Human rights in North Korea
The human rights record of North Korea is often considered to be among the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations and groups such as Human Rights Watch having condemned it. Amnesty International considers North Korea to have no contemporary parallel[1] with respect to violations of liberty.[2][3][4][5]
The citizens have no right to free speech, with only media providers operated by the government being legal.[6][7] According to reports from Amnesty International and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, by 2017 an estimated 200,000 prisoners[8] were incarcerated in camps that were dedicated to political crimes, and were subjected to forced labour, physical abuse, and execution.[9]
The North Korean government strictly monitors the activities of foreign visitors. Aid workers are subjected to considerable scrutiny and they are also excluded from places and regions which the government does not want them to enter. Since citizens cannot freely leave the country,[10][11] the nation's human rights record has mostly been constructed from stories from refugees and defectors. The government's position, expressed through the Korean Central News Agency, is that international criticism of its human rights record is a pretext for overthrowing its Juche-based system, while the abuses of its critics go unpunished.[12][13]
The General Assembly of the United Nations has since 2003 annually adopted a resolution condemning the country's human rights record. The resolution of December 19, 2011, passed by a vote of 123–16 with 51 abstentions, urged the government in Pyongyang to end its "systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights", which included public executions and arbitrary detentions. North Korea rejected the resolution, saying it was politically motivated and based upon untrue fabrications.[14] In February 2014, a UN special commission published a detailed, 400-page account based on first-hand testimonies documenting "unspeakable atrocities" committed by the North Korean regime.[15]
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Position of the DPRK[edit]
Human-rights discourse in North Korea has a history that predates the establishment of the state in 1948. Based on Marxist theory, Confucian tradition, and the Juche idea, North Korean human-rights theory regards rights as conditional rather than universal, holds that collective rights take priority over individual rights, and that welfare and subsistence rights are important.[25]
Kim Il Sung stated that the concept of democracy cannot "provide freedom and rights to hostile elements who oppose socialism or impure elements who act against the interests of the People".[26]
The government of North Korea claims that the Constitution of the DPRK guarantees the human rights of its people, and that these guarantees are fully elaborated in its laws and regulations. It claims that these human-rights guarantees and laws are strictly enforced throughout the country and with respect to every individual.[27]
Seven months after the release of the Commission of Inquiry report, North Korea released its own DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies report, which claims that North Koreans enjoy "genuine human rights".[28] North Korea also agreed to implement 113 of the 268 recommendations to improve its human rights performance made at the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review process.[29] Kirby cited North Korea's participation in the Universal Periodic Review, the country's publication of their own human rights report, and Hwang Pyong-so's visit to the 2014 Asian Games a "charm offensive" and expressed skepticism about whether the North Korean government has become genuinely concerned about human rights or is simply preparing for imminent criticism in the UN.[30] Kirby welcomed parts of the DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies report as "fair comment" but noted that it fails to discuss the issues raised in the Commission of Inquiry report.[31]
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Number of victims[edit]
Estimates based on the North Korean census suggest that 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the North Korean famine and that excess mortality during the whole period 1993 to 2008 was between 600,000 and 850,000.[164] The famine has been described as the result of the economic policies of the North Korean government[165] or as deliberate "terror-starvation".[166] Co-author of The Black Book of Communism Pierre Rigoulot estimates 100,000 executions, 1.5 million deaths in concentration camps and 500,000 deaths from famine, reaching a total of 2.1 million victims (not counting 1.3 million Korean soldiers and civilians killed on both sides during the Korean War).[167] During the Korean War the DPRK "liquidated" 29,000 civilians in the first 3 months of occupying South Korea.[168]
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Web sites
Articles and reports
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