The North Korean government is increasingly implementing the death penalty, including for people caught watching and sharing foreign films and TV dramas, a major UN report has revealed.

The dictatorship, which remains largely isolated from the world, is also subjugating people while further restricting their freedoms, the report added.

The UN Human Rights Office found that over the past decade the North Korean state had tightened control over "all aspects of citizens' lives."

"No other population is under such restrictions in the world today," it concluded, adding that surveillance had become "more widespread," helped in part by advances in technology.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that if this situation continues, North Koreans "will be subjected to more of the suffering, brutal oppression and fear they have endured for so long."

The report, which is based on more than 300 interviews with people who have escaped from North Korea in the past 10 years, found that the death penalty is being used more frequently.

At least six new laws have been introduced since 2015 that allow for the imposition of the sentence.

A crime that can now be punished by death is watching and sharing foreign media content, such as movies and TV dramas, as Kim Jong Un works to successfully limit people's access to information.

Fugitives told UN researchers that from 2020 onwards, there have been more executions for distributing foreign content.

They describe how these executions are carried out by firing squads in public to instill fear in people and discourage them from breaking the law.

Kang Gyuri, who escaped in 2023, said three of her friends were executed after being caught with South Korean content.

She was at the trial of a 23-year-old friend who was sentenced to death.

"He was tried alongside drug criminals. These crimes are treated the same now," she said, adding that since 2020 people had become more afraid.