Restrictions on communication and access to information are on the rise in North Korea, according to a new report, with Pyongyang’s growing crackdown on outside information leading to a more than 40-fold increase in related human rights violations in recent years.

In its new 2024 White Paper, the Seoul-based Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) states that 8.8% of reported incidents of human rights violations in the DPRK since 2020 were related to restrictions on outside information, a massive surge from the 0.2% recorded in the 2000s. 

However, NKDB researchers attributed the increase in part to the resumption