A new report by a Seoul-based human rights group has indicated a sharp spike in executions over foreign culture, religion and "superstition" in North Korea .

The Transnational Justice Working Group (TJWG) investigated executions in North Korea before and after the border closure in January 2020, which the country's dictator Kim Jong Un ostensibly ordered to protect the country from the COVID-19 virus . As part of their research, they interviewed 880 defectors from the Kim dictatorship .

They found that 153 people were condemned to death in North Korea between January 2020 and mid-December 2024 on various charges.…