UN Human Rights Spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell on DPRK

“Today’s report finds that the overall human rights situation in DPRK has not improved over the past decade and, in many instances, has degraded, bringing even more suffering to the population,” spokesperson Liz Throssell told the biweekly briefing in Geneva.

The report points to the introduction of more laws, policies and practices that are subjecting citizens to increased surveillance and control in all parts of life, Throssell said.

“The report says political prison camps continue to operate. The fate of the hundreds of thousands of disappeared people, including abducted foreign nationals of the Republic of Korea, Japan and elsewhere, remains unknown,”she said.

Citizens continue to be subjected to unremitting propaganda by the State for their entire lives. The right to food continues to be violated, with some State policies exacerbating hunger.

“Today, the death penalty is more widely allowed by law and implemented in practice,” Throssell stated.

Enjoyment of freedom of expression and access to information have significantly regressed, with the implementation of severe new punishments, including the death penalty, for a range of acts.

James Heenan, head of the office working on DPRK, who joined the briefing remotely from Seoul, highlighted that these acts included sharing foreign media and TV shows, including so-called K-dramas.

“We do have credible evidence that individuals have been executed not just for watching K-dramas. The crime is for distributing, distributing at a certain level, foreign information, foreign media,” he explained.

“The report, which is based on hundreds of interviews by the Office along with supporting materials, points to the increased use of forced labour in many forms, particularly so-called “shock brigades”, usually deployed to take on physically demanding and hazardous sectors such as mining and construction. They often come from poorer families and in recent years, the Government has used thousands of orphans and street children in coal mines and at other hazardous sites and for extensive hours,” Throssell said.

Heenan explained further how children are exposed to different forms of forced labour

“One is in schools, school children are used, to do things like particularly harvest season to collect the harvest from the fields, but also to do manual work around the school or along roads and so forth. The government says that this is just part of a sort of a, curriculum to help them learn life skills. But the information we've had for many years now is that it meets meets the qualification of forced labour because the children have no choice. And often the work is is quite, quite backbreakingand takes a lort of their days,” said Heenan.

If DPRK continues on this current trajectory,according to the report, the population will be subjected to more of the suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have endured for so long, Throssell highlighted.

The UN Human Rights Office continues to document human rights violations, some of which may amount to international crimes.

There were reports of some limited improvements. Escapees reported nominal improvements in the treatment of people in detention facilities.

Several laws have been enacted or amended, reportedly strengthening fair trial guarantees and protection against ill-treatment of persons deprived of liberty. The country is engaging to a degree with the international human rights system, ratifying two futher human rights treaties and complying with some treaty bodies’ reporting obligations.

However, the disconnect between the State’s international obligations and ultimately the reality of the lives of its citizens remains stark, the report concludes.

The report lays out some immediate steps to foster credibility of the Government’s commitment to human rights and provide momentum for a new path.

These include: ending the system of political prison camps and guilt by association; ending the use of the death penalty; restarting family connections, including through meetings; ending torture and ill-treatment in places of detention; providing information on those abducted or forcibly disappeared by the State; distributing information about human rights to the population; inviting the High Commissioner and other human rights mechanisms to visit the country; and accepting UN Human Rights technical assistance on rights in detention.

ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact:

In Geneva:
Ravina Shamdasani: + 41 22 917 9169 / ravina.shamdasani@un.org

Liz Throssell: +41 22 917 9296 / elizabeth.throssell@un.org

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