Executions in North Korea Surge Due to Foreign Content

The Transnational Justice Working Group (TJWG) has investigated capital punishment practices in North Korea before and after the border closure in January 2020. The closure was ordered by the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, reportedly to protect the nation from the COVID-19 virus. As part of its research, the group interviewed 880 defectors from the regime.

They found that 153 people were sentenced to death in North Korea between January 2020 and mid-December 2024 for various charges. This figure represents an almost 250% increase compared to the same period before the January 2020 border closure.

However, the surge is even more pronounced in death sentences related to culture, religion—including possession of the Bible—and “superstition”. Their data shows that 38 people were sentenced to death for such violations in less than five years after January 2020, compared to seven people in the preceding period of the same duration.

“Before the border closure, murder was the offence most frequently punished by death,” the activists said. In recent years, “the focus has shifted to violations involving foreign culture and information, such as South Korean films, dramas, and music” as well as charges related to religion and superstition.

North Korean elites ‘addicted’ to foreign content

This change indicates that the Kim Jong Un regime is increasingly willing to use extreme measures, including lethal violence, to ensure loyalty to the state and suppress signs of discontent, experts say. Despite the harsher crackdowns, various foreign contents are said to be widely circulating in North Korea.

“It is too late for the North Korean regime to put the genie (foreign content) back in the bottle,” said Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Washington D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

“In North Korea, repression always intensifies,” he stated. “The number of people who truly believe in the regime continues to decline drastically. Instead of ideological indoctrination, violence has now become the regime’s primary choice.”

Scarlatoiu said the Transnational Justice Working Group (TJWG) data is “consistent” with his organisation’s findings.

“Boys and girls from North Korea’s urban elite are addicted to illegally imported South Korean pop culture and American action films,” he said. “They are willing to risk their lives to access that information.”

At one point, even Kim Jong Un appeared sympathetic to South Korean culture by attending a concert featuring South Korean stars in 2018. However, the era of K-pop diplomacy seems to have truly ended.

The Kim Jong Un regime is anxious about music videos and TV shows

In January 2022, for example, a woman in her 20s and her boyfriend were executed publicly in South Pyongan Province for watching and sharing South Korean films, dramas, and other television programmes, according to Seoul-based media outlet Daily NK.

The executed woman was the daughter of a senior official in North Korea’s State Security Ministry. However, that was not enough to save her life, Daily NK wrote, citing domestic sources. The rest of her family was sent to a political prison camp.

Around 300 local residents were ordered to attend the execution. About 20 people accused of borrowing or sharing the woman’s music and films were forced to sit in the front row during the punishment. They were subsequently arrested.

“It is horrifying, but I must say, it is not surprising,” said Song Young-Chae, a South Korean academic and activist from the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea. “This is how the regime maintains control over its people. If they feel they are losing control because more and more North Koreans are watching foreign films, then the only tool they have is greater violence.”

“The Kim Jong Un regime fears music videos and television shows because it knows they give its people a glimpse of the world beyond North Korea’s borders and expose the lie that they live in a ‘paradise’,” he said. “The last thing it wants is an outside perspective that sparks free thinking and the desire to seek freedom and happiness.”

Activists condemn ban on sending information to North Korea

Much foreign content enters North Korea thanks to activists who store the material on USB drives and send them across the border via balloons. Last year, the South Korean government passed a law banning this practice, and President Lee Jae-myung hopes to improve relations with Pyongyang.

Song Young-Chae described the ban as a “major mistake”.

“This is one of the main demands of the Pyongyang government, so it is clear that giving people there access to information worries the regime,” he said. “If we truly want to help the North Korean people, we must give them access to more information.”

Speaking to DW, Greg Scarlatoiu also called South Korea’s decision a “fatal mistake”.

“I was born and raised in communist Romania,” he said. “I understand the power of outside information. Up to 80% of Romanians did not believe the regime’s propaganda, and we received news from Deutsche Welle (DW), BBC, Voice of America (VoA), and Radio Free Europe. All these radio stations played an important role in the collapse of the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime in December 1989.”

“North Koreans must hear the story of prosperous, free, and democratic South Korea,” he said. “That can only happen through leaflets sent by balloons and other still very limited ways to deliver information to the country.”