Geneva — North Korea has intensified its crackdown on personal freedoms over the past decade, carrying out executions for activities such as distributing or watching foreign television shows, according to a new United Nations report released Friday.
The review by the UN Human Rights Office, based on interviews with more than 300 escapees, paints a picture of deepening repression under Kim Jong Un’s rule. Witnesses described tighter controls on information and technology-enabled mass surveillance aimed at stamping out dissent.
“No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world,” the report stated, citing testimony of public executions, fear-driven obedience, and the use of new laws to punish citizens for cultural exposure.
James Heenan, who heads the UN office focused on North Korea, told reporters in Geneva that executions had risen in recent years, with some carried out under laws imposing the death penalty for distributing foreign content, including South Korean K-dramas.
The report also highlighted forced labour, including the use of children from poor families in hazardous “shock brigades” for coal mining and construction. Last year, the UN warned that such practices could amount to slavery and crimes against humanity.
The findings follow up on a landmark 2014 UN investigation that documented systematic abuses including torture, rape, deliberate starvation, and the detention of up to 120,000 people in prison camps. The new report warns that since then, Pyongyang has created new legal frameworks to entrench repression further.
UN rights chief Volker Türk said the trajectory remains alarming:
“If the DPRK continues on its current trajectory, the population will be subjected to more suffering, brutal repression and fear.”
North Korea’s diplomatic missions in Geneva and London have yet to respond to the report.
