08 June 2021 :

North Korea has recently introduced a sweeping new law which seeks to stamp out any kind of foreign influence - harshly punishing anyone caught with foreign films, clothing or even using slang, BBC reported on 7 June 2021.
Anyone caught with large amounts of media from South Korea, the United States or Japan now faces the death penalty. Those caught watching face prison camp for 15 years.
Recently, country's leader Kim Jong-Un wrote a letter in state media calling on the Youth League to crack down on "unsavoury, individualistic, anti-socialist behaviour" among young people. He wants to stop foreign speech, hairstyles and clothes which he described as "dangerous poisons".
The Daily NK, an online publication in Seoul with sources in North Korea, reported that three teenagers had been sent to a re-education camp for cutting their hair like K-pop idols and hemming their trousers above their ankles. The BBC cannot verify this account.
Analysts say Kim is trying to stop outside information reaching the people of North Korea as life in the country becomes increasingly difficult.

10 April 2021 :

Daily NK learned on 9 April 2021 that following an Organization and Guidance Department (OGD) investigation into the Ministry of Higher Education’s “non-standing commission for the implementation of the Distance Education Act,” North Korean authorities last March executed the chairman of the commission and are currently conducting ideological examinations of other commission members.
“The non-standing commission was established in June of last year,” a source in the country told Daily NK. “The OGD conducted an investigation because [the commission failed] to make any progress and because some have criticized the government’s policies.”
Because the Distance Education Act non-standing commission was directly affiliated with the higher education ministry, the authorities selected a department director in the ministry, a man in his 50s named Park, to serve as chairman. The authorities also selected approximately 20 professors to serve as members of the commission. 
However, after establishing the commission last June, commission members allegedly conducted weekly meetings as perfunctory procedures only and failed to achieve any progress or results. The OGD investigated the members after receiving word that some of them, led by Park, gathered to complain about government policy.
Beginning in the early days of the commission, members reportedly complained at every meeting that the necessary facilities and equipment would have to be installed before the Distance Education Act could be implemented. Park repeatedly explained this to his superiors, who responded by saying that “There are no instructions from the Central Committee, so stay put [and keep silent].”
After hearing this, Park bluntly expressed his displeasure by saying “I don’t understand why [the authorities] would choose to implement the act, create this commission, and call busy professors away from their university jobs [if they were not going to give the commission any resources].”
Because he estimated that the implementation of the Distance Education Act would take a long time, Park suggested that it would be better to retrain teachers, increase the number of schools and instructors, and send them to work in relatively underdeveloped regions.
When this suggestion was met with silence by higher-ups, Park vented his frustration to commission members, saying that “Even if [we] make suggestions, [they] just tell [us] to keep [our] mouths shut, so let’s just go through the motions of gathering and then go home.”
A member of the commission who also serves as the dean of the Kim Il Sung University School of Law met with Ri Guk Chol, the president of Kim Il Sung University and the head of the Ministry of Higher Education, to discuss the matter. The dean said that “the ‘distance learning policy’ is progressing poorly and things are not getting done properly. If the Party finds out, it could become a big problem. Director [Park] was complaining, but if the Party knew the situation, they would solve some of the problems [making it impossible for the commission to get results], right?”
However, Ri Guk Chol dug up specific comments by Park and reported him to the Central Committee, saying that “Everyone knows that the nation is experiencing difficulties, but policies can’t be executed properly because of people like [Park], whose heads are not in the right place.” 
After receiving Ri’s report, the OGD conducted an investigation into the commission. The Ministry of State Security executed Park in the second week of March for “anti-party and anti-revolutionary sectarian activities within the education sector.” The source reported that the OGD will conduct ideological examinations of the other approximately 20 professors throughout the month of April.
North Korean authorities have reorganized the non-standing commission, according to the source.

