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STORY: GENEVA / NORTH KOREA
TRT: 3:37
SOURCE: CH UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /CHINESE /NATS
DATELINE: 17 MARCH 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. External shot, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, meeting room
3. SOUNDBITE (English), Michael Kirby, Chair of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea:
"The Commission of Inquiry has found systematic, widespread, and grave human rights violations occurring in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It has also found a disturbing array of crimes against humanity. These crimes are committed against inmates of political and other prison camps, against starving populations, against religious believers, against persons who try to fell the country including those forcibly repatriated by China."
4. Cutaway, DPRK delegation
5. SOUNDBITE: Michael Kirby, Chair of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea:
"These crimes arise from policies established at the highest level of the State. They have been committed, and continue to take place in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, because the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place. The gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."
6. Cutaway, China delegation
7. SOUNDBITE: Michael Kirby, Chair of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea:
"Contending with the scourges of Nazism, apartheid, the Khmer Rouge and other affronts required courage by great nations and ordinary human beings alike. It is now your duty to address the scourge of human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Korea. Far away in North Korea people who know nothing about what we do here depend on your actions."
8. Cutaway, delegates
9. SOUNDBITE (English), Se Pyong So, Permanent Representative of DPRK to the UN:
“We have never ever recognised the mandate of the COI which was fabricated and is manipulated by the hostile forces in the pursuit of ill minded political objectives and which continued to remain invariable in a position to oppose and to reject it.”
10. Cutaway, South Korea delegation
11. SOUNDBITE (Chinese), Chuandong Chen, Head of Chinese delegation:
"The inability of the commission to get support and cooperation from the country concerned makes it impossible for the commission to carry out its mandate in an impartial, objective and effective manner."
12. Cutaway, delegates
13. SOUNDBITE (English), Joon hoon Lee, Permanent Representative of South Korea:
"We believe that the COI report has occasioned the opening of a new chapter in the international communities’ dealings with the human rights violations in the DPRK. The persecution must stop now. Not a day can wait and we urge the process of healing to begin right here today as we all give unanimous support to the Commissions meticulous findings and also judicious recommendations.
14. Cutaway, delegates
The Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea has presented its report to the UN Human Rights Council in which it documents a "disturbing array of crimes against humanity".
The findings are based on testimony from hundreds of victims, defectors and witnesses.
The Chair of the Commission, Michael Kirby, told members of the council that the "gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."
He said the world would judge the Council by its response and called on members to hold North Korea liable for crimes against humanity and follow its recommendations to refer Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court.
The ambassador to North Korea condemned the report which he said had been "fabricated and manipulated" and the call for the country to be indicted by the International Criminal Court was "an attempt to eliminate a social system"
The head of the Chinese delegation Chen Chuandong said the failure of the Commission to get access to North Korea meant their report was neither impartial or credible, adding the accusations against Beijing for turning back North Koreans on its borders were "unfounded".
However the report was widely welcomed by European and Latin American countries, as well as South Korea. Its permanent representative to the UN, Joon hoon Lee said it opened a new chapter in the international communities response to North Korea.
