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UN / DPRK
STORY: UN / DPRK
TRT: 2.19
SOURCE: UNTV / CH UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ NATS
DATELINE: 17 FEBRUARY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / 18 FEBRUARY 2014, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
18 FEBRUARY 2014, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, un Spokesperson Martin Nesirky at the podium
3. Wide shot, reporters
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Nesirky, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General:
“Today the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, welcomed the report of the Independent UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which was published in Geneva yesterday. She said that its findings need to be treated with the greatest urgency as they suggest that crimes against humanity of an unimaginable scale continue to be committed in the DPRK.”
5. Wide shot, reporters
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Nesirky, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General:
“She said that the Commission has now published an historic report which sheds light on violations of a terrifying scale, the gravity and nature of which, in the report’s own words, do not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”
7. Med shot, reporters
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Nesirky, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General:
“She added that we now need strong international leadership to follow up on the grave findings of the Commission of Inquiry; calling on the international community in line with the reports recommendations, to use all the mechanisms at its disposal to ensure accountability, including referral to the International Criminal Court.”
9. Med shot, reporters
10. Wide shot, end of presser
11. Wide shot, press room
12. Med shot, journalist 's profile
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Kirby, Chair of UN Commission of Inquiry for North Korea:
"I hope that the international community will be moved by the detail, the amount, the long duration and the great suffering and many tears that have existed in North Korea to act on the crimes against humanity which the Commission of Inquiry has found and that action will be taken. Too many times in this building there are reports and no action. Well this is a time for action. We can't say we didn't know. We now all do know. Anyone who wants to know can read the report.”
14. Wide shot, press room
There can no longer be any excuses for inaction regarding rights abuses in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said today (18 Feb), welcoming a UN-mandated report cataloguing crimes against humanity of an “unimaginable scale” being committed in the country.
UN Spokesperson, Martin Nesirky, told journalists today that Navi Pillay had welcomed the “historic” report of the Independent UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, published yesterday in Geneva.
Pillay, according to Nesirky, said that the report “sheds light on violations of a terrifying scale, the gravity and nature of which, in the report’s own words, do not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”
She called for “strong international leadership to follow up on the grave findings of the Commission of Inquiry” and “to use all the mechanisms at its disposal to ensure accountability, including referral to the International Criminal Court.”
Mandated by the UN Human Rights Council in March last year, the panel of experts examined satellite imagery, evidence and testimonies from more than 100 victims, witnesses and experts from North Korea.
Yesterday (17 Feb) in Geneva, the Chair of the Commission of Inquiry, Michael Kirby, called for action and said “we can't say we didn't know. We now all do know. Anyone who wants to know can read the report.”
The report, released yesterday and which will be formally presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 17 March, documents crimes such as “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, forcible transfer of populations, enforced disappearance and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
In 400-pages, the Commission found that the DPRK “displays many attributes of a totalitarian State” and reports that the cited crimes against humanity are ongoing due to the “policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place.”
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