North Korea began the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on February 20, 2026, signaling a tightening of control over youth and access to information.

A key focus of the Party Congress was the current state of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s “five-point strategy for building the party in the new era,” as outlined at the Eighth Party Congress in 2021. Human Rights Watch expressed concerns about the increased repression.

As the country’s most significant political gathering, the Party Congress sets ideological direction, resets policy, and consolidates political power. Since 2021, the regime has intensified repression with strict ideological and information controls targeting the younger generation, alongside tighter market restrictions.

Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher at Human Rights Watch, criticized the move, stating “North Korea’s leadership claims the Party Congress will shape the country’s future, but this is most likely a message of fear, coercion, and deprivation” and added “the government should address economic hardship, lack of opportunity, and barriers to health care, instead of silencing youth and extracting labor through coercion.”

Specifically, Kim Jong Un urged the youth to abandon their dreams to state demands by praising young people who subordinated their dreams to state demands by saying, “In their days of dreams and ambitions, our young people are preserving the original features of young Koreans and faithfully performing their mission of successors by dedicating their precious youth to the call of the times and their country.”

Since January, the government has accelerated the completion of factories and infrastructure development, relying heavily on unpaid labour through labour quotas and punishing those who fail to meet targets. Alongside continued use of unpaid forced labour, the government has intensified the enforcement of legislation restricting access to foreign information and cultural expression, including the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Law, the Youth Education Guarantee Law, and the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Law.