07 June 2021 :

Government officials in North Korea are living in fear after a series of executions of their colleagues on the orders of leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, two officials told RFA.
Since her brother’s rule began in 2011, Kim Yo Jong’s rise to power in her own right culminated in her becoming an alternate member of the Politburo in April 2020. At the time, her brother was rumored to be having health issues and some experts believed she could have been an option to replace him in the event of his death.
But she was demoted during the ruling Korean Workers’ Party’s Eighth Party Congress in January, becoming just a member of the Party’s Central Committee, with her rank reduced from first deputy director to deputy director.
Still, she remains one of North Korea’s most powerful people, and sources said she has ordered executions of government officials simply for “getting on her nerves.”
“News that they shot to death a high-ranking official in Pyongyang is spreading among officials in Hyesan right now. We don’t know who the executed official was, but I heard from an official close to me that he was executed on the orders of Kim Yo Jong,” an official of an administrative agency in central northern Ryanggang province told RFA’s Korean Service 13 May.
“In November last year, a gold smuggling incident was reported to the Party.
A total of 10 state security officials and soldiers of the border security command were executed by firing squad in December, while nine residents were imprisoned for life. Dozens of their family members, meanwhile were sent to political prison camps” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
RFA reported in November that that two soldiers were caught smuggling some $10 million worth of gold into China near Hyesan, on 1 November. One was arrested immediately, while the other, a border security guard, fled into China and was believed to be in the custody of Chinese authorities, according to local government sources.
Sources in the Ryanggang provincial government told RFA that the soldier caught 1 November revealed during the investigation that they had been working with six residents on what had been their fifth trip smuggling gold to China. The six were arrested on 16 November, a judicial official told RFA at the time.
One of the Ryanggang sources told RFA in November there was a possibility that smugglers be executed because gold is strictly controlled by the state. Their offenses also included defying a strict border lockdown imposed to combat coronavirus.
The source who spoke to RFA last week said residents and officials are resentful that the executions were on the orders of Kim Yo Jong.
"She is paying particular attention to officials who are getting on her nerves. She is collecting data that shows they are challenging the party’s authority and reported this to her superior, her brother Kim Jong Un,” the source said.
“There have been a series of executions of officials for being ‘anti-party revolutionists.’ Resentment against Kim Yo Jong is deepening further,” said the source.
The source said the Central Party was currently investigating all officials of Ryanggang province on her orders. 
“They say that they are catching reactionaries for handing over confidential data and lecture materials to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. Many people are sent to political prison camps on charges of being involved in this,” the source said.
Another source, an official in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, told RFA the same day that Kim ordered investigations in Sinuiju, another city on the border with China.
“Following the execution of Sinuiju customs officials by firing squad in North Pyongan in 2019, a number of officials were also executed after investigations into the Sinuiju city party, administration agencies and the state security department,” said the second source, requesting anonymity to speak freely.
“When word got out that Kim Yo Jong was behind these executions, the officials started calling her ‘devil woman,’” the second source said.
The officials are even afraid to earn Kim Yo Jong’s praise, because that means she has taken notice of them. They fear that they will have to prepare for execution someday if they get on her bad side, according to the second source.
“As these unjust executions increase, even ordinary residents are afraid of her. They say she is a bloodthirsty demon,” the second source said.
“This year, she even led the purging of senior officials close to her brother Kim Jong Un, when she mercilessly executed his aides. She is a terror to officials. Even though she is now in a lower position, she is showing off her power by executing the powerful.”

