Back to Barbarism: North Korea’s Public Executions Make a Comeback

North Korea Resumes Executions Post-Pandemic
North Korean School Field Trip Sites Turned into Execution Grounds
Human Rights in North Korea According to Various Reports

The U.S. government has announced that “North Korea showed a trend of reducing public executions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but as they began to ease border restrictions, the number of executions has been on the rise again.”

According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released on the 22nd (local time), the North Korean regime has shown no improvement in human rights conditions over the past year, continuing to carry out arbitrary and politically brutal and cruel executions.

The U.S. publishes an annual report detailing the human rights conditions in each country, and the evaluation of North Korea’s human rights situation in 2023 showed no significant improvement compared to the previous year.

In particular, the U.S. government cited an official saying, “The number of public executions, which had decreased as a priority for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, has increased again significantly, and defectors have shared the fact that they collectively witnessed public executions as part of field studies in schools.”

They added media reports that “last September, nine people were publicly executed on charges of unauthorized slaughter and sale of a cow owned by North Korean authorities, and subjected 25,000 people to watch the execution.”

The report also mentioned that the human rights of female prisoners in prisons are at an even more severe level, with frequent occurrences of sexual assault and sexual abuse against them.

Experts explained that North Korean correctional officers effectively have immunity from sexual assault against female prisoners.

Furthermore, the report revealed that more severe and unrepeatable sexual assault and abuse are being perpetrated against many defectors than against ordinary prisoners.

The report conveyed that for the three years of border closure of North Korea due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of defectors in detention centers in China, which borders North Korea, increased significantly. As of 2022, more than 2,000 defectors were detained in China, waiting to be repatriated to North Korea. Those who left in search of freedom but were caught face a more horrifying reality in prison.

The U.S. government also estimated that a substantial number of people, ranging from a minimum of 80,000 to a maximum of 200,000, are likely to be detained in North Korea’s nationwide political prisoner camps, which they refer to as Kwalliso.

The human rights report explained, “The North Korean government considers criticism of the regime as a serious political crime and imposes severe punishment.”

For example, it conveyed that acts such as sitting on a newspaper with pictures of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il, pointing at or defacing their portraits, and even saying that Kim Il Sung is a bit of a high school dropout are considered political crimes.

In addition to the U.S. government report, various studies on human rights in North Korea are being conducted. According to the statistics of the UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights, as of March 2022, more than 1,500 defectors were detained in Chinese detention centers near North Korea, and those who helped them were also arrested and prosecuted.

Furthermore, the UN Rapporteur shared the horrifying reality of North Korean female defectors who entered China. The trafficked North Korean women were forced to marry Chinese men without registration.

It was estimated that the number of children born between them in an unregistered state could reach up to 30,000.