EU calls for probe into N Korea abuse claims

THE European Union, backed by countries including the US, expressed concern yesterday at reports of grave and systematic abuses in North Korea, including “infanticide in prison and labour camps”.

The EU, in a resolution presented to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on behalf of 37 countries, also called for the appointment of a special UN investigator to go to the reclusive, Stalinist country.

It was the second year in a row the EU had brought a resolution on North Korea at the annual six-week session, which will vote on a raft of proposals late next week. Last year, the UN forum issued its first ever condemnation of abuses there.

“It is a stronger resolution than last year. There are credible reports, unfortunately, of infanticide in camps,” an EU diplomat said. “We are asking the government to allow media and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) to disprove these reports. If the authorities have a story to tell we are willing to listen,” the diplomat said.

There was no immediate comment from North Korea’s observer delegation at the talks.

Kang Won Cheol, a North Korean defector, said that he hoped that the resolution would serve as a wake-up call.

“People need to know what is going on in North Korea,” he told a Commission seminar. He described a North Korean defector being beaten to death upon return from China, women inmates forced to abort as well as a public execution he was forced to watch as a schoolboy.

Concerns have grown since a documentary aired by Britain’s BBC in February, which featured a document that said North Korea had tested chemical weapons on political prisoners and quoted a man who said he had seen a family die in a gas chamber at a camp.

The EU resolution expresses concern at “imposition of the death penalty for political reasons” as well as torture, public executions, arbitrary detention and extensive forced labour.

“All-pervasive and severe restrictions” on freedoms of thought, religion, expression and assembly are also cited.

South Korea, China and Russia have not signed the resolution and are unlikely to do so, according to diplomats.