White Paper on Human Rights North Korea

Part I
Purpose of Publication and Research Methodology
The White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea, which the Korea Institute for National Unification has published annually since 1996, aims to raise awareness of North Korean human rights issues at home and abroad and to provide related basic materials by objectively surveying and analyzing the North Korean human rights situation. The White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea 2024 incorporates information from in-depth interviews with 32 North Korean defectors who had lived in North Korea most recently before entering South Korea. These interviewees were ed with consideration for their demographic and social backgrounds. This White Paper 2024 classifies and analyzes the human rights situation in the North under the following parts: The Reality of Civil and Political Rights; The Reality of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Vulnerable Groups; and Major Issues.
Part II
The Reality of Civil and Political Rights
Since 2021, North Korea has enacted special laws such as the Emergency Quarantine Law, the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act, the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act, and the Prevention of Drug Crimes Act that include provisions stipulating the use of the death penalty. Testimonies from North Korean defectors indicate that the death penalty provisions in the Emergency Quarantine Law, the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act, and the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act are actually being enforced. In February 2023, North Korea enacted the Law on Handling of Enemy Objects, which also includes provisions for the use of the death penalty. Additionally, in December 2023, it amended the Criminal Law to add the death penalty for five new offenses: anti-state propaganda agitation, illegal manufacturing of weapons ammunition, illegal use of weapons ammunition, illegal manufacturing storage of explosives, and illegal use transfer of explosives. These developments contravene international human rights norms, which restrict the imposition of the death penalty only to the most serious crimes. Moreover, attention must be directed toward determining whether the death penalty is being enforced for acts that oppose Kim Jong Un’s “two hostile states” stance toward South Korea and the abandonment of unification goals.
Notwithstanding the provisions of the North Korean Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, torture and inhuman treatment continue to occur in the actual process of handling criminal cases. In addition, forced and excessive labor, violence, and cruel treatment regularly take place in detention facilities such as labor prison camps (rodongkyohwaso; hereinafter prison camps /kyohwaso), labor training camps (rodongdanryundae), holding centers (jipkyulso) and detention centers (guryujang). The nutritional, sanitary, and medical conditions in these detention facilities are also very poor, and the combination of these factors has sometimes led to the deaths of detainees. Since the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (hereinafter DPRK) in 2013, testimonies have been documented reporting that violence and cruel treatment during criminal investigations and in detention facilities have decreased. In addition, North Korea enacted the Act on Prevention of Battery in 2021. However, North Korean defectors have testified that the enactment of the Act on Prevention of Battery is unlikely to have a significant impact. Further observations are required to ascertain the reality and effectiveness of this legislation. Moreover, arbitrary unlawful arrests and detentions are still carried out in North Korea. The North Korean Criminal Procedure Law does not have any provision related to informing the suspect of the reasons for his/her arrest and the alleged charges against him/her in the investigation stage. The pre-trial detention period stipulated in this Law is excessively long, and there is no established system to review the validity of a warrant by a judge.
The freedom of movement and residence of North Korean people is also seriously restricted: the travel permit system, crackdowns by zone, forced deportation, and the restriction of access to certain areas are the most typical examples. However, it has been found that, since 2015, a travel permit can be obtained in exchange for bribes, and the introduction of various means of transportation has further eased the restrictions on movement. Nevertheless, given that only those who can afford to offer bribes are able to circumvent the control of the authorities, the freedom of movement in North Korea remains discriminatory and restrictive. Despite the end of the 2019 coronavirus (hereinafter COVID-19) pandemic, North Korea continues to strictly maintain its border closure policy, significantly restricting the freedom of movement across its borders, except for very limited cases of border crossings that are deemed necessary by the authorities, such as exchanges with allied countries.
North Korea guarantees judicial independence in its law but denies it in practice. In North Korea, not only are trials conducted in an unfair and perfunctory manner but also the right to a fair trial is not guaranteed due to the operation of quasi-judicial systems such as comrade trials and political criminal trials held by the Ministry of State Security (MSS). With the recent strengthening of the Administrative Penalty Law, various forms of administrative penalties have been used to tighten social control. The right to defense and the right to appeal, which are essential elements of a fair trial, are also operated in a perfunctory manner.
The violation of privacy continues through routinely monitoring residents via the five household surveillance system (oho damdangjae), People’s Unit (inminban), and life review sessions (saenghwalchonghwa); monitoring and wiretapping residents whose family members are missing, residents whose family members have defected to reside in South Korea, residents who trade smuggle goods, and family members of individuals dispatched to foreign countries; and conducting illegal home searches and interfering with communication. In particular, the enactment of the People’s Unit Organization and Operation Law in December 2023 has enhanced the authority of People’s Unit chiefs, which appears to have intensified the surveillance of the private lives of North Korean people. Moreover, many testifiers perceived that the increase in illegal home searches under the Kim Jong Un regime has degenerated into a means for public security authorities to swindle money and goods and thus distrust authorities.
Violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion have continued. North Korea, which replaced Juche ideology with Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il-ism through the 2019 amendment of the Socialist Constitution, enacted and amended relevant laws to reinforce ideological control over North Korean people with the aim of ensuring the stability and succession of the unitary leadership system. In particular, the enactment of the Law on the Administration of Revolutionary Relics (hereinafter Revolutionary Relics Administration Law) in 2021, which stipulates that Kim Jong Un’s revolutionary history and achievements must be carried on and further refined, confirmed that ideological control to maintain the North Korean regime will continue to be solidified. In addition, it is practically impossible for North Korean people to practice religion because those caught in possession of the Bible praying in groups are sent to political prison camps (kwanliso) uted. While acts of superstition such as fortune telling and palm reading are prevalent in North Korea, testimonies have been continuously collected reporting that crackdowns on these practices have intensified since around 2017 and 2018 and that the level of punishment received by those engaging in such acts has also increased.
Viewing the inflow of external culture as an attempt to overthrow the regime, North Korean authorities have intensified crackdowns and punishments for viewing South Korean broadcasts and video recordings and/or using mobile phones. The strengthened control over external cultural influences is evident not only in the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act enacted in 2020 but also the Law on Handling of Enemy Objects enacted in 2023. North Korea has removed provisions related to the retainment, use, and distribution of enemy objects from its Criminal Law and Administrative Penalty Law and codified them separately under the Law on Handling of Enemy Objects. North Korea defines “enemy objects” as “any objects introduced by enemies with the purpose of undermining and destroying our socialist system,” which includes “objects bearing the trademarks, images, texts of the puppet state, the puppet state currency, items provided by enemies, and waste materials entering from enemy regions by land, sea, air.” North Korea’s sensitive reaction to the inflow of external information is rooted in its efforts to “protect the absolute safety and authority of the state’s top leadership from anti-Republic conspiratorial acts,” as stated in Article 1 of the Law on Handling of Enemy Objects. The law prescribes severe penalties for violations, ranging from a minimum of five to a maximum of ten years of correctional labor punishment, with the maximum penalty of death for the introduction and distribution of enemy objects.
The right to freedom of assembly and association is also not guaranteed in North Korea, and testifiers have continuously reported that it never occurred to them that they could hold assemblies form associations to promote their rights. In addition, the freedom of assembly and association is frequently infringed upon because people are forced to participate in state-mobilized rallies and organizational life.