Public executions for theft and prostitution

SEOUL: North Korea carries out public executions on river banks and at school grounds and marketplaces for charges such as stealing copper from factory machines, distributing media from South Korea and prostitution, a report issued yesterday said.

The report, by a Seoul-based non-government group, said the often extra-judicial decisions for public executions are frequently influenced by “bad” family background or a government campaign to discourage certain behaviour.

The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) said its report was based on interviews with 375 North Korean defectors from the isolated state over a period of two years.

The TJWG is made up of human rights activists and researchers and is led by Lee Younghwan, who has worked as an advocate for human rights in North Korea.

It receives most of its funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn is funded by the US Congress.

The report aims to document the locations of public killings and mass burials, which it says had not been done previously, to support a global push to hold to account those who commit what it describes as crimes against humanity.

“The maps and the accompanying testimonies create a picture of the scale of the abuses that have taken place over decades,” the group said.

TJWG said executions are carried out in prison camps to incite fear and intimidation among potential escapees, and public executions are carried out for seemingly minor crimes, including the theft of farm produce such as corn and rice.

Stealing electric cables and other commodities from factories to sell them and distribution of South Korean-produced media are also subject to executions, which are most commonly administered by shooting, it said.

Testimonies also showed people can be beaten to death, with one interviewee saying: “Some crimes were considered not worth wasting bullets on.”

Government officials were executed on corruption and espionage charges, and bureaucrats from other regions would be made to watch “as a deterrence tactic”, the report said. – Reuters