Murder, enslavement, torture, rape, starvation, persecution and abduction are among the many human-rights violations that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, commonly called North Korea, has reportedly committed against its own citizens and foreigners.
That's according to a United Nations commission that has been investigating North Korea since last March. The commission detailed drastic violations committed by the country, including crimes against humanity, and even named North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a possible perpetrator, in a two-part report released Monday.
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"Systematic, widespread and gross human-rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its institutions and officials," the commission concluded. "The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."
The report's 400 pages draw on testimony from more than 300 victims and witnesses, but are not based on first-hand observation because North Korea's government did not allow the commission access to the country. It depicts North Korea as a place that "displays many attributes of a totalitarian state" with "almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion."
The commission estimates that North Korea holds between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners in four large prison camps and several smaller facilities, in which prisoners are deliberately starved as punishment. State surveillance ensures that virtually no act of political dissent goes unpunished, according to the report.
The commission also describes North Korea as a stratified society rooted in a discriminatory class system called "songbun." The system reportedly classifies individuals based on birth and their loyalty to the ruling regime, and the classifications affect all aspects of life, including where one can live and whom they can marry.
Other charges in the report accuse North Korea of prioritizing military spending "even during periods of mass starvation."
Those who try to flee the country face a high chance of being apprehended and forcibly returned, and they're often subjected to torture, imprisonment and sexual violence, the report says. It's not just North Korean citizens, though. The commission charges North Korea with abducting foreign citizens for their labor and skills.
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The report's authors include a letter they penned to Kim Jong-un, informing him that they've recommended the United Nations bring North Korea's violations to the International Criminal Court to face charges. The letter says Kim himself could face charges for these crimes.
North Korea's diplomatic mission in Geneva, where the commission compiled its report, dismissed the findings. In a two-page statement, representatives for the country called the report a "political plot" and said the alleged violations "do not exist in our country," according to Reuters.
Read the full text of the UN report, here.
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