North Korea's Rising Executions: A UN Report Highlights Increased Penalties for Foreign Media Consumption

Tue Sep 23 2025 10:49:09 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

A new UN report reveals North Korea's alarming trend towards executing citizens for consuming foreign films and television, while imposing stricter control over its populace.

The UN Human Rights Office has reported an increase in executions in North Korea, particularly for individuals watching or sharing foreign media, including films and TV shows. The report, based on interviews with over 300 escapees, indicates a heightened atmosphere of fear and repression, with more stringent surveillance and the introduction of laws allowing for the death penalty for such activities. As the regime continues to restrict freedoms, experts urge international intervention to address these human rights violations.

The North Korean government is increasingly implementing the death penalty, including for people caught watching and sharing foreign films and TV dramas, a major UN report has found.

The dictatorship, which remains largely cut off from the world, is also subjecting its people to more forced labour while further restricting their freedoms, the report added.

The UN Human Rights Office found that over the past decade the North Korean state had tightened control over 'all aspects of citizens' lives'.

'No other population is under such restrictions in today's world,' it concluded, adding that surveillance had become 'more pervasive', helped in part by advances in technology.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, noted that if this situation continues, North Koreans will 'be subjected to more of the suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have endured for so long'.

The report, based on over 300 interviews with escapees from North Korea over the past decade, indicates that the death penalty is being applied more frequently. At least six new laws have been enacted since 2015, allowing for the execution of crimes like watching foreign media content.

According to escapees, executions for distributing foreign content have increased since 2020, typically carried out by firing squads in public to instill fear and discourage law-breaking.

Current reports indicate that citizens face dire living conditions and oppressive governance. Findings show that under Kim Jong Un's rule, the expectations for better living conditions have not only failed to materialize but have instead seen a regression into harsher realities.

The report concludes with a call for the international community to act, urging for an end to the use of the death penalty and political prison camps in North Korea.