Death Penalty News

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.

Bita Hemmati and three others have been sentenced to death for 'collusion' and 'propaganda.' Advocates claim the charges are baseless, citing a secretive process and state-televised interrogations. Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”  

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.

Activists say they are coerced confessions, long a staple of Iran's hard-line state television, the only broadcaster in the country. And these videos are coming at an unprecedented clip They are shown handcuffed, their faces blurred. The confession videos, broadcast on Iranian state media, feature dramatic background music interspersed with clips appearing to show protesters attacking security forces. Some showcase gruesome homemade weapons that authorities claim were used in the attacks. Others highlight suspects in grainy security footage, appearing to set fires or destroy property.

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.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday pardoned a German man facing the death penalty, the country's state news agency reported. Lukashenko "took the decision to pardon the German citizen Rico Krieger ... taking into account all the circumstances," Belta news agency reported, citing the president's press service. Krieger, 30, had been shown on Belarusian public television last week, saying "I really hope that President [Alexander] Lukashenko will forgive me and pardon me," according to a statement quoted by the Russian news agency TASS.

A German citizen who was sentenced to death in Belarus has asked Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko for mercy in a video broadcast on state television. A 30-year-old German man sentenced to death in Belarus asked for pardon from President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday in a television appearance. 

Programme on state television discloses new details and punishments from espionage cases as part of a campaign marking National Security Education Day Authorities in Beijing have revealed that a Chinese scientist who was convicted in 2015 of selling state secrets to foreign spy agencies was executed in 2016, one of several “shocking” spy cases.

At least 94 put to death in January and February, with escalating use of death penalty against persecuted ethnic minorities.  Horrific sexual violence and other torture allegedly used to extract false confessions ‘The Iranian authorities are carrying out executions on a frightening scale’ - Roya Boroumand The Iranian authorities executed at least 94 people in January and February this year alone, in a notable rise in executions compared to the same time last year, according to research by Amnesty International and the Iranian human rights organisation the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center.

Officials forced shocked residents of Hyesen city near the border with China to watch the firing at an airfield Terrified residents expressed grave shock as North Korean authorities publicly executed three teenagers by firing including two who allegedly watched and distributed South Korean movies, says a report. A third teenager was accused of murdering his stepmother, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Dec. 2 quoting witnesses. The officials in the ultra-communist pariah state have claimed that the crimes committed by teens aged around 16 or 17 were “equally evil” and forced the shocked residents of Hyesen city near the border with China to watch the firing. “They said, ‘Those who watch or distribute South Korean movies and dramas, and those who disrupt social order by murdering other people, will not be forgiven and will be sentenced to the maximum penalty: death,’” said a local resident. The execution took place in October at an airfield in the city, the resident said. “Hyesan reside...

Below is my response to an open letter I received from Singapore‘s Home Affairs Ministry on 22 October, reacting to my previous statements on the death penalty in Singapore. Dear Minister Shanmugam, I thank you and the Ministry for Home Affairs for contacting me last week. I have enormous respect for Singapore and Singaporeans and for everything your country has achieved over the last decades. It is because of this respect that I feel compelled to speak out when I see things go as horribly wrong as Singapore’s use of the death penalty. And I am not a lone voice raising this. There are many Singaporeans, including lawyers, human rights defenders, civil society organisations, and others, who have consistently expressed the same concerns. RELATED |  Singapore invites billionaire Branson to death penalty debate Allow me to share a personal story. When I was young man, my father told me about my grandfather, who was a barrister and then a High Court Judge in the UK over a century ago. A...

(Oct 23): Singapore invited British billionaire Richard Branson to a live televised debate with Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam on the city-state’s drug policy and death penalty, in response to a blog post by the businessman on the subject. In his Oct 10 post, Branson said “Singapore still finds itself on the wrong side of history” with its continued, almost stubborn use of the death penalty, particularly for drug offenses. He highlighted the execution of convicted Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam this year, which has attracted international criticism due to concerns about his mental capacity. Nagaenthran was hanged after being found guilty for trafficking about 43 grammes of heroin into Singapore in 2009.  Multiple appeals of the sentence were dismissed in the city-state’s courts, and Branson linked the execution with Singapore’s commitments to protect those with disabilities. Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs refuted Branson’s remarks in a statem...

“Unfortunately, we have no death penalty." A TV presenter and key Vladimir Putin ally has said he wants the death penalty to be used against Russia's own soldiers as Moscow continues to struggle in its war against Ukraine. A series of battlefield disasters, including losses in areas Russia has recently illegally annexed, have prompted allies of the Russian president to publicly criticise the war machine's top figures. Presenter Vladimir Solovyov, a key mouthpiece for Putin, has said he finds it unfortunate the death penalty can no longer be used on members of the military who have failed to achieve their aims. The withdrawal of Russian forces from the strategically important town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine on Saturday has prompted criticism from other powerful Putin allies, including Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Solovyov has always been a cheerleader for the war, but in a clip shared by US journalist Julia Davis his assessment appeared more downbeat. He said: “Those who...

I Am A Killer is a docuseries that gives a nuanced account of murders from multiple points of view. As a psychologist, especially one who has spent a large portion of my career in forensics, it’s not a huge surprise to me that I enjoy memoirs, documentaries, and docuseries. Real-life stories give us access to the incredible diversity of human experience. When Netflix and Crime +Investigation UK released the docuseries I Am A Killer , I was intrigued, but the premise of I Am A Killer is (deceptively) simple and I admit I was initially skeptical. The summary on Netflix states “Death row inmates convicted of capital murder give firsthand accounts of their crimes in this documentary series.” Because American culture, and TV media in general, tends to sensationalize stories and depict them in largely binary terms–good versus evil–I wondered if this might be just another dehumanizing depiction of a bad guy. Or equally as bad, an overly sentimental, no-accountability view of people who com...

Cuba's one-party legislature Sunday passed a new Penal Code, which was considered to be “modern” and adjusted to the country's socialist “reality,” it was announced in Havana. Although the new legal instrument was designed in tune with international criteria on human rights according to local authorities, the death penalty was not entirely removed and may still be applied. “The norm is of extraordinary relevance in the robustness of Cuba as a socialist state of law, a modern criminal law, adjusted to the socioeconomic realities and updated with the Constitution and other legal provisions,” Ruben Remigio Ferro, president of the People's Supreme Court, told the National Assembly of People's Power, the national parliamentary body. The new code provides for penalties that range from life imprisonment to 30-year prison sentences for the most serious crimes. It also maintains the death penalty for 23 extremely serious offenses , it was reported. Offenders are accountable sinc...

The daughter of a high-ranking cadre along with her boyfriend have been publicly executed for watching and distributing South Korean films, soap operas, and entertainment programs. North Korea is apparently intensifying its “fear politics” based on a law to eradicate “reactionary thought and culture.” According to a Daily NK source in South Pyongan Province on 25 February 2022, a young woman in her 20s identified as “A,” along with her boyfriend “B,” were publicly shot in Munhwa-dong, Pyongsong, in mid-January. The woman was the daughter of the head of the political department of the South Pyongan Province branch of the Ministry of State Security (MSS). A graduate of the Pyongyang Han Tok Su University of Light Industry, she had worked in foodstuff production. RELATED | North Korea | Anyone caught with media from South Korea, the U.S. or Japan now faces death penalty Recently, however, she was essentially unemployed, having returned to her hometown of Pyongsong. On paper, she was emplo...