North Korea has hit out at the United Nations which is due to publish a report on the country's human rights abuses including evidence gathered by Amnesty International, the UK-based rights organisation.
In a statement sent to Reuters, the government called the UN report "fabricated and invented" and an "instrument of political plot".
North Korea "categorically and totally rejects" the report due to be published later on Monday.
"However, we will continue to strongly respond to the end to any attempt of regime-change and pressure under the pretext of 'human rights protection'," it said.
"The DPRK [North Korea] once again makes it clear that the human rights violations mentioned in the so-called 'report' do not exist in our country."
Disturbing accounts
The evidence includes powerful and disturbing accounts that tell of torture, rape and murder inside the country's labour camps where political prisoners are held.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea was set up last March to begin building a case for possible criminal prosecution.
"This may actually be the best chance we've had in a long time to raise the profile, to get more attention to the grave situation inside North Korea and to actually put pressure on the government at the UN and by other governments to make change on the ground," Roseann Rife, East Asia research director at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
However, defectors from the country and experts are deeply sceptical the exercise will have any effect on the North Korean regime as any attempt to follow up after the final report is issued on Monday is likely to be blocked by China.
North Korea denies crimes against humanity are taking place in the country and labels any criticism of its rights record as a US-led conspiracy.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2014/02/n-korea-hits-out-at-un-abuses-report-2014217104927326115.html
17/2/14
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- Report of Commission of Inquiry on Democratic People's Republic of Korea to go public on 17 February...
GENEVA (11 February 2014) – The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will hold a press conference on Monday 17 February, at 14:00 Geneva time (CET), on the publication of its unprecedented report, annexes, and extensive supporting documentation on human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Two members of the three-person Commission*, Michael Kirby and Marzuki Darusman, will hold the press conference in Press Room III, in the Palais des Nations, Geneva. The event will be webcast live at http://webtv.un.org/ , and the report itself, its annexes, and the detailed findings on which it is based, will be posted on www.ohchr.org at 14:00 on 17 February.
The Commission of Inquiry was established 11 months ago, in March 2013, by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to “investigate the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea... with a view to ensuring full accountability, in particular where these violations may amount to crimes against humanity.” Among the violations investigated are those linked to the right to food, and to prison camps, torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrary detention, discrimination, freedom of expression, the right to life, freedom of movement, and enforced disappearances, including abductions of nationals of other States.
As part of its investigations, the Commission conducted public hearings with more than 80 victims and other witnesses in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington D.C. Excerpts of witness testimony and illustrative individual cases will feature in a 372-page document, which will be published alongside the report itself.
The Commission is scheduled to formally present its findings to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 17 March.
Members of the Commission of Inquiry
* Mr. Michael Kirby, a retired Australian judge, is chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The other two members of the Commission are Ms. Sonja Biserko, a Serbian human rights expert, and Mr. Marzuki Darusman, a senior Indonesian jurist who has also served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK since 2010.
More information about the Commission of Inquiry, including fuller biographies of the Commissioners, is available on a special webpage at:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/CommissionInquiryonHRinDPRK.aspx
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http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14242&LangID=E
11/2/14
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L'ONU juge la Corée du Nord coupable de nombreux crimes contre l'humanité...
ReplyDeleteDes violations "systématiques et étendues" des droits de l'Homme sont commises par la Corée du Nord et dans de nombreux cas elles constituent des crimes contre l'humanité, souligne le premier rapport d'une Commission d'enquête de l'ONU diffusé lundi.
"La Commission a établi que des violations systématiques, étendues et grossières des droits de l'Homme ont été et sont commises par la République populaire démocratique de Corée, et dans de nombreuses cas, ces violations constituent des crimes contre l'humanité", affirme ce rapport, le premier à être aussi détaillé.
