ASIA/SOUTH KOREA - A Centre for suppying information on the situation of human rights in N. Korea

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Seoul (Agenzia Fides) –While the United Nations Security Council has unanimously established harsh sanctions on North Korea following Pyongyang's recent nuclear experiment – compulsory inspections, ban on arms sale, expulsion of diplomats – South Korea’s parliament has approved a law regarding human rights in North Korea. The law, on which liberal members of parliament refused to vote, now goes to the council of Ministers before coming into effect. According to the law, the government of South Korea will establish a special Centre for collecting, cataloguing and making public information regarding human rights in North Korea.
On this matter a report sent to Fides by NGO Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is of the opinion that North Korea should be referred to the International Penal Court regarding widespread violation of human rights in that country. CSW criticises reticence on the part of the North Korean regime regarding the questions posed by the UN Commission of Inquiry. The same Commission, in a report drafted two years ago, asked for the North Korean regime to be deferred to the International Penal Court for “blatant abuse” of human rights in that country.
The Commission stated “the gravity, scale and nature” of human rights violations in North Korea “reveal a State that has no parallel in the contemporary world.” Crimes against humanity, identified by the UN Commission, include “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations,” (PA) (Agenzia Fides 3/3/2016)


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