North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un

NORTH KOREAN EXECUTIONS AND TORTURE ALLEGED IN NEW REPORT

April 2, 2023:

North Korea executes people for sharing South Korean media, religious activities and drugs as the country stifles its citizens’ human rights and freedom, according to a report published on 30 March 2023 by South Korea.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, based the 450-page report on testimony collected from 2017 to 2022 from more than 500 North Koreans who fled their homeland.
“North Korean citizens’ right to life appears to be greatly threatened,” the ministry said in the report.
“Executions are widely carried out for acts that do not justify the death penalty, including drug crimes, distribution of South Korean videos, and religious and superstitious activities.”
North Korea has been accused of committing horrific human rights violations, including the state execution of a six-month pregnant woman who was filmed pointing at the portrait of Kim Il-sung, the founder of the pariah state, while dancing in her home. In the extensive South Korean report, publicised for the first time, Kim Jong-un was criticised for overseeing the execution of homosexuals, religious persons and those who tried to flee the country, as well as attempting to conduct hysterectomies on women carrying the dwarfism gene and committing mass eugenics.
Horrifying testimony detailed the violent lengths to which the North Korean regime would go to push and protect its agenda.
One heavily pregnant woman was killed after a widely-circulated video showed her pointing at a portrait of the late Kim Il-sung while dancing in her home.
Testimony revealed that six teenagers, aged 16 and 17, were executed by shooting.
They were said to have been charged over watching video footage originating from South Korea and smoking opium at a stadium in the city of Wonsan, Kangwon Province.
Additionally, human experiments were conducted where its subjects were reported to have secretly been fed sleeping pills and forcibly taken to a facility called Hospital 83.
Officials at the Ministry of Social Security allegedly blackmailed families into letting their relatives become human test subjects under the threat of sending them to prison camps.
The regime also forced nurses to write up “a list of dwarfs” and conducted hysterectomies on a woman with dwarfism in an exercise of eugenics. Disabled people, particularly those with dwarfism, were deprived of their human rights and had medical procedures conducted on them against their will.
Rampant state-led rights abuses were said to have taken place in communities, prison camps and elsewhere, including public executions, torture and arbitrary arrests.
Women in detention were especially subjected to inhumane conditions including torture, forced labour, sexual violence and starvation.
Detention facilities saw deaths and torture occurring regularly and some people were executed after being caught trying to cross the border, the South Korean ministry said.
A total of 11 political prison camps were identified by the Unification Ministry, with five currently in operation.
“North Korean citizens' right to life appears to be greatly threatened,” the ministry said in its report.
“Executions are widely carried out for acts that do not justify the death penalty, including drug crimes, distribution of South Korean videos, and religious and superstitious activities.”
The report came as South Korea seeks to highlight its neighbour's failure to improve living conditions while racing to boost its nuclear and missile arsenals.
Seoul began compiling yearly reports on Pyongyang's alleged human rights abuses in 2018 following the enactment of the North Korean Human Rights Acts in 2016.
While the Unification Ministry is required by law to make an annual assessment of the North's human rights situation, this year marks the first time the report has been made public.
The country's current president, Yoon Suk Yeol, expressed his administration's desire to “fully expose” their northern neighbour’s “gruesome human rights violations”.
President Yoon said the report's publication should better inform the international community of what is going on in the North. He added that the rogue state deserves “not a single penny” of economic aid while it pursues its nuclear ambitions.
North Korea has rejected criticism of its rights conditions as part of a plot to overthrow its rulers.