North Korea is a one-party state led by a dynastic totalitarian dictatorship that regularly engages in grave human rights abuses. Surveillance is pervasive, arbitrary arrests and detention are common, and punishments for political offenses are severe.

The NGO Freedom House has ranked North Korea at the very bottom of its "Freedom in the World" ratings since the survey was first launched in 1973. [161] In Freedom House's 2013 survey, North Korea was one of nine countries that earned a 7 (its lowest rating) for both political rights and civil liberties. [162]

Under totalitarian leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea maintains fearful obedience through arbitrary punishments, torture, executions, unjust imprisonment, and forced labor. Sexual and domestic...

Feb 29, 2024 · North Korea is a one-party state led by a dynastic totalitarian dictatorship that regularly engages in grave human rights abuses. Surveillance is pervasive, arbitrary arrests and detention are common, and punishments for political offenses are severe.

Jun 5, 2018 · On December 11, 2017, for the fourth consecutive year, the UN Security Council put North Korea’s egregious human rights violations on its formal agenda as a threat to international peace and...

Ruled by third-generation totalitarian leader Kim Jong Un, the government maintains fearful obedience by using threats of torture, executions, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, and forced...

Stay up to date on the state of human rights in North Korea with the latest research, campaigns and education material from Amnesty International.

In its 2022 Freedom in the World report, Freedom House wrote that members of the ethnic Chinese population had “limited educational and employment opportunities, but somewhat more freedom of travel and trade.”

Global freedom statuses are calculated on a weighted scale. See the methodology. North Korea is a one-party state led by a dynastic totalitarian dictatorship. Surveillance is pervasive, arbitrary arrests and detention are common, and punishments for political offenses are severe.

In Freedom in the World 2021: North Korea, Freedom House reported that small-scale local markets were a “prime target” of corrupt police officers who solicited bribes from the operators, detaining those who could not pay, and that market participants also paid bribes to supervisors at their official workplaces to avoid discipline or ...