At least 358 executed under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un: Rights group
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The executions were concentrated in the period immediately after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2012 and after the country sealed its borders in 2020.
PHOTO: REUTERS
At least 358 people have been executed under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a report by the Transitional Justice Working Group, a Seoul-based international human rights organisation.
The report, based on an analysis of testimonies from North Korean defectors and information from online media specialising in North Korea, aims to highlight what it calls “serious human rights violations” that ignore international concerns over arbitrary executions.
Among the total of 144 cases of execution, 136 were documented executions that killed at least 358 people, according to the report, while the remaining eight involved nine people taken away from public trial sites, making it difficult to know whether they were executed.
Regarding the methods of execution, firing squads using rifles and machine guns were the most common, the report said, while two confirmed cases of hanging took place in front of the public.
The same report said that “control violations”, including the distribution of South Korean films, dramas and music as well as foreign cultural material and information related to religion, accounted for about 20 per cent of the charges, followed by around 13 per cent for murder, and around 11 per cent for drug offences.
The executions were concentrated in the period immediately after Mr Kim took power in 2012 and after North Korea sealed its borders following the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, the year the country enacted a law on “anti-reactionary thought and culture” to prevent the influx of culture deemed subversive to the regime. KYODO NEWS
