with exact co-ordinates for 40 of these.
The report draws on the testimony of 265 North Korean defectors, as well as information from five North Korean-focused media outlets with sources inside the country. The testimony included witness descriptions of the execution of a pregnant woman, and of minors, although North Korea insists that such executions are banned.
The head legal analyst at TJWG, Dr Ethan Hee-seok Shin, told the human-rights advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide: “Until the 1940s, Pyongyang was called ‘the Jerusalem of the East’ because of its teeming religious activities, before three generations of genocidal persecution by the Kim dynasty.
“Eight decades later, these communities have been nearly eradicated. Since the pandemic, executions for religious and ‘superstitious’ acts, along with distribution and consumption of foreign culture and information, have been on the rise to reinstate totalitarian control, in a worrying development. North Korea, however, responds to external pressure, which presents a useful leverage, and the international community should consider more robust accountability options.”
The UN Security Council has warned of the growing militarisation of the Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK) under Kim Jong-un. The DPRK launched a five-year militarisation plan in February, in defiance of Security Council resolutions.
The UN under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, told the Security Council last week that the DPRK’s plan was a challenge to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The DPRK has continued to conduct ballistic-missile launches, including short-range projectiles, multiple-rocket-launch systems, long-range strategic cruise missiles, and anti-ship missiles.
She urged North Korea “to fully comply with its international obligations”, and re-emphasised the secretary-general’s calls on the international community to “abide by the relevant Security Council sanctions in their relations with the DPRK”.