Rights violations persist a decade after UN report
A decade after a landmark UN report concluded North Korea committed crimes against humanity, a UN official investigating rights in the isolated state said many abuses continue, exacerbated by Covid-19-era controls that have yet to be lifted.
James Heenan, who represents the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul, said he is still surprised by the continued prevalence of executions, forced labour and reports of starvation in the authoritarian country.
North Korea's embassy in London did not answer phone calls seeking comment.
A Reuters investigation in 2023 found leader Kim Jong-un had spent much of the Covid-19 pandemic building a massive string of walls and fences along the previously porous border with China, and later built fences around the capital of Pyongyang.
On Wednesday, SI Analytics, a Seoul-based satellite imagery firm, released a report noting North Korea is renovating a key prison camp near the border with China, possibly in response to international criticism, while simultaneously strengthening physical control over prisoners under the pretence of facility improvement.
Heenan said his team has talked to over 300 North Koreans who fled their country in recent years, and many expressed despair.
'Sometimes we hear people saying they sort of hope a war breaks out because that might change things,' he said.
A number of those interviewees will speak publicly for the first time next week as part of an effort to put a human face on the UN findings.
'It's a rare opportunity to hear from people publicly what they want to say about what's happening in the DPRK,' Heenan said.
While human rights has traditionally been a politically volatile subject not only for Pyongyang but for foreign governments trying to engage with the nuclear-armed North, Heenan said issues like prison camps need to be part of any engagement on a political settlement.
'There's no point self-censoring on human rights because... no one's fooled,' Heenan said. — Reuters
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