North Korea has executed people for distributing foreign media, including television shows like popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a U.N. human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page U.N. report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had fled the country and reported the further erosion of freedoms. James Heenan, head of the U.N. human rights office for North Korea, told a Geneva briefing that the number of executions for both normal and political crimes had increased since COVID-19 era restrictions. An unspecified number of people have already been executed under the new laws for distributing foreign TV series, including the popular K-Dramas from its southern neighbour, he added.

Full report : North Korea executes people for sharing foreign films and TV, UN report says.