North Korea human rights probe urged by UN

UN officials say a probe of North Korea is needed to fully document the responsibility of government and individuals for alleged abuses 'in particular where they amount to crimes against humanity.'

|
Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service/AP
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea at an undisclosed location of North Korea in this undated photo.

A report by a U.N. special investigator on Tuesday urged the world body to open an inquiry into North Korea for possible crimes against humanity.

U.N. special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman recommended to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council that it authorize an investigation of North Korea's "grave, widespread and systematic violations of human rights."

Darusman's report Tuesday says a review of the isolated country's record since 2004 shows the need for a probe to fully document the responsibility of government and individuals for alleged abuses "in particular where they amount to crimes against humanity."

The report cites nine patterns of violations, such as prison camps, enforced disappearances and using food to control people, based on what it calls an analysis of a ream of U.N. documents including 22 previous reports over the past nine years and 16 resolutions adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, which now includes 193 member nations.

In a response to the report before it was made public, North Korea's U.N. Ambassador in Geneva, So Se Pyong, denounced the report and described Darusman — a former attorney general of Indonesia — as a "politically motivated" official whose job amounts to serving as "none other than a marionette running here and there in order to represent the ill-minded purposes of the string-pullers such as the United States, Japan and the member states of the (European Union)."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to North Korea human rights probe urged by UN
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0205/North-Korea-human-rights-probe-urged-by-UN
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe