first time at UN

CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE

For immediate release

April 11 2003

RESOLUTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA IS TABLED FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE UN

A resolution on the use of torture, prison camps and forced labour in North Korea has been tabled for the first time at the United Nations.

The resolution, tabled by the European Union, also addresses freedoms of thought, expression, religion, assembly and association. It calls upon the government to refrain from punishing North Koreans for leaving the country, including by imprisonment and with the death penalty.

It calls upon the North Korean authorities to cooperate with the Commission on Human Rights and requests the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to engage in a dialogue with the North Korean authorities and to submit his findings and recommendations back to the next session of the Commission.

The European Union tabled the resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva on April 10 and will be adopted or rejected at a vote on April 16. The resolution is the first of its kind to be presented to the Commission, which has until now failed to address the gravity of the human rights abuses in North Korea.

The tabled resolution is welcomed by human rights groups concerned about the widespread and systematic human rights violations against North Koreans. Amongst the many violations are the systematic use of torture and the use or arbitrary and brutal imprisonment, characterised by violence, extreme deprivation, starvation food rations, intense forced labour, frequent accidents and disfigurement and high death tolls and the use of arbitrary detention. Further grave sources of injustice are the lack of due process, the regular use of arbitrary and public execution and the punishment of whole families for the crime of one family member.

The severity of the repercussions against individuals and their families mean that North Korea has largely succeeded in silencing reports of the atrocities committed within its borders. Alongside this, the extreme isolation and secrecy of the state has prevented the flow of information out of the country, while restricting freedom for external monitors to enter and assess the country.

A further issue of grave concern is the mistreatment of those North Koreans who have left to go to China and are subsequently repatriated. Cruel treatment awaits many such returnees and those who are deemed to have been in contact with South Koreans and missionaries are subject to especially harsh penalties, such as long term imprisonment or execution. A number of eyewitness accounts report that women who are found to be pregnant by Chinese men are subject to forced abortion where this is possible or, where the pregnancy is more advanced, are kept in detention until they give birth, when their baby is them smothered to death in front of them.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide has been lobbying for the Commission to adopt a resolution that does justice to the victims of the grave human rights violations in North Korea. Earlier in the session, CSW UK’s President Baroness Cox chaired a briefing in which former North Korean prisoners, one of whom was imprisoned as a child for an act of his grandfather, gave evidence of their experiences in detention, describing immense inhumanity, and called for the international community to urgently respond to the grave violations currently being perpetrated in North Korea.

Stuart Windsor, CSW’s National Director, said: “The people of North Korea are without a voice, subjected to indoctrination and wholesale repression across all human rights. Even the slightest suggestion of disloyalty to the state is punished by unimaginable cruelty. Prisoners are kept in the most barbaric of conditions, forced to labour long hours every day in almost impossible conditions, often in very dangerous surroundings.

“We consider the tabling of this resolution a victory for human rights, an encouraging sign for the credibility of the Commission and hopefully an important step in encouraging freedom for the oppressed people of North Korea.”

For further information, a full copy of CSW’s report on human rights abuses in North Korea or pictures, please contact Richard Chilvers at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 020 8949 0587 or 020 8942 8810 or email or go to http://www.csw.org.uk

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