This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/world/europe/un-panel-urges-action-on-north-korean-rights-abuses.html

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
U.N. Panel Urges Action on North Korean Rights Abuses U.N. Panel Urges International Action on North Korean Human Rights Abuses
(about 11 hours later)
GENEVA — United Nations experts investigating human rights conditions in North Korea said Tuesday that they had gathered “shocking” evidence of widespread abuses and atrocities requiring an international response. GENEVA — The United Nations experts investigating human rights conditions in North Korea said Tuesday that the “shocking” evidence they have been collecting from defectors and others suggests “large-scale” patterns of abuse that demand an international response.
Testimony heard by the three-member Commission of Inquiry about prison camps, torture, starvation and international abductions by North Korean agents suggests “large-scale patterns” of abuse that may constitute “systematic and gross human rights violations,” the panel’s chairman, Michael Donald Kirby, said in a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Human Rights Council pushed for the investigation in an attempt to bring new attention to allegations of horrifying abuses at the North’s infamous gulags that have been trickling out for years as more people have escaped the brutal police state. Until now, world powers including the United States have focused instead on attempts to dismantle the North’s nuclear weapons program.
The panel is to submit a final report to the rights council in March, but Mr. Kirby said, “What we have seen and heard so far — the specificity, detail and shocking character of the personal testimony — appears without doubt to demand follow-up action by the world community.” The chairman of the three-member Commission of Inquiry, Michael Donald Kirby, told reporters that the testimony he heard in recent months evoked reactions similar to the discovery of concentration camps in Europe after World War II.
In public hearings held in August in the South Korean capital, Seoul, and in Tokyo, as well as in confidential interviews, the panel heard accounts from survivors of North Korean prison camps, escapees from the isolated country and family members of people who were abducted from Japan and South Korea and brought to the North. He cited the statements of a former prisoner who said she had seen another woman forced to drown her baby in a bucket, and the account of a man who said he had collected and burned the bodies of prisoners who had died of starvation. Experts say the number of prisoners in gulags has dropped in recent years — to an estimated 120,000 or less from a possible high of 200,000 — but that might be partly because so many had died from forced labor and a lack of food.
“We think of the testimony of a young man, imprisoned from birth and living on rodents, lizards and grass to survive and witnessing the public execution of his mother and brother,” said Mr. Kirby, citing one witness’s account. “The great value” of the report, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, United States ambassador to the Human Rights Council, said “is that has begun to shed light on the horrifying realities of life in North Korea and raise international awareness of the ongoing tragedy and barbaric conditions there.” She also said the findings represented a “small but significant crack” in the North’s “information blockade.”
Mr. Kirby also cited the testimony of a prison camp inmate who said she had seen another woman forced to drown her baby in a bucket, and the account of a man who said he had collected and burned the bodies of prisoners who had died of starvation before sprinkling their ashes on surrounding fields. The findings of the three-member Commission of Inquiry were part of an interim report to the council; the final report in March is expected to eventually be presented to the United Nations General Assembly.
Mr. Kirby said the panel had submitted several requests seeking cooperation and access to North Korea, including a letter to the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, but the North Korean government said it “totally and categorically rejects the Commission of Inquiry.” North Korea’s ally China, which did not oppose the creation of the commission, also declined to let it visit as part of its investigations, diplomats in Geneva said. It remains unclear what actions the United Nations might take. Any referral to the International Criminal Court for human rights abuses would need to be approved by the Security Council, which includes North Korea’s long-time ally, China.
The North Korean mission’s counselor to the United Nations in Geneva, Kim Yong-ho, said in response to Mr. Kirby’s statement that the evidence cited by the panel had been “fabricated and invented” by forces hostile to North Korea, and dismissed the commission as “a hotbed of confrontation and distrust.” Although China did not actively oppose the investigation, a senior Chinese diplomat in Geneva on Tuesday criticized the interim findings. “Politicized accusations and pressures are not helpful to improving human rights in any country,” Chen Chuandong said, according to Reuters. “On the contrary, they will only provoke confrontation and undermine the foundation and atmosphere for international human rights cooperation.”
Mr. Kirby said the panel had submitted several requests seeking cooperation and access to North Korea, including a letter to the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, but the North Korean government said it “totally and categorically rejects the Commission of Inquiry.”
A senior North Korean diplomat in Geneva, Kim Yong-ho, said Tuesday that the evidence cited by the panel had been “fabricated and invented” by forces hostile to North Korea, and dismissed the commission as “a hotbed of confrontation and distrust.”
Mr. Kirby said he had invited North Korea to provide hard evidence that refuted any of the testimony received, but none was forthcoming.Mr. Kirby said he had invited North Korea to provide hard evidence that refuted any of the testimony received, but none was forthcoming.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 17, 2013Correction: September 17, 2013

An earlier version of this article misidentified the North Korean official who responded to Michael Donald Kirby’s statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council.  It was Kim Yong-ho, the North Korean mission’s counselor to the United Nations in Geneva, not So Se-pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

An earlier version of this article misidentified the North Korean official who responded to Michael Donald Kirby’s statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council.  It was Kim Yong-ho, the North Korean mission’s counselor to the United Nations in Geneva, not So Se-pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.