16 December 2021 :

A new report from a human rights group has found North Korea has publicly executed at least seven people for watching or distributing K-pop videos in the last decade, according to The New York Times.
The report was released on 15 December 2021 by the Transitional Justice Working Group, and it was based on interviews with almost 700 defectors from North Korea. The report pointed to testimonies of public executions under North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and said that one of the most common offenses was "watching or distributing South Korean videos."
Kim Jong-un has called K-pop a "vicious cancer," complaining that South Korean culture was corrupting North Koreans' "attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors," the Times reported.
Wilson Center senior fellow Jean Lee explained to CNN that North Korea sees it as a threat for young people to be "watching South Korean dramas and seeing what life is like for Koreans outside their country, because they're seeing images of Seoul, of how well they're living, how freely they're living."
According to the Times, distributing South Korean entertainment can be punishable by death under a law adopted in North Korea last year, and last month, a man who smuggled the South Korean Netflix series Squid Game into North Korea was reportedly sentenced to death.
The new human rights report said "the families of those being executed were often forced to watch the execution." It also found that North Korea has been responding to international criticism by changing its execution practices, "selecting execution sites that are easier to control" to prevent leaks. But lead author Ahyeong Park said that "state-led killings continue to take place in ways that may not be as visible to the public as they did in the past," adding that "what we need to pay closer attention to is non-public killings, such as secret or 'indoor' killings."

24 November 2021 :

North Korea has sentenced to death a man who smuggled and sold copies of the Netflix series “Squid Game” after authorities caught seven high school students watching the Korean-language global hit show, sources in the country told RFA.
The smuggler is said to have brought a copy of Squid Game into North Korea back from China and sold USB flash drives containing the series. Sources said his sentence would be carried out by firing squad.
A student who bought a drive received a life sentence, while six others who watched the show have been sentenced to five years hard labor, and teachers and school administrators have been fired and face banishment to work in remote mines or themselves, the sources said.
RFA reported last week that copies of the violent drama had arrived in the reclusive country despite the best efforts of authorities to keep out foreign media. They began spreading among the people on flash drives and SD cards.
Sources in that report said that the show’s dystopian world -- in which marginalized people are pitted against one another in traditional children's games for huge cash prizes and losing players are put to death -- resonates with North Koreans in risky occupations and insecure positions.
“This all started last week when a high school student secretly bought a USB flash drive containing the South Korean drama Squid Game and watched it with one of his best friends in class,” a source in law enforcement in North Hamgyong province told RFA’s Korean Service on 22 November.
“The friend told several other students, who became interested, and they shared the flash drive with them. They were caught by the censors in 109 Sangmu, who had received a tipoff,” said the source, referring to the government strike force that specializes in catching illegal video watchers, known officially as Surveillance Bureau Group 109.
The arrest of the seven students marks the first time that the government is applying the newly passed law on the “Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture” in a case involving minors, according to the source.
The law, promulgated last year, carries a maximum penalty of death for watching, keeping, or distributing media from capitalist countries, particularly from South Korea and the U.S
“Residents are engulfed by anxiety, as the seven will be mercilessly interrogated until the authorities can find out how the drama was smuggled in with the border closed due to the coronavirus pandemic,” said the source.
“It means that the bloody winds of investigation and punishment will soon blow,” said the source, implying that a lengthy investigation would reveal the chain of distribution as each new person under investigation would be forced to tell where they got their copy from and who else they shared it with.
Punishments will not stop with the smuggler and students who viewed the video, however, as others with no connection to the incident will also be held responsible, according to the source.
“The government is taking this incident very seriously, saying that the students’ education was being neglected. The Central Committee dismissed the school principal, their youth secretary, and their homeroom teacher,” the source said.
“They were also expelled from the party. It is certain that they will be sent to toil in coal mines or exiled to rural parts of the country, so other school teachers are all worrying that it could happen to them too if one of their students is also caught up in the investigation,” said the source.
In the aftermath of the students getting caught, authorities began scouring markets for memory storage devices and video CDs containing foreign media, a resident of the province told RFA.
“The residents are all trembling in fear because they will be mercilessly punished for buying or selling memory storage devices, no matter how small,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
“But regardless of how strict the government’s crackdown seems to be, rumors are circulating that among the seven arrested students, one with rich parents was able to avoid punishment because they bribed the authorities with U.S. $3,000,” the second source said.
“Residents are complaining that the world is unfair because if parents have money and power even their children who are sentenced to death can be released.”

