North Korea executes human beings for drugs, sharing South Korean media, and spiritual sports because it stifles its citizens` human rights and freedom, its rival, South Korea, stated in a file on Thursday. South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, primarily based totally the 450-web page file on testimony accrued from 2017 to 2022 from greater than 500 North Koreans who fled from their homeland.
“North Korean citizens’ proper to existence seems to be significantly threatened,” the ministry stated withinside the file. “Executions are broadly performed for acts that don’t justify the demise penalty, such as drug crimes, distribution of South Korean videos, and spiritual and superstitious sports.”
Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the South Korean government’s findings however they have been consistent with U.N. investigations and reviews from non-governmental organisations. North Korea has rejected complaint of its rights situations as a part of a plot to overthrow its rulers.
The file gave info of rampant state-led rights abuses in communities, jail camps and elsewhere, such as public executions, torture and arbitrary arrests. Deaths and torture often arise in detention centers and a few human beings have been summarily carried out after being stuck looking to pass the border, the ministry stated.
The file got here as South Korea seeks to focus on its remoted neighbour’s failure to enhance residing situations whilst racing to reinforce its nuclear and missile arsenals. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stated the file need to higher tell the global network of the North’s “gruesome” abuses, pronouncing North Korea deserved “now no longer a unmarried penny” of monetary resource whilst it pursues its nuclear ambitions.
The technique via way of means of the conservative Yoon is a wonderful departure from that of his liberal predecessor, Moon Jae-in, who confronted complaint for his much less outspoken role at the North’s rights as he sought to enhance ties and construct rapport with its leader, Kim Jong Un. The Unification Ministry is needed via way of means of regulation to make an annual evaluation of the North’s rights situation.
Nearly 34,000 North Koreans have settled in South Korea however the variety of defectors has fallen sharply due to tighter border security. North Korean arrivals hit an rock bottom of simply sixty three in 2021, amid COVID-19 shutdowns, earlier than edging as much as sixty seven in 2022, ministry records showed.