North Korea
Foreign Nationals and the Death Penalty
Death Penalty Overview
Due to North Korea’s closed and secretive
status, data on the death penalty in North
Korea is not publicly available. However, both
Amnesty International and academic sources
estimate that there are a high number of
people on death row in North Korea and the
death penalty is ‘likely to be used at
sustained rate’ (Amnesty International, 2021).
Death penalty offences in North Korea
include murder, robbery, treason, terrorism,
drug traf cking, corruption. However, North
Korea’s authoritarian nature means that other
crimes may also be eligible for the death
penalty, without necessarily being prescribed
in law. A study by Lee Deok-in (2010)
indicates that the death penalty in North
Korea not only functions to chastise citizens’
reprobative behaviour, but also serves to
stabilise the faltering authoritarian rule of the
Kim regime.
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In December 2020, North Korea voted
against the United Nation’s Moratorium on
Executions (A/RES/75/183).
Based on the prevalent use of arbitrary
arrests and detentions and pervasive
practices of forced labour and other illtreatments as punishments in North Korea, it
is likely that death penalty prisoners are
housed under extremely harsh prison
conditions. Amnesty International also
believes that death penalty prisoners are
actively denied their rights to access consular
services, legal representation, or to receive
visits from their families.
North Korea is one of four countries who
regularly carry out executions in public, (the
others are Iran, Saudi Arabia and Somalia). In
2019, a South Korean NGO, the Transitional
Justice Working Group, estimated there are
at least 318 sites used for these public
executions and states that family members,
including children are forced to watch the
executions.
Amnesty International warns that torture and
executions are widespread in prisons in
North Korea and take place by ring squad,
decapitation or hanging.