North Korea’s UN delegation declared on Friday that it was proud of Pyongyang’s social system and human rights record and rejected as baseless a UN monitor’s report that described appalling human rights abuses in the reclusive country.
Pyongyang was reacting to a report to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on rights issues, from UN special rapporteur on North Korea Marzuki Darusman that described “a wide range of human rights violations.”
Among the abuses Darusman referred to in his annual report on North Korea were the alleged “extensive use of political prison camps, poor prison conditions and prisoners being subjected to forced labour, torture and corporal punishment.”
North Korean delegate Kim Song read a statement to the committee, which includes all 193 UN member states, that said: “My delegation totally and categorically rejects the ... groundless allegations.”
“The report of the special rapporteur is a product of the hostile policies of the United States and European Union against the DPRK [North Korea] and is a typical example of politicization, double standards and selectivity on the issue of human rights,” Kim said.
Darusman complained that North Korea had refused to cooperate with him during his assessment of the human rights situation in the impoverished nation. He also said there had been “no improvement in the dire situation of human rights” in North Korea since his last report in March.
Pyongyang’s delegate said North Korea had previously co-operated with UN and European Union human rights bodies but stopped doing so in 2006 after the EU began sponsoring annual General Assembly resolutions condemning Pyongyang for its rights record.