Freedom in the World 2018 - North Korea

Freedom Status: Not Free
Aggregate Score: 3 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)
Freedom Rating: 7.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)
Political Rights: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)
Civil Liberties: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 25,100,000
Capital: Pyongyang
GDP/capita: $1,800
Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

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. The state maintains a system of camps for political prisoners where torture, forced labor, starvation, and other atrocities take place. While some social and economic changes have been observed in recent years, including a growth in small-scale private business activity, human rights violations are still widespread, grave, and systematic.

Key Developments in 2017:

• The North Korean military conducted its sixth test of a nuclear weapon and about a dozen rounds of missile tests during the year, drawing condemnation and a series of harsher economic sanctions from the UN Security Council and individual states.

• Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was assassinated with VX nerve agent at a Malaysian airport in February, allegedly on orders from the North Korean government. A group of Malaysian citizens were detained in North Korea until the end of March, when the Malaysian authorities agreed to repatriate Kim Jong-nam's body and belongings.

• In June, North Korean authorities released U.S. citizen Otto Warmbier, who had been arrested while visiting the country in 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. Warmbier had suffered severe brain damage while in custody and died six days after his release. With three Americans still detained in North Korea, the United States banned U.S. citizens from further travel to the country.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 0 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 0 / 12

Kim Jong-un became the country's supreme leader after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011. The elder Kim had led North Korea since the 1994 death of his own father, Kim Il-sung, to whom the office of president was permanently dedicated in a 1998 constitutional revision. In June 2016, the Supreme People's Assembly established the State Affairs Commission as the country's top ruling organ and elected Kim Jong-un as chairman. Kim already held a variety of other titles, including first chairman of the National Defense Commission -- previously the highest state body -- and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army.

The 687-seat Supreme People's Assembly, North Korea's unicameral legislature, is elected to five-year terms. All candidates are preselected by the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland -- a coalition dominated by the ruling Korean Workers' Party (KWP) with representation from a handful of subordinate parties and organizations. Each candidate then runs unopposed. All citizens aged 17 and older are eligible to vote, and voting rates are reported at close to 100 percent. In the last elections in 2014, the official voter turnout figure was 99.97 percent.

Elections were held in July 2015 for 28,452 provincial, city, and county people's assembly members. Voter turnout was again reported to be 99.97 percent, with all candidates preselected and running unopposed.

Although there is a clear framework for conducting elections, including official election monitors, the system's structure denies voters any choice and rules out any opposition to the incumbent leadership. The government uses the mandatory elections as an unofficial census, keeping track of whether and how people voted, and interprets any rejection of the preselected candidates as treason.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 0 / 16

North Korea is effectively a one-party state. Although a small number of minor parties and organizations legally exist, all are members of the KWP-led Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland.

Any political dissent or opposition is prohibited and harshly punished. The country has been ruled by the KWP since its founding, and the party itself has always been controlled by the Kim family. Kim Jong-il was dubbed the "eternal general secretary" of the party after his death. At the KWP's tightly controlled seventh party congress in 2016, Kim Jong-un, previously the party's "first secretary," was elected to the newly created position of chairman.

The general public has no opportunity for political participation, and even KWP elites operate under the threat of extreme penalties for perceived dissent or disloyalty. The party is subject to regular purges aimed at reinforcing the leader's personal authority. Executions of dismissed senior officials continued to be reported in 2017, though such accounts are often difficult to confirm.

North Korea is ethnically homogeneous, with only a small Chinese population and few non-Chinese foreign residents. Foreigners are not allowed to join the KWP or serve in the military or government. Religious groups are harshly suppressed and unable to organize politically. Women hold few leadership positions in the ruling party and about 16 percent of the seats in the Supreme People's Assembly; the system does not allow such representatives to independently address the interests of women. The government typically denies the existence of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people in North Korea.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 0 / 12

North Korea has no freely elected officials. Kim Jong-un and his inner circle determine the policies of the government, and the Supreme People's Assembly gathers for brief sessions once or twice a year to unanimously approve all decisions.

Corruption is believed to be endemic at every level of the state and economy, and bribery is pervasive. There are no independent or impartial anticorruption mechanisms.

The government is neither transparent in its operations nor accountable to the public. Information about the functioning of state institutions is tightly controlled for both domestic and external audiences.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 3 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 0 / 16

All domestic media outlets are run by the state. Televisions and radios are permanently fixed to state channels, and all publications are subject to strict supervision and censorship.

In recent years, several foreign news agencies have established bureau offices in Pyongyang. However, access is still tightly controlled for these organizations, and the government has been known to expel media crews in retaliation for their work. In August 2017, a North Korean court sentenced two South Korean journalists and their publishers to death in absentia for reviewing the book North Korea Confidential and interviewing its authors, who describe recent economic and social changes in the country.

Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and a number of South Korean outlets broadcast shortwave and medium-wave radio programming into North Korea. In September 2017, the British Broadcasting Corporation also launched a Korean-language radio service aimed largely at a North Korean audience. Campaigns to send information into the country via USB and SD cards are also common, though North Koreans' consumption of either foreign radio broadcasts or these contraband devices is subject to severe punishment if detected by authorities.

