Death For Screens: North Korea Executing Citizens For Watching Foreign Films And TV

Last Updated:September 12, 2025, 18:26 IST

North Korea faces rising death penalty use for watching foreign media, says UN report.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea is increasingly using the death penalty- including against citizens caught watching or sharing foreign films and TV dramas- as part of a widening campaign of repression, according to a major United Nations report. The UN Human Rights Office said that over the past decade, Pyongyang has tightened control over “all aspects of citizens’ lives,” ramped up forced labour and further restricted freedoms, leaving its people under conditions unmatched anywhere in the world.

“No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world,” the report concluded, warning that surveillance has become “more pervasive,” aided by new technology.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk cautioned that without intervention, North Koreans “will be subjected to more of the suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have endured for so long.”

Death Penalty For Watching Foreign Media

The 2025 report, based on more than 300 interviews with North Koreans who fled the country in the past 10 years, found that executions have become more common since 2015. At least six laws enacted since then expanded capital punishment, including one allowing the death penalty for consuming or distributing foreign media content.

Escapees recounted public executions by firing squad, staged to instil fear. Kang Gyuri, who fled in 2023, told the BBC that three of her friends were executed for possessing South Korean dramas. She said one 23-year-old acquaintance was sentenced to death in a trial where he was grouped with drug offenders.

“These crimes are treated the same now,” she said, adding that since 2020, fear has only deepened.

Forced Labour And Prison Camps

The UN report also highlighted the expansion of forced labour. Poor families are recruited into “shock brigades” for hazardous construction or mining work, where deaths are frequent but officially glorified as sacrifices to Kim Jong Un. In recent years, even orphans and street children have been mobilised.

At least four political prison camps remain in operation, where detainees face torture, starvation, and death from overwork. Conditions in regular prisons have shown only “limited improvements,” the report noted, such as a slight decrease in guard violence.

UN Calls For International Action

The UN urged the international community to refer North Korea’s human rights situation to the International Criminal Court. But such a move would require UN Security Council approval – unlikely given China and Russia’s consistent vetoes of new sanctions since 2019.

Volker Turk said the UN’s findings reflect a “clear and strong desire for change, particularly among North Korea’s young people.” He called on Pyongyang to end the death penalty, abolish political prison camps and begin teaching human rights.

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