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What Kim Jong Un Really Fears: Outside Information

Since COVID-19, the grounds for execution in North Korea have been shifting away from ordinary violent crime and toward outside information, religion, and political dissent.

In this photo from North Korean state media, Kim Jong Un delivers an address at the first session of the 15th Supreme People’s Assembly, Mar. 23, 2026.

North Korea’s use of executions is nothing new. Public executions have long been one of the regime’s signature tools for instilling fear in the population. What deserves attention is not the existence of executions, but the fact that the reasons for them are changing.

A recent report by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a Seoul-based human rights organization that documents and maps human rights violations in North Korea, shows how patterns of execution under Kim Jong Un’s rule have shifted around the COVID-19 border closure. The report analyzed 144 cases of execution or death sentences during the Kim Jong Un era and found that at least 358 people were executed across 136 confirmed cases. As the report emphasizes, these figures represent a confirmed minimum; the true scale is likely larger.

The critical finding is this: since COVID-19, the grounds for execution have been shifting away from ordinary violent crime and toward outside information, South Korean culture, religion, and political dissent. In other words, what the Kim Jong Un regime now fears is not simple criminality. It is the process by which North Korean people come to know the outside world, make comparisons, and begin to imagine a different life.

Through the Ninth Party Congress, held February 19-25, 2026, North Korea projected an image of external strength: nuclear weapons, missiles, military cooperation with Russia, and anti-American solidarity. Yet internally, the regime is imposing extreme punishment for watching a South Korean drama, listening to a foreign song, getting involved with religion, or voicing even minor political discontent. This contradiction reveals the nature of the Kim Jong Un system. North Korea presents itself as strong, but it fears its people knowing too much.

The COVID-19 Border Closure: A Turning Point

COVID-19 was not merely a health crisis for North Korea. The authorities sealed the border in January 2020 and simultaneously cut off the flow of people, goods, and information. Officially framed as an epidemic control measure, the closure is now understood to have served as an opportunity to reorganize and intensify the system of population control.

The TJWG report divided the periods before and after the border closure into equal windows of 1,783 days each for comparison. The results are striking. Cases of execution or death sentence rose from 30 before the closure to 65 afterward, an increase of 116.7 percent. The number of individuals executed or sentenced to death climbed from 44 to 153, a rise of 247.7 percent.

This suggests that the intensification of state violence after COVID-19 was not temporary. The governance structure itself was reorganized along more coercive lines. The border closure was not simply a barrier against a virus. It was a multipurpose barrier against outside information, population movement, market activity, and social discontent.

The Kim Jong Un regime used the exceptional circumstances of COVID-19 as a vehicle to extend its management of daily life and thought deeper into the population. Epidemic control was the justification; the practical effect was an expansion of control. The border closure ultimately shifted from a physical seal to an ideological one.

The Grounds for Execution Have Changed

The most significant finding in the report is the shift in the stated grounds for execution. Before the border closure, murder was the most commonly cited basis for a death sentence. After the closure, outside culture and information, including South Korean films, dramas, and music, along with religion and so-called “superstition,” rose to become the leading grounds.

According to the report, cases of execution or death sentence related to outside culture, information, religion, and superstition increased from four before the border closure to 14 afterward, a rise of 250 percent. The number of individuals involved grew from seven to 38, an increase of 442.9 percent. By contrast, execution cases related to murder fell from nine to five.

This shift matters enormously. It means the North Korean authorities no longer treat South Korean dramas or foreign music as merely prohibited content. They treat them as a political threat capable of destabilizing the loyalty structures on which the regime depends. Once North Korean people encounter the outside world, the worldview the authorities have constructed becomes difficult to sustain.

North Korea’s crackdown on outside culture is therefore not a cultural matter. It is about information control, ideological control, and regime security. What the Kim Jong Un regime fears is not the act of watching a South Korean drama in itself, but the moment that drama prompts a viewer to compare their own life with the world beyond.

Another notable post-COVID trend is the increase in politically motivated executions. The report finds a sharp rise since the border closure in cases of execution or death sentence involving violations of Kim Jong Un’s directives and criticism of Kim, the party, or the State Information Bureau (formerly called the Ministry of State Security), North Korea’s primary political security agency.

Specifically, cases of execution or death sentence with a political character increased from four before the closure to 13 afterward, a rise of 225 percent. The number of individuals involved grew from four to 28, an increase of 600 percent. The report suggested this may reflect either a response to rising internal discontent or a deliberate escalation of state violence designed to suppress trouble before it can spread.

This speaks to the instability underlying the Kim Jong Un system. Externally, Kim projects the image of a confident leader:........

© The Diplomat