12 September 2021 :

Officials in North Korea carried out murder, torture, and acts that could constitute genocide against certain groups of people, including Christians, a report released on 20 July 2021 revealed.
Evidence has been found that suggests government brass killed residents of the country, tortured political prisoners, engaged in sex trafficking, and conducted forced abortions as well as infanticide from 2014 to 2021, the United Kingdom's All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea wrote in a 91-page document. It was further found that rape, in addition to modern-day slavery, was commonplace, and much of the human rights abuses were focused on Christians and those whose descent was half Chinese.
North Korea assigns the death penalty to crimes of premeditated murder, drug trafficking, and terrorism, though respondents interviewed by U.K. authorities alleged that government authorities would carry out public executions for offenses most would consider far less severe. In 2014, a defector said he witnessed the public killing of a man who shared South Korean movies in the Hyesan, Ryanggang province. Others indicated that they witnessed a similar execution for the same charge in 2017.
Other former North Korean residents told U.K. investigators that "there were cases where the death penalty was carried out due to charges of carrying the Bible, distributing propaganda leaflets, and engaging in acts of superstition."
In all, the report found 1,479 cases of public executions from 2000 to 2020, while 443 cases of secret executions, many of which took place at prison camps, took place in the same time frame.
Sexual violence was also commonplace in the regime, the report revealed.
"Some female detainees reported that they experienced or observed sexual violence, including rape in detention and interrogation facilities," the report said. "Interviewees said that agents from the police, secret police, and the prosecutor’s office, most in charge of their personal interrogation, touched their faces and their bodies, including their breasts and hips, either through their clothes or by putting their hands inside their clothes. They said they were powerless to resist because their fate was in the hands of these men."
The British government also found that North Korean women seeking to flee the regime are led away on false pretenses, including employment, to be sex trafficked to China. Experts have posited that the situation persists because of the "Chinese government’s intentional lack of legal options for North Korean escapees to apply for asylum."
"North Korean women and girls are uniquely vulnerable to sex trafficking and the sex trade," the report added. "Victims are usually trafficked from North Korea on false offers of employment, and later sold as brides or sex slaves into China and other south east Asian countries. Victims are trafficked to the border and then transported to safe houses, brothels, or buyers."

31 May 2021 :

In late April, North Korean authorities publicly executed a man living in Wonsan (Gangwon Province) who illegally sold CDs and USBs filled with South Korean movies, dramas, and music videos.
According to a source in the province on 20 May 2021, North Korean authorities executed the man after branding him an “anti-socialist element” in accordance with the “anti-reactionary thought law” implemented late last year.
The man, surnamed Lee, worked as a chief engineer at the Wonsan Farming Management Commission. He was caught by his inminban (people’s unit) leader’s daughter while secretly selling storage devices loaded with South Korean films, music, and broadcasts organized by type and genre. The inminban leader’s daughter reported him to the authorities, who arrested Lee shortly after. 
On 25 April, approximately forty days after his arrest, Lee was publicly executed in front of a crowd of five hundred people, which included Wonsan officials and their families, teachers, and university students. After forcing Lee’s immediate family members to stand in the front row at the execution, the authorities killed Lee by firing squad.
“This was the first execution in Gangwon Province for anti-socialist acts under the anti-reactionary thought law,” according to a ruling released by the authorities. “In the past, [people like Lee] were sent to labor or re-education camps. It would be a grave error to believe that you will receive light punishment [for anti-socialist acts]. Such reactionary behavior helps people who are attempting to destroy our socialism. Reactionaries should not be allowed to live without fear in our society.” 
“After the authorities recited the guilty verdict, the sound of twelve shots rang out. [Lee’s] lifeless body was rolled into a straw sack and loaded into a box, and then taken somewhere,” the source said. “Lee’s wife, son, and daughter collapsed where they were standing in the front row of the execution area. While everyone watched, Ministry of State Security officials picked them up and loaded them into a cargo truck with barred windows for transport to a political prisoner camp.
“The family’s neighbors burst into tears when they saw the four security guards picking up Lee’s collapsed wife and throwing her [into the cargo van] like a piece of luggage, but they had to clamp their mouths shut and weep in silence for fear of being caught in the criminal act of having compassion for a reactionary,” the source added.
Lee reportedly confessed to his crimes before the execution, saying that he sold the CDs and USB sticks containing South Korean video content for between USD 5 and USD 12 each. According to the source, the Ministry of State Security is searching for those who purchased the videos from Lee. The authorities arrested approximately twenty other merchants involved in the case and are currently conducting preliminary examinations for each of them.
“Nowadays, if you are caught watching a South Korean video, you receive a sentence of either life in prison or death, so nobody knows who will be executed next,” the source said. “You can receive a seven-year sentence just for not reporting someone [who watched or distributed South Korean media]. The entire population is shaking with fear.”

