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STORY: UN / NORTH KOREA HUMAN RIGHTS
TRT: 1:55
SOURCE: UNIFEED-UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / KOREAN/ NATS
DATELINE; 22 OCTOBER 2014, NEW YORK CITY/ RECENT
RECENT
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations headquarters
22 OCTOBER 2014, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, ECOSOC chamber
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Kirby, Chair of the Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea:
“I have read every word of the rosy report, it is 93 pages in length and when one reads it one comes up with many times to the assertion that they accept universal human rights, but to accept it and implement it, it must accord with our (DPRK) decision and our will. Our decision and our will is the text of their rosy report that is to reserve to North Korea a veto.”
3. Wide shot, ECOSOC chamber
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Kirby, Chair of the Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea:
“They remain the only country in this whole organization that has refused to accept a single recommendation on Universal Periodic Review. After the report of the Commission of Inquiry, for the first time, they began to engage and they said their position had evolved. Of the 268 recommendations that had been put into the report, they have said now that they accept 113.”
5. Wide shot, ECOSOC chamber
6. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Kim Hye-Sook, North Korean Witness:
“Rule number one is you should ask why you are there, what is the name of your crime? And if you ask, many people were publically executed for that.”
7. Wide shot,
8. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Kim Hye-Sook, North Korean Witness:
“As long as I can breathe and I can speak, I decided I really need to work for North Korean human rights.”
9. Wide shot, ECOSOC chamber
The Chair of the Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) said he read “every word” of the human rights report issued by the government of the DPRK and they accept universal human rights, “but to accept it and implement it, it must accord with our (DPRK) decision and our will.”
Addressing the Third Committee today (22 Oct) on the human rights situation in North Korea, Michael Kirby said that the DPRK, “remains the only country in this whole organization that refuses the Universal Periodic Review.”
Kirby noted that out of the 268 recommendations, they had accepted 113 and that
their representative “has indeed accepted that there are labour camps”, but that they insist “it’s a way to get people to come around to their ways.”
“These are steps, he said, “but nothing has really changed."
Addressing the committee, Kim Hye-Sook said she was arrested at the age of 13 and taken to a camp - she lost both parents there. At 16 she was sent to the coal mines where she worked for 14 years.
“Rule number one is you should ask why you are there, what is the name of your crime? And if you ask, many people were publically executed for that.”
She lost brothers and children. After 28 years in the camp she escaped to China, where eventually she was deported and was sentenced again, to six months in the labour camps where she contracted Tuberculosis.
She now lives in South Korea. “As long as I can live and breathe”, she said, “I need to talk about human rights in North Korea.”
She still has siblings who have been living there for 43 years and don’t know why they are in the camps.
A 400-page UN Commission of Inquiry report issued in February included satellite photographs of prison camps and first-hand testimony of victims and witnesses. The report described 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.”
The report added: “Crimes against humanity are ongoing in the [DPRK] because the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place.” The panel also referred the situation in the DPRK to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Earlier this month, a draft resolution sponsored by the EU and Japan referring the DPRK to the ICC by the General Assembly prompted North Korea to provide its own report praising its human rights record.
The General Assembly is expected to vote on the draft resolution in late November.
