Death Penalty News

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

In an effort to counter rising political dissent, North Korea has toughened its criminal code and imposed the death penalty for crimes against the state, according to South Korean intelligence sources.  Following revisions to the country's criminal code introduced in April, those found guilty of participating in armed uprisings now face life imprisonment or execution. Previously, they faced 10 years in a labour camp. 

At least 358 people have been executed in North Korea since Kim Jong-un came to power in late 2011, with executions surging sharply following the country’s Covid-19 border shutdown, according to a report released Tuesday by a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization. The Transitional Justice Working Group said in its latest study, “Mapping North Korea’s Executions Before and After the Covid-19 Pandemic,” that it documented 136 executions between Dec. 17, 2011, and Dec. 16, 2024, resulting in at least 358 deaths. Including cases where death sentences were issued but not confirmed as carried out, the total rises to 144 cases involving 367 individuals.

North Korea dramatically increased executions during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly for consuming South Korean dramas, K-pop and other foreign culture and political offences, a report published Tuesday showed.  Pyongyang closed its borders in January 2020 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, with research and media reports indicating that the diplomatically isolated nation spent subsequent years bolstering security along its frontiers.  Campaigners have said the shutdown worsened longstanding human rights abuses in North Korea, whose government is widely seen as one of the world's most repressive.

Youth crackdown follows arrest, but young North Koreans say South Korean songs understand them better than the state does When a Ministry of State Security agent stopped a young man in a Hyesan alley in mid-February 2026 and demanded to know why he was listening to “rotten South Korean music,” he likely expected contrition. He did not get it. The man cited the lyrics back at him, word for word, and explained precisely why they resonated. The agent filed a report. The case went to the city party committee. A citywide ideological lecture followed.

People in North Korea, including schoolchildren, are being publicly executed, sent to labour camps or subjected to brutal public humiliation for watching South Korean television shows or listening to K-pop, according to new testimonies gathered by Amnesty International. North Koreans who fled the country told Amnesty that watching globally popular South Korean dramas – including Crash Landing on You, Descendants of the Sun and Squid Game – or listening to South Korean pop music can lead to the most extreme punishments, including death. Those without money or connections face the harshest consequences.

North Korea's citizens face death penalty by firing squads for failed escape attempts A North Korean interpreter reportedly defected to the South Korean Embassy in Ulaanbaatar during an official delegation visit to Mongolia in late August, marking a rare and significant blow to Kim Jong-un’s regime , according to diplomatic sources. The delegation was led by Tae Hyung-cheol, president of the Academy of Social Sciences, one of Pyongyang ’s leading policy institutes. The interpreter’s escape was kept secret for weeks before being confirmed by media outlets in Seoul . Officials in South Korea have declined to comment, citing security concerns. However, Kyodo News reported that Pyongyang has already ordered the replacement of its ambassador to Mongolia. It remains unclear whether the ambassador was directly involved in the incident, but sources say he is now under investigation.

On the occasion of the 23rd World Day Against the Death Penalty on 10 October 2025, Amnesty International joins the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and other abolitionist activists and organizations in denouncing the continued use of the death penalty and encouraging actions in support of its full abolition.   Trends recorded so far in 2025 indicate that executions have significantly increased in some countries, when compared to figures registered in recent years. Among these rises, some governments have shown renewed determination to use this cruel punishment as a tool of repression and control. This has frequently happened in the context of flawed narratives intended to create a false impression of security through a display of heavy-handed responses from the state, and to score political points. These narratives have also fostered a flagrant disregard for safeguards and restrictions under international human rights law and standards that have been established ...

Defectors from the Pyongyang regime describe the growing repression and deterioration of human rights denounced by the UN Article 1 of North Korea ’s Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act, passed in 2020, outlines why Pyongyang believes the legislation is necessary: The law “contributes to the strengthening of our sense of ideology, revolution, and social class by launching a powerful battle to obstruct the inflow and distribution of reactionary ideology and culture and anti-socialist ideology and culture.” Article 7 adds that strict punishments, including the death penalty, will be applied to any citizen “bringing in, viewing, and distributing reactionary ideology and culture, depending on the severity, regardless of the reason and the offender’s social class.”

North Korea has significantly increased the severity of punishments for government officials responsible for disaster response failures — including the death penalty — according to a recent report.   A crisis response law enacted in August 2022 dramatically strengthened the accountability and penalties for those overseeing disaster management, the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) said Tuesday in a report titled “Changes in North Korea’s Crisis Response System and the Establishment of the Ministry for Disaster Prevention” (translated).