18 May 2021 :

Two North Koreans who crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) into South Korea in November of 2019 have reportedly appeared in educational materials published by North Korea’s Ministry of State Security. The two men were forcibly returned to the North by the South Korean government for being “heinous criminals.”
On 14 May 2021, a Daily NK source in North Korea described recently-published ideological education materials targeted at North Korean laborers overseas. The materials listed instances where North Korean defectors attempted to escape and then were forcibly repatriated. One of the examples listed in the materials was that of two octopus fishermen who took a wooden boat into South Korean waters, only to be repatriated by the South Korean government to the North.
A Ministry of State Security (MSS) “education officer” explained the two fishermen’s ordeal by saying that “The two fisherman who tried to take a squid [octopus; in North Korea both octopus and squid are called “squid”] fishing boat into South Korea are national traitors.”
The officer also added that “the South Korean government eventually made the [fishermen] come back to the Fatherland [North Korea].”
However, the Ministry of State Security education officer reportedly did not mention the alleged crimes that the two fishermen were accused of and later repatriated and executed for.
The South Korean navy captured the boat the two men were on when they tried to flee after allegedly killing 16 fellow crew members. 
Ultimately, the South Korean government decided to deport the two men back to North Korea after concluding that they could not be recognized as refugees under international law because they were “heinous criminals” who had committed serious non-political crimes, including murder.
“After the navy captured the two [fishermen], they expressed a desire to defect, but [we] decided to deport them after concluding that their [accounts] were inconsistent and unreliable,” South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said at the time. The South Korean government’s conclusion about the two men’s intentions appears to differ from that of the North Korean government, which claims that the pair did in fact try to escape into South Korea.
A compilation of accounts from multiple sources inside North Korea suggests the following: After the South Korean government handed the two men over to the North Korean authorities at Panmunjom on 7 Nov. 2019, they imprisoned the pair in a MSS detention center in Sariwon, North Hwanghae Province. The two men were reportedly executed less than two months after their repatriation to North Korea. 
Once the two men were in the hands of the North Korean authorities, they were tortured and investigated for approximately fifty days. The sources all confirmed that the authorities beheaded the men outside of the public eye. 
North Korea has accused North Korean defectors of being “criminals” in the past. The North Korean authorities have used these tactics against defectors who have engaged in activities that threatened the North Korean regime or exposed the authorities’ secrets in South Korea or another country. By doing this, the North Korean authorities intend to undermine the credibility of the defectors’ testimonies and mislead the public about their plans and activities.
In the case of the two fishermen, however, the South Korean government handed them over to the North Korean authorities without taking legal action of any kind. The South Korean authorities kept the two men in custody for just five days and continues to insist that they decided to repatriate the two men after a thorough review of relevant laws. 
South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong referenced the November 2019 case during an invitational forum at the Kwanhun Club on 22 April.
“They were so obviously heinous criminals – people that we absolutely cannot accept into [South Korea],” he said. “After reviewing the constitution and related laws, [we] found that there was no problem with returning them to North Korea.”