La Commission a été constituée en mai 2013 par le Conseil des Droits de l'Homme des Nations Unies à Genève. Elle appelle dans ses conclusions le Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies à saisir la Cour Pénale Internationale (CPI) pour que les responsables de ces crimes rendent des comptes. La Commission estime que "des centaines de milliers de prisonniers politiques ont péri dans des camps pendant les 50 dernières années", "graduellement éliminés par des famines délibérées, le travail forcé, les exécutions, la torture, les viols et le refus des droits de reproduction appliqués par des punition, des avortements forcés et des infanticides".
Les trois juristes internationaux qui la composent ont établi que le nombre de camps et de prisonniers a diminué suite aux décès et à quelques libérations mais ils ont estimé que "80 000 à 120 000 prisonniers politiques sont actuellement détenus dans quatre grands camps prisons pour les politiques".
Belga
http://www.rtbf.be/info/monde/detail_l-onu-juge-la-coree-du-nord-coupable-de-nombreux-crimes-contre-l-humanite?id=8203010
17/2/14
North Korea's Kim warned he might face charges over atrocities...
ReplyDelete(Reuters) - North Korean security chiefs and possibly even Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un himself should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, U.N. investigators said on Monday.
The investigators told Kim in a letter they were advising the United Nations to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC), to make sure any culprits "including possibly yourself" were held accountable.
North Korea "categorically and totally" rejected the accusations set out in a 372-page report, saying they were based on material faked by hostile forces backed by the United States, the European Union and Japan.
The unprecedented public rebuke and warning to a ruling head of state by a U.N. Commission of Inquiry is likely to further antagonize Kim and complicate efforts to persuade him to rein in his isolated country's nuclear weapons program and belligerent confrontations with South Korea and the West.
The U.N. investigators said they had also told Kim's main ally China that it might be "aiding and abetting crimes against humanity" by sending migrants and defectors back to North Korea to face torture and execution - a charge that Chinese officials had dismissed.
As referral to the Hague-based international court was seen as unlikely, given China's probable veto of any such move in the U.N. Security Council, thoughts were also turning to setting up some form of special tribunal on North Korea, diplomatic and U.N. sources told Reuters.
"We've collected all the testimony and can't just stop and wait 10 years. The idea is to sustain work," said one.
"STRIKINGLY SIMILAR" TO NAZI ERA
Michael Kirby, chairman of the independent Commission of Inquiry, told Reuters the crimes the team had catalogued were reminiscent of those committed by Nazis during World War Two..............http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/17/us-korea-north-un-idUSBREA1G0O720140217?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
17/2/14
Pillay calls for urgent action on “historic” DPRK report...
ReplyDeleteGENEVA (18 February 2014) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Tuesday welcomed the report of the independent UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which was published in Geneva on Monday, and said “its findings need to be treated with the greatest urgency, as they suggest that crimes against humanity of an unimaginable scale continue to be committed in the DPRK.”
“In January 2013, I urged the international community to put much more effort into tackling the human rights situation of people in DPRK,” Pillay said. “Two months later, the Commission of Inquiry was duly established by the Human Rights Council. It has now published a historic report, which sheds light on violations of a terrifying scale, the gravity and nature of which – in the report’s own words -- do not have any parallel in the contemporary world. There can no longer be any excuses for inaction.”
“Insufficient attention was being paid to the kind of horrific and sustained human rights violations that are reported to be taking place on an ongoing basis in the DPRK,” Pillay said. “That has now been partly rectified. We now need strong international leadership to follow up on the grave findings of the Commission of Inquiry. I therefore call on the international community, in line with the report’s recommendations, to use all the mechanisms at its disposal to ensure accountability, including referral to the International Criminal Court.”
“It is vitally important to maintain the momentum on addressing the serious violations that this remarkable report documents in such a comprehensive manner,” Pillay said. “The spotlight on human rights in the DPRK should not be dimmed as the news headlines fade away.”
The independent Commission of Inquiry is scheduled to formally present its report to the 47 Member States of the Human Rights Council, in Geneva, on 17 March 2014.
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14258&LangID=E
18/2/14