Although freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution, it does not exist in practice. State-sanctioned churches maintain a token presence in Pyongyang, and some North Koreans who live near the Chinese border are known to practice their faiths furtively. However, intense state indoctrination and repression preclude free exercise of religion. North Korean citizens caught practicing a religious faith are arrested and face harsh punishments, including imprisonment in labor camps. Foreigners caught proselytizing also risk arrest and detention.

There is no academic freedom. The state must approve all curriculums, including those of educational programs led by foreigners. Although some North Koreans are permitted to study abroad, at both universities and short-term educational training programs, those granted such opportunities are subject to monitoring and reprisals for perceived disloyalty.

Nearly all forms of private communication are monitored by a huge network of informants. Domestic mobile-phone service has been available since 2008, though the phones are also hardwired to record and transmit calls and text messages back to state security agencies for surveillance purposes. Domestic and international mobile services are kept strictly separate, and crackdowns on users of Chinese-origin phones have been reported.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 0 / 12

Freedom of assembly is not recognized, and participants in any unauthorized gatherings are subject to severe punishment, including prison sentences.

There are no legal associations or organizations other than those created by the state and ruling party.

Strikes, collective bargaining, and other organized labor activities are illegal and can draw severe punishment for participants, including prison sentences.

F. RULE OF LAW: 0 / 16

North Korea's judiciary is subordinate to the political leadership in law and in practice. According to the constitution, the Central Court, the country's highest court, is accountable to the Supreme People's Assembly, and its duties include protecting "state power and the socialist system."

It is estimated that 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners are held in detention camps in the country.

Detention of foreigners for allegedly breaking North Korean laws has become a recurring problem. In June 2017, U.S. citizen Otto Warmbier was released after being charged, tried, and sentenced for a "hostile act" against North Korea in early 2016. He was accused of stealing a propaganda poster. Warmbier had apparently been in a coma for over a year at the time of his release, and he died six days after returning home. Three other U.S. citizens remained in detention. In August, North Korea released Canadian pastor Lim Hyeon-soo, who had been serving a life sentence of hard labor since late 2015 for alleged crimes against the state.

Documented North Korean human rights violations include widespread torture, public executions, forced labor by detainees, and death sentences for political offenses.

Ignoring international objections, the Chinese government continues to return refugees and defectors to North Korea, where they are subject to torture, harsh imprisonment, or execution.

The most prevalent form of discrimination is based on perceived political and ideological nonconformity rather than ethnicity. All citizens are classified according to their family's level of loyalty and proximity to the leadership under a semihereditary caste-like system known as songbun.

Women have legal equality, but they face rigid discrimination in practice and are poorly represented in public employment and the military. Although they have fewer opportunities in the formal sector, women are economically active outside the socialist system, exposing them to arbitrary state restrictions.

The law does not prohibit same-sex sexual activity, but the government maintains that the practice does not exist in North Korea.

In May 2017, authorities allowed the UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Catalina Devandas-Aguilar, to tour the country. She noted that North Korea's Federation for the Protection of the Disabled promotes the creation of associations for people with disabilities, including deaf and blind people, but said "there is still a long way to go" to realize their rights.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 3 / 16

Citizens have no freedom of movement, and forced internal resettlement is routine. Emigration is illegal. A person's songbun classification affects his or her place of residence as well as employment and educational opportunities, access to medical facilities, and even access to stores. All foreign travel -- whether for work, trade, or educational opportunities -- is strictly controlled by the government.

Freedom of movement for foreigners in North Korea is also limited and subject to arbitrary constraints. In March 2017, when the Malaysian government refused to return the body of Kim Jong-nam to North Korea, the North Korean government prevented Malaysian citizens in the country from leaving. They were released only when Kim Jong-nam's body and possessions were turned over to North Korea later than month.

The formal economy remains both centrally planned and grossly mismanaged. Business activity is also hobbled by a lack of infrastructure, a scarcity of energy and raw materials, an inability to borrow on world markets or from multilateral banks because of sanctions, lingering foreign debt, and ideological isolationism. However, expanding informal and government-approved private markets and service industries have provided many North Koreans with a growing field of activity that is relatively free from government control. Local officials have had some authority in the management of special economic zones and over small-scale experiments with market-oriented economic policies.

Men and women have formal equality in personal status matters such as marriage and divorce. However, sexual and physical violence against women -- in the home, in prisons and labor camps, and in other situations -- is common, and victims have little legal recourse. There are no specific legal penalties for domestic violence. UN bodies have noted the use of forced abortions and infanticide against pregnant women who are forcibly repatriated from China.

Forced labor is common in prison camps, mass mobilization programs, and state-run contracting arrangements in which North Korean workers are sent abroad. There have been widespread reports of trafficked women and girls among the tens of thousands of North Koreans who have crossed into China. Due to changing economic conditions, prostitution has reportedly become common in North Korea itself in recent years.

Economic opportunity has been affected by escalating international sanctions in response to North Korea's weapons tests and threats of military aggression. New sanctions imposed during 2017 targeted a variety of civilian industries such as textiles and seafood, and tightened banking restrictions to limit North Korea's access to international financial institutions. Nevertheless, markets and quasi-private businesses have expanded over time. Agricultural reforms have allowed larger percentages of crop yields to be kept by households, presumably to either consume or sell in the markets.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received
Y = Best Possible Score
Z = Change from Previous Year