UN calls for improved human rights in North Korea

A UN human rights expert has called on North Korea to give its citizens more freedoms and overhaul its administration of justice.

But North Korea insisted it does not violate human rights and accused the US and the European Union of perpetrating “slanderous allegations” to isolate the country.

Thai law professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, the first independent expert to investigate human rights in the reclusive communist nation, said yesterday that “there’s a certain pattern that’s very, very worrying” in the government’s implementation of its human rights commitments.

In his first report to the General Assembly’s human rights committee on Thursday, Muntarbhorn called for immediate action to improve North Korea’s prison system, abolish capital and corporal punishment and forced labour, promote an independent judiciary, and allow citizens freedom of expression, movement, political participation and religion.

North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador Kim Chang Guk immediately denounced the report as “the ultimate manifestation of prejudice, unfairness and interference in the internal affairs” of another country.

Denying any human rights violations, he asked how many countries could match North Korea, which he said has free education and medical care and no unemployment or homelessness.

Muntarbhorn, a human rights lawyer who worked with refugees on the Thai-Cambodia border and investigated the sale of children for the UN, was appointed in July following the UN Human Rights Commission’s adoption of a resolution condemning North Korea’s systematic and widespread rights violations.

The resolution, sponsored by the EU and the US, cited human rights violations including torture, forced abortions and infanticide, as well as harsh restrictions on freedom of expression and foreign travel and harsh punishments meted out to those who try to flee the country.

Muntarbhorn cited a “mass of reports” and allegations of human rights abuses that call for immediate action. He said his reports suggest there are “substantial numbers” of political prisoners, and he stressed that “the prison system needs very expeditious action.”

He called for improved monitoring of food distribution to ensure it is going to the neediest people, no forced return of North Koreans who flee either for political reason or because they are hungry, and a special focus on adherence to the rule of law.

He cited documented reports of ”collective punishment based upon ‘guilt by association'”, unresolved cases of abductions, and reports of inhumane treatment.