North Korea carries out more people to watch foreign films and television, finds the United Nations

A major report by the United Nations found that the North Korean government is increasingly carried out the death penalty, including people who flared up and sharing foreign films and TV drama.

The report added that the dictatorship, which is still largely inverted from the world, has exposed its people to more forced work with an increase in restriction of their freedoms.

The United Nations Human Rights Office has found that over the past decade, the North Korean state has tightened control of “all aspects of the lives of citizens.”

He concluded that “there are no other population under these restrictions in today’s world,” adding that monitoring has become “more prevalent”, partially helped by progressing in technology.

Volcker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that if this situation continues, the North Koreans “will be subjected to more suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have long endured.”

The report, which depends on more than 300 interviews with people who have escaped from North Korea in the past ten years, has found that the death penalty is often used.

At least six new laws have been introduced since 2015 that allow the punishment to be distributed. One of the crime that can now be punished by death is to watch and exchange the content of foreign media such as movies and TV drama, as Kim Jong Un successfully reduce the arrival of people.

The fugitives told the United Nations researchers that since 2020, there have been more executions to distribute foreign content. They described how these executions are carried out by launching teams in public places to instill fear in people and prove them from breaking the law.

Kang Giri, who fled in 2023, told BBC that three of her friends were executed after their arrest with South Korea’s content. She was in the trial of a 23 -year -old friend and sentenced to death.

“He has been tried with drug criminals. These crimes are treated the same now,” she said, adding that since 2020 people have become more fearful.

Such experiences are inconsistent with the past decade of the North Korean people.

When the current leader Kim Jong Un reached power in 2011, the fugitives who were interviewed said they hoped their lives would improve, as Kim promised that they would not need to “tighten their belts” – which means that they will have enough to eat. He promised to develop the economy, while also protecting the country by developing its nuclear weapons.

But the report found that since Kim avoided diplomacy with the West and the United States in 2019, instead, he focused on the arms program, living situations of people and human rights “deteriorated”.

Everyone who was almost interviewed said they did not have enough to eat, and eating three meals daily was “luxury”. During the roaming epidemic, many fugitives said that there was a severe food shortage, and people died all over the country due to hunger.

At the same time, the government has taken the division of unofficial markets as families exchange, making it difficult for them to gain live. It also made almost impossible to escape the country, by tightening controls along the border with China and ordering the forces to shoot at those trying to cross them.

A young woman in 2018 at the age of 17 said: “In the early days of Kim Jong Un, we had some hope, but this hope did not last long.”

“The government gradually prevented people from gaining living independently, and the act of living has become a daily torment,” she said.

The United Nations report said that “over the past ten years, the government has practiced near full control of people, which leaves them unable to make their own decisions,” whether they are economists, social or politicians. The report added that the improvements in monitoring technology helped to make this possible.

One of them told the researchers that these government loads were intended “to prevent people’s eyes and ears.”

They said: “It is a form of control aimed at eliminating the smallest signs of dissatisfaction or complaint.”

The report also found that the government uses forced work more than it was a decade ago. People from poor families are recruited in “shock brigades” to physically difficult tasks, such as construction or mining projects.

Workers hope to improve their social status, but the work is dangerous, and deaths are common. Instead of improving the safety of workers, the government glorifies deaths, describing it as a sacrifice for Kim Jong Un. In recent years, it has recruited thousands of orphans and street children, as the report claims.

This recent research follows a pioneering report on the United Nations Investigation Committee in 2014, which, for the first time, was found that the North Korean government is committing crimes against humanity. Some of the most severe human rights violations have been discovered in political prison prison camps in the country, where people can be locked up and “disappeared”.

This report 2025 finds that four of these camps are still operating, while holders of regular prisons are still being tortured and offended.

Many fugitives said they saw prisoners who die of abuse, exhaustion and malnutrition, although the United Nations heard about “some limited improvements” in facilities, including “a slight decrease in violence by the guards.”

The United Nations calls for the transfer of the situation to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

However, in order for this to happen, it must be referred by the United Nations Security Council. Since 2019, two of its permanent members, China and Russia have prevented attempts to impose new sanctions on North Korea.

Last week, Kim Jong Un joined Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a military procession in Beijing, indicating the acceptance of these implicit countries of the North Korean nuclear weapons program and the treatment of its citizens.

In addition to urging the international community to act, the United Nations asks the North Korean government to abolish political prison camps, end the use of the death penalty and teach its citizens on human rights.

“Our reports show a clear and strong desire to change, especially among the youth of (North Korea),” said the United Nations Human Rights President, Mr. Tuk.