New York: North Korean escapees, activists, and supporters made an emphatic call for global action to enhance the human rights situation in North Korea during a high-level U.N. General Assembly meeting on Tuesday, with a defector delivering a reverberating message: "silence is complicity".
According to Yonhap News Agency, participants attended the rare meeting on Pyongyang's human rights violations, where two defectors shared accounts of their tribulations in the repressed country. North Korean Ambassador to the U.N. Kim Song reacted strongly to the meeting, repeating claims of a Western plot to "politicize" and "weaponize" human rights issues.
The meeting, the first of its kind at the General Assembly, followed last year's North Korean human rights resolution that called for a high-level plenary meeting featuring testimony by civil society representatives and other experts to address the human rights abuses in the North.
Participants highlighted a close link between North Korea's human rights situation and its regime's advancing weapons programs, noting that the repressive culture in the country has allowed Pyongyang to develop nuclear arms and missiles at the expense of people's livelihoods.
Greg Scarlatoiu, president and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, emphasized that North Korea poses a broader threat. "The point I am trying to make here is that North Korea is no longer just a Korean Peninsula threat. DPRK is not longer just a Northeast Asian threat," he stated. He further added that the DPRK is exporting instability and violence to the Middle East and Europe, with human rights violations being the root cause.
Elizabeth Salmon, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, reported deteriorating conditions for North Koreans. She highlighted that for over five years, people in the DPRK have been living in absolute isolation, with the government's excessive measures under the COVID-19 pandemic worsening the already dire human rights situation.
The meeting heard from defectors Kim Eun-joo and Kang Gyu-ri, who shared personal accounts of their struggles and highlighted the systemic nature of human rights violations in North Korea. Kim recounted her family's escape and the ordeals they faced after crossing into China, including kidnapping and abuse.
Kang shared her family's forced relocation due to religious practices not aligned with the sanctioned state ideology. She claimed that the North's regime used the pandemic to tighten control over its people, eradicating South Korean cultural influence amid economic hardship.
Sean Chung, CEO of HanVoice, proposed the creation of a new independent expert body to analyze and report on how North Korea's human rights violations intersect with weapons development and global business.
South Korean Ambassador to the U.N. Hwang Joon-kook highlighted the interconnection between North Korea's nuclear issues and human rights violations, emphasizing that if human rights abuses were to stop, so would nuclear weapons development.
In response, North Korean Ambassador Kim criticized the meeting, urging U.N. member states to oppose efforts to politicize human rights, describing the meeting as based on "intrigue" and "fabrication." He also disparaged the defectors as "the scum of the earth."