North Korea executes people for watching South Korean videos, claims Seoul

By Anadolu Staff

ANKARA (AA) - North Korean authorities have executed people on suspicion of watching South Korean videos, Seoul claimed in its latest report released on Thursday.

The South Korean Unification Ministry made public its report on human rights violations in North Korea for the first time since it began drafting it in 2018, Yonhap News Agency reported, which added that President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered the report to be shown to the world on Tuesday.

According to the report, Pyongyang has executed and even applied the death sentences to people who were watching and spreading videos produced in South Korea.

In 2020, North Korea implemented a new law to sentence people up to 10 years with hard labor who were found guilty of spreading outside culture.

The ministry included around 1,600 human rights violation cases in its 450-page report covering the period from 2017 to 2022, according to the news agency.

The ministry also claimed that North Korean authorities publicly executed a woman in 2017 in response to the widespread distribution of a video in which she was dancing and pointing her finger at a portrait of North Korean later founder Kim Il-sun.

Authorities shot six young people aged 16 to 17 on charges of watching videos and using opium in another incident, according to the report.

"The government will unwaveringly move to improve the North's human rights record by cooperating with the international community until North Koreans will live a humane life," Unification Minister Kwon Young-se was quoted as saying by the news agency.

The report also listed different types of human rights violations, including torture, sexual violence, and conducting medical experiments on the bodies of people with mental problems without their consent.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid​​​​​​​