11 May 2021 :

A recent report from a South Korean newspaper said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of a choir conductor, who was allegedly shot 90 times in front of members of the public. The report also said members of the choir were forced to march past the dead body.
The stunning account comes from journalist Joo Seong-ha, who writes for the Dong-A Ilbo daily paper. The story was originally published on 29 April but has been shared online more widely since then. There is currently no independent corroboration of the story.
Joo wrote that the story began on 16 February, which is Kim's birthday. North Korea celebrates that date as the Day of the Shining Star, and Kim and his wife appeared at the Mansudae Arts Theater in Pyongyang for a night of performances to mark the holiday.
Joo wrote that one of the shows performed that night was called "Shadow Magic," which featured actors doing magic tricks behind screens as if they were literally shadows. Afterward, Kim reportedly praised the production, but a conductor remarked to someone nearby that he didn't think the show was all that good. Later that night, Joo wrote, the conductor was arrested.
According to Joo, an order was issued two days later for all artists in Pyongyang to gather. The reporter wrote that on 20 February people gathered at an execution site, where they saw the conductor of the choir tied up.
As translated from Korean, Joo wrote: "The conductor of the choir...died horribly in front of his men.... The execution was carried out by three AK-47 automatic riflemen and shooting one magazine (30 rounds) each from a distance of 10m. It is said that the body, which was hit by 90 shots, became so full that it could not be lifted."
Joo wrote that the man was the conductor from the ceremony and that his name was heard to be Hyun-woo Cho.
Joo also wrote that he tried to verify the name online, but the only conductor with a similar sounding name he could find was one named Hyun-ho Ryu, who is with the National Contribution Choir.
When he wrote the article, Joo was still not sure if the executed person was named Hyun-ho Ryu, Hyun-woo Cho or something else, "but it is certain that the conductor was publicly executed anyway."
North Korean defector Yeonmi Park shared details about the story on her YouTube channel. Yeonmi is a popular activist, though some of her personal accounts from her childhood in North Korea have been criticized for containing inconsistencies. (She's blamed these instances on translation mistakes.) Nonetheless, her video discussing the incident has received more than a million views.
Newsweek emailed the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), as well as Dong-A Ilbo, for comment but did not hear back before publication.

03 May 2021 :

North Korea has executed a party official after he defied Kim Jong-un in the hope of getting an empty showpiece hospital opened to patients, South Korea's Daily NK newspaper reported on 23 April 2021.
Kim personally broke ground on Pyongyang General Hospital in March last year, demanding that the facility be built in just over six months.
But his deadline came and went without a grand opening, amid rumours that the finished building was an empty shell, lacking basic medical equipment.
Now a party official has paid the ultimate price, after a workaround was proposed that clashed with Kim Jong-un's vision for the hospital.
Kim wanted the facility kitted out with medical equipment from Europe, according to Daily NK. 
But an alternative plan was made to use Chinese equipment instead – and the official was blamed when an 'outraged' Kim Jong-un found out.
The condemned man was a deputy director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was aged in his early 50s, and was responsible for importing and exporting.
An executive at the Ministry of Health was also dismissed, the newspaper said.
Kim Jong-un, who spent part of his boyhood in Switzerland, reportedly believes European-made equipment to be of the highest quality.
The party therefore allocated a large budget to furnish the hospital in line with his wishes.
But officials allegedly struggled to overcome European sanctions against North Korea and, due to the pandemic, also had difficulty bringing the items into neutral third countries.
It was then that a plan was made to use cheaper Chinese equipment that could be more easily imported.

