Since Independence in 1948, 902 people have been executed...

Since Independence in 1948, 902 people have been executed in South Korea, most of them by hanging. Dozens of offences carry the death penalty, ranging from murder to the theft of "national treasures." More than half of those executed up to 1987 had violated the National Security Law, a set of stringent strictures prohibiting even the vaguest expression of sympathy for communist North Korea. Since relations with the North began improving a few years ago, South Korea's overall climate has become more relaxed and, along with that, public attitudes toward capital punishment. No death-row inmate has been executed since Kim Dae Jung came to power in February 1998.