North Korea denies holding any political prisoners.

North Korea denies holding any political prisoners. Its official media say there are no human rights issues in the communist State where everybody leads “the most dignified and happy life.”
In its 2001 report to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) the government of North Korea claimed that it had reduced the number of criminal offences carrying the death penalty from 33 to 5. However, the HRC noted that 4 of the 5 offences were essentially political and “couched in terms so broad that the imposition of the death penalty may be subject to essentially subjective criteria, and not confined to the ‘most serious crimes’ only.”
The five capital offences are conspiracy against the state power, high treason, terrorism, anti-national treachery and international murder.
In late 2004, Officials at Seoul's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), confirmed a news report saying North Korea had revised its criminal code on April 29, 2004. Under the new code, North Koreans found guilty of organizing insurgencies against the government would be sentenced either to death or to life in one of the country's notorious labour camps. Previously, the penalty was 10 years of hard labour or the death sentence.
Defectors, defined as those "who betray the fatherland and run away to other states," were previously jailed for up to 10 years. That ceiling had been lifted and they could be jailed for life or executed, though they must be sentenced to a minimum of five years under the new law.
On 1 March 2006, the authorities of North Korea issued a special decree which provides for the death penalty for those packages and traffics drugs and replace the new criminal code adopted by North Korea in 2004.
According to a set of addendums to the “DPRK Penal Code” adopted in 2007 that leaked out of North Korea, execution is permitted for some ordinary crimes in addition to those stipulated by the full penal code itself. For instance, in cases of currency forgery, the full penal code stipulates more than 10-years of labour re-education, or indefinite re-education in serious cases, but one of the addendum articles also states, “Under extreme circumstances, one can be subject to execution.” Although these articles were adopted in 2007, they were not publicized to the outside world. Seventeen out of the 23 articles contained in the document, called the “DPRK Penal Code Additional Clauses (ordinary crimes),” legalize execution for “especially serious cases” of certain crimes, while the full penal code only stipulates execution for four crimes of a treasonous nature, not for ordinary crimes. The Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) adopted the addendum articles in the form of Ordinance No. 2483 on December 19th, 2007. The ordinance is in the form of a legal code authorized by the Supreme People’s Assembly’s (SPA) Presidium, the highest organ within the SPA, which holds legal authority during SPA recesses. Article 1 stipulates, “For extreme acts pertaining to combat resources and the intentional destruction of military facilities, execution is permissible." The existing penal code, however, only stipulates, “Under particularly heavy circumstances, a sentence of more than 10 years labour re-education or indefinite labour re-education is appropriate.” Other crimes that are deemed to be grave enough to warrant execution under the addendum articles include: plundering and theft of national assets, destruction/damage to national assets, currency fraud, intentional defamation, kidnapping, rape, theft of private assets, smuggling of metals, smuggling of the nation’s natural resources, drug smuggling, and taking bribes for sex trafficking. Importantly, Article 23 stipulates an indefinite labour re-education sentence or execution if an individual commits a number of serious crimes, or does not show acceptable signs of guilt or reform. In the mid-1990s, extra-judicial public executions took place of those found guilty of committing crimes such the theft of cows or food, crimes which were actually happening in all areas of North Korean society. After the enactment of Article 23, however, the form of punishment has become possible within the judicial process. As Article 23 makes clear, the penal code does not regard specific criminal acts with hostility, but makes execution permissible ‘under heavy circumstances’ or for ‘incorrigible persons’ in general. If this is the case, then execution sentences can in theory apply to all offenses, which is a serious violation of established legal principles, albeit that such violations are not new in North Korean legal practice. According to its constitution, North Korea guarantees freedom of religion. But in reality, the regime severely restricts religious observance, authorizing four State churches: one Catholic, two Protestant and one Russian Orthodox. However, they cater to foreigners only, and ordinary North Koreans cannot attend the services. Other public and private religious activity is prohibited and anyone discovered engaging in clandestine religious practice faces official discrimination, arrest, imprisonment, and possibly execution. Still, more than 30,000 North Koreans are believed to practice Christianity in hiding – at great personal risk, defectors and activists say. In a May 2009 report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom cited defectors as saying an estimated 6,000 Christians are jailed in “Prison No. 15” in the north of the Country, with religious prisoners facing worse treatment than other inmates. North Korea continues to persecute Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists and members of clandestine Christian churches. Christians are imprisoned, beaten, tortured and killed for reading the Bible or preaching about God, and particularly for having ties with evangelical groups operating across the border in China.
In January 2011, a diplomatic source familiar with North Korean affairs told The Chosunilbo newspaper that “Since last year, the regime has put a notice on bulletin boards warning that those who use Chinese-made mobile phones or illegally circulate dollars face public execution.” Jang Se-yul of the North Korean People’s Liberation Front, a group of former North Korean soldiers and officers who defected to South Korea, said the Workers Party had included a new clause in its regulation “to oppose and fight against anti-socialist trends.” A South Korean intelligence official said the phrase refers to elements of capitalism that have flowed in from South Korea. “The regime has paved the way to publicly execute even people who watch South Korean soap operas or dress in South Korean style, branding them as anti-party elements,” he said.
In January 2012, a document entitled ‘Strengthen the Border Zone and Raise Consciousness Levels to Enhance the Dignity of Our Socialism’ was released by the Chosun [Korean] Workers’ Party Publishing House, and has been used in lectures to civilians. The death penalty is the right answer for those who betray the people of North Korea and the Socialist revolution. For the first time since the founding of Kim Il-sung’s regime, an official document by the Chosun (Korean) Workers’ Party asserts this principle to remind North Koreans what awaits them should they think about fleeing. This comes at a time when the rise of Kim Jong-un, third son and heir to the ‘dear leader’, appears to be pushing many North Koreans to leave the Country, the DailyNK reported. As is consistently the case in North Korea, the document appears to be based on the late Kim Jong-il’s supposed “last instructions”, whereby “The thorough sealing of the border is one of the responsible and important tasks in the realization of the General’s last instructions.” “The high political consciousness of the border people is not an operational issue; it is the weightiest and most honourable task in protecting our socialism and defending the heads of the revolution with our very lives from their foul schemes,” it said.
On 15 May 2012, Chinese security forces launched a massive crackdown on North Korean defectors in Jilin Province’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, in North-eastern China, above the border with North Korea. Chinese officials said the crackdown was part of a nationwide campaign against illegal aliens. Security forces in Yanbian told reporters the crackdown, aiming to wipe out all the places where North Koreans hide, will continue until October 2012, Chinese media reported. North Korean defectors caught in Yanbian or neighbouring areas would be arrested and sent back to North Korea. Around 10,000-15,000 defectors and other illegal migrants from the North are believed to be living in Yanbian.
In 2013, there were reports of executions to discourage the practice of cannibalism linked to extreme poverty that has reduced the country.
In 2006 Hands Off Cain recorded 3 executions, and at least 13 in 2007, , 77 in 2008, 11 in 2009, 60 in 2010, 30 in 2011 and 4 in 2012.
On December 20, 2012, North Korea voted against the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.