Nearly half of all exe­cu­tions to date in 2025 in Iran (244) and Saudi Arabia (50) have been for drug-relat­ed crimes, track­ing close­ly pat­terns doc­u­ment­ed by Harm Reduction International (HRI) for 2024.  According to HRI’s new report, The Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Global Overview 2024, the use of the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed crimes reached ​“cri­sis lev­els” in 2024. At least 615 peo­ple were known to be exe­cut­ed on drug-relat­ed charges world­wide, 607 of which took place in Iran (at least 485 ) and Saudi Arabia ( 122 ). This marks a 32% increase from 2023 and the ​“dead­liest year on record” since 2015, accord­ing to HRI. Drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions account­ed for about 40% of all known exe­cu­tions world­wide in 2024 and are on track to reach almost half of all exe­cu­tions in 2025.

Kim Jong-un has erased a top military commander and another senior official from state photos after the North Korean leader was reportedly left fuming over a failed warship launch.  Navy Commander Admiral Kim Myong Sil and and shipyard boss Hong Kil Ho were airbrushed from images showing them with their leader back in March, sparking speculation that they may have been executed. Original snaps showed Admiral King and the shipyard boss gathered next to the North Korean leader as he inspected the ship.  But now, in a move reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's tactics to erase his enemies from Soviet history, the officials have seemingly disappeared from the photos that were originally broadcast on state television. 

Crimes now punishable by death seem to now include anti-state propaganda and illegal manufacturing, according to reports North Korea is expanding its list of crimes punishable by death, according to reports. Supreme leader Kim Jong Un's regime expanded the list of offenses warranting the death penalty from 11 to 16 via revisions of criminal law, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Executions soared to their highest number in almost a decade in 2023 with a sharp rise across the Middle East, Amnesty International said today as it released its annual report on the global use of the death penalty. A total of 1,153 executions took place in 2023, which does not include the thousands believed to have been carried out in China , marking an increase of more than 30% from 2022. It was the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 2015, when 1,634 people were known to have been executed. Despite this increase, the number of countries that carried out executions reached the lowest figure on record with Amnesty International.

A Christian persecution watchdog has issued a warning about the increasing severity of global persecution, revealing that 365 million Christians currently experience ongoing discrimination due to their faith. Open Doors published these findings in its annual assessment of countries where believers encounter the most extreme persecution and discrimination. Here are the top ten nations where Christians are most under threat.

Experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council urged China not to forcibly repatriate people who have escaped from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), warning that some returnees could even be put to death.  The experts were alarmed that hundreds of escapees – the vast majority of whom are women - have been sent back, despite repeated appeals by multiple international human rights bodies. Hundreds more reportedly are in detention awaiting the same fate.

A manager at a North Korean pharmaceutical warehouse was publicly executed last month for stealing 20,000 doses of penicillin, sources inside the country said. The man, who was in his 40s, was shot to death on Sept. 25 in Hyesan, a northern city in Ryanggang province on the Chinese border, said a resident of the province who declined to be identified for safety reasons. It was the same spot where 25,000 people were forced to watch the execution of nine people on Aug. 30 for running a beef smuggling ring.

Authorities forced 25,000 residents to gather at the airport to watch them being shot by firing squad. A crowd of 25,000 people were forced to gather at the airport in Hyesan, North Korea, and made to watch the day’s spectacle: 9 people executed by firing squad. Their crime? Beef smuggling. The 9 people operated an illegal beef distribution ring that bought and sold about 2,100 government-owned cows, slaughtered them, and distributed the meat to markets and businesses, including a restaurant in the capital Pyongyang, residents told Radio Free Asia.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea is increasing its repression of human rights and people are becoming more desperate and reportedly starving in parts of the country as the economic situation worsens, the U.N. rights chief said Thursday. Volker Türk told the first open meeting of the U.N. Security Council since 2017 on North Korean human rights that in the past its people have endured periods of severe economic difficulty and repression, but “currently they appear to be suffering both.” “According to our information, people are becoming increasingly desperate as informal markets and other coping mechanisms are dismantled, while their fear of state surveillance, arrest, interrogation and detention has increased,” he said.

(Bangkok) – Malaysia’s abolition of the mandatory death penalty is an important step toward aligning with international human rights norms and growing global opposition to capital punishment, Human Rights Watch said today. On April 11, 2023, the Dewan Negara, or upper house of parliament, passed two bills reforming death penalty sentencing, following their passage by the Dewan Rakyat, or lower house, on April 3. The bills will now be sent to the king to be signed into law. Malaysian lawmakers should build on this momentum by taking further steps toward total abolition of this inherently cruel punishment. “The abolition of the mandatory death penalty brings Malaysia closer to the majority of countries that have eliminated capital punishment altogether,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Malaysia’s next step should be ending its use of the punishment entirely and commuting the sentences of the 1,300 prisoners sitting on death row.”