13 March 2021 :

Four North Koreans were publicly executed in Pyongyang recently on charges of distributing “illegal video materials,” Daily NK has learned.
A source in the country told Daily NK on 11 March 2021 that the execution took place on 2 March at the Daewon-ri Firing Range in Pyongyang’s Sadong District. The four people, including three men and one woman, were executed by firing squad in front of local city residents and the heads of all Pyongyang’s inminban (neighborhood watch-like organizations).
All those executed were residents of Hadang-dong, an area of Pyongyang’s Hyongjae District. Led by a man in his early 50s along with his wife, who was in her late 40s, the group was accused of placing South Korean movies, entertainment and music programs on SD cards and distributing them throughout the country.
There are a large number of people in Hadang-dong who make counterfeit cigarettes called gadaegidambae. The couple had long worked as counterfeit cigarette-makers who bought cigarette components from a nearby cigarette factory through “behind-the-scenes” deals and imported cigarette paper from across the Sino-North Korean border.
The counterfeit cigarettes are similar to genuine articles in terms of how they look and packaged; however, they cost half as much, which means there is demand for them in areas outside of the capital city.
From August of last year, the couple gained the attention of people in their district when they added another story to their house and paid the people living next to them to move away so they could take over their house. The couple also created a mini-factory replete with production equipment near their house that employed 30 to 40 people.
The couple’s neighbors thought it was strange that they had suddenly become so financially well off given that it is generally hard to make that much money selling counterfeit cigarettes.
Another man and wife team who operated a vehicle that shipped the counterfeit cigarettes to places throughout the country also thought the couple’s new developments were strange. They found it particularly strange that the couple added an extra box to the shipments.
In January, the man and wife team switched out one of the extra boxes and took a look inside. They found that the box was full of SD cards below two boxes of cigarettes. After confirming that the SD cards were full of various South Korean video content, they reported the couple to the Ministry of State Security.
“After the anti-reactionary thought law was created, [the authorities] established ‘anti-socialist, non-socialist elimination combined command centers,’ and from early February these command centers have been operating in each province, directly-administered city, and special city in the country,” the source said. “The couple’s case was sent from the Ministry of State Security to the Pyongyang command center, and later two other workers in their 30s who had been paid by the couple to copy the SD cards were arrested.”
The authorities reportedly found large amounts of Chinese-made SD cards at the couple’s house. The Pyongyang command center demanded the couple tell them who had given them the SD cards; however, the couple claimed that since August of last year they had just received boxes with several USBs in them on two occasions while importing cigarette paper over the border and they had no idea who placed them in the boxes.
The couple admitted that there were videos they had never seen before in the USBs and had believed that selling the videos would make them some money. They later placed the videos on SD cards and sold them at the Hadong Market and found that the videos were popular. They then moved to sell the videos throughout the country.
“The case was reported to Kim Jong Un and they were ordered to be executed as traitors to the nation,” the source said. “Preliminary examinations usually take around six months, but the couple was publicly executed quickly to make them an example.”
Preliminary examinations include the entire interrogation process prior to suspects being indicted.
Article 27 of the anti-reactionary thought law says that anyone caught importing or distributing South Korean movies, music or published works face a lifetime of forced labor or execution, according to materials obtained by Daily NK.
The teenage children of the couple have been sent to South Pyongan Province’s Bukchang 18 concentration camp, which is run by the Ministry of Social Security. The immediate family members of the other executed people who had been living in Pyongyang have all been exiled to other parts of the country.

07 June 2021 :

Saudi authorities on 1st June 2021 executed a citizen for murdering his 10-year-old son.
The interior ministry said that the man, identified as Mohammed bin Abdullah, had killed his son in cold blood by luring him to a deserted area and “slaughtered him with a knife and repeatedly stabbed him”.
The murderer was later arrested and sentenced to death by a court.
The ruling was upheld by an appeals court, the Supreme Court and a royal approval. The ministry said that the convict was executed in a prison in the Saudi south-western region of Jizan.
The motive for the crime was not officially explained.
The murder took place in 2016 when the man, in his 40s, was released from prison to collect blood money to offer to his cousins after he had killed his uncle, according to a media report.
But he went to his son’s school, picked him up and took him to a deserted house where he killed him, the report said. The son had lived for years with his mother who had separated from the father.
He reportedly planned to kill his daughter.