Human rights report highlights crackdown on personal freedoms in most restrictive country in the world
North Korea has executed people for distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, according to a UN human rights report.
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, according to the 14-page document published on Friday, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had fled the country and reported the further erosion of freedoms.
James Heenan, head of the UN human rights office for North Korea, told a Geneva briefing that the number of executions for normal and political crimes had increased since Covid-19-era restrictions.
