Study: N. Korea Reduced Public Executions in Reaction to S. Korean Criticism

Does Kim Jong Il care what South Koreans, Americans, or other earthlings say about his regime?

Citing interviews with about 50 North Korean defectors who fled their homeland between 2007 and 2008, the Korea Institute for National Unification said in a report that North Korea appears to be mindful of criticism from the international community about its human rights condition and has responded with limited changes.

According to the annual report “White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea 2009,” those interviewed said they had witnessed fewer public executions than before. The report also noted changes in the legal system in recent years in favor of human rights, such as a 2003 law on the protection of the disabled and revisions to the criminal law in 2004 and 2005 stiffening requirements for permission to interrogate or arrest individuals.

“North Korea appears to be reacting sensitively to criticism from the international community,” Kim Soo-am, a research fellow at the think tank and major author of the report, told reporters.

“Adjusting its legal system and reducing public executions, North Korea appears to be trying to find a way to reduce international criticism in a way that will not threaten the regime,” he said. [Yonhap]

There are several problems with this conclusion. First, there are no reliable before-and-after data to show that North Korea’s atrocities have actually declined. Second, even if such data did exist, this could easily be a case of coincidence being confused with causation.

That said, there are sound reasons not to dismiss this report completely. North Korea certainly puts on a harsh reaction to criticism of its system in its external media. That’s mostly for external consumption, but it’s hard to believe that a regime so obsessed with the creation of gauzy utopian illusions doesn’t care about how it is perceived. Otherwise, the people who write those KNCA screeds could just as well be put to work growing cabbages or tapping phones.

Close observers of events inside North Korea will tell you that foreign criticism sometimes has a discernible impact on how North Korea treats its own people. Part of that may be that foreign criticism makes its way inside North Korea these days.

Lisa Ling, take heed: silence isn’t going to help bring your sister home. Unleash the furies.