On 31 December, residents of Monkey Village in the Opebi area of Lagos state were forcibly evicted when houses and buildings were demolished by bulldozers with the aid of police and thugs.
DEATH PENALTY Courts continued to impose death sentences, but no executions were carried out. In August, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a musician, was sentenced to death by hanging for blasphemy by the Upper Shari’a Court in Kano.
NORTH KOREA Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Head of state: Kim Jong-un Head of government: Kim Tok-hun (replaced Kim Jaeryong in August) In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the authorities enforced even more severe restrictions on the rights to freedom of movement and expression. Significant parts of the population suffered from food shortages and inadequate health care. The government continued to refuse entry to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, amid numerous reports of arbitrary detention and gender-based violence.
BACKGROUND The government reported no cases of COVID-19 during the year. On 24 July, it ordered a lockdown of the city of Kaesong on the border with South Korea, after it suspected a man who had returned from South Korea of being infected with the virus. He eventually tested negative for COVID-19. The government ended the lockdown on 14 August. Relations with South Korea deteriorated. The Inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong was closed on 30 January to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In June, authorities warned that they would destroy the office,
Amnesty International Report 2020/21
while condemning the South Korean government for failing to stop North Korean activists living in South Korea from sending politically sensitive leaflets over the border using balloons and drones. On 16 June, the authorities demolished the office building.
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT On 22 January, the authorities closed all borders and imposed a total ban on the movement of people and goods in and out of the country, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Prior to this, North Koreans already needed to secure government approval to leave the country. Due to the reinforced border security measures, only 195 North Koreans resettled in South Korea between 1 January and 30 September, the lowest number since 2003 when records were first made available.
EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS On 22 September, the military shot dead a South Korean civilian official floating on an object in North Korean waters after questioning him at a distance. Three days later, the government issued a public apology to the South Korean President but did not mention whether an investigation or judicial procedures had been initiated into the killing. Earlier that month, foreign media reported that the Ministry of Social Security had empowered border guards to shoot unauthorized people coming within 1km of the North Korean-Chinese border, as part of the stricter border security measures to prevent COVID-19 infections.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS More than 70% of North Koreans who left the country and settled in South Korea since 2003 were women and girls. Some of these North Korean women told Amnesty International that sexual and other violence against women and girls was common in their home country, but the topic was taboo and people often blamed the victim. Frequently, the women remained silent about such abuses, even when continuing to suffer similar treatment after leaving North Korea.
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