North Korea Plans Report on Human Rights

[Edison Chen]

North Korean defectors at an event to launch balloons with messages calling for the end of human rights abuses in North Korea, on May 3 in Paju, near the Demilitarized Zone. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

North Korea, unhappy with a damning, in-depth United Nations sponsored study of human rights conditions in the country, is planning its own assessment.

North Korea’s state news agency said Monday it would publish an “all-inclusive” report on human rights “to let people clearly know about the human rights performance in the DPRK and help them do away with their prejudice and misunderstanding.” North Korea’s formal name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK.

In a report earlier this year, a United Nations commission of inquiry alleged widespread crimes against humanity in North Korea and said Kim Jong Un and other officials had criminal responsibility under international law.

The commission spent a year collecting first-hand testimony from escapees from North Korea and other evidence that was compiled into a 400-page report of widespread and systematic human rights abuses, including a network of political prison camps where some inmates are tortured and starved to death.

North Korea, which rejected requests from the commission to visit the country, has repeatedly refuted the report. Its ambassador to the U.N. told the U.N. Human Rights Council to “mind its own business” when the council voted in March for the U.N. Security Council to seek accountability for those responsible for the alleged abuses.

Sokeel Park, director of research and strategy at Liberty in North Korea, a nongovernmental organization based in Seoul, noted that the U.N. General Assembly reconvenes in September and will discuss and vote on a resolution reaffirming the commission report findings.

“This is Pyongyang’s attempt to get out in front of that and influence some of the non-aligned countries that might waver on stronger condemnatory language,” he said.

North Korea said its assessment would “show the true picture of the people of the DPRK dynamically advancing toward a brighter and rosy future while enjoying a free and happy life under the socialist system centered on the popular masses.”

It said the report will be published by the DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies. Mr. Park said the association is a body that North Korea cites from time to time when it wants to respond to international human rights criticism or bash South Korea on a human rights issue.

“But such an association being used for anything other than propaganda value in North Korea is about as likely as Jang Song Thaek making a glorious return on a mythical North Korean unicorn,” he added, referring to the executed uncle of Kim Jong Un.

North Korea’s system of city-sized gulags is estimated by experts and defectors to hold 80,000-120,000 people. Citizens that resist state controls on political expression risk arbitrary arrest, detention and execution. Since coming to power in late 2011, Kim Jong Un has tightened border controls to prevent escapees, but some still manage to flee the country.

North Korea Plans Report on Human Rights - Korea Real Time - WSJ

 

[xesy]

Those women are NK defectors? I thought that only NK soldiers stationed near the DMZ can defect to SK. Most NK choose to defect to China or Russia, where the border defense is not as tight as the DMZ.

 

[thesolar65]

 

[Edison Chen]

N.Korea's metro was built in 1966, with the assistance of China, USSR.

 

[Aepsilons]

Impressive. I can only imagine the possibilities if the NK regime opened to capitalism.

 

[xesy]

NK was East Germany of Asia during the Cold War. I expect they to have developed more because unlike VN which was supported with guns and missles, NK was supported with money and engineers.