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Reuters

After a year of investigation, the United Nations is set to release a detailed report on human rights violations in North Korea that could pave the way for criminal prosecution in an international court.
But defectors from the country who have provided first-hand testimony of atrocities are deeply sceptical the report, to be issued on Monday, will have any effect on the regime in Pyongyang.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea was set up last March to begin building a case for possible criminal prosecution.
Michael Kirby, who chairs the independent inquiry, said after preliminary findings last year that inmates in North Korea’s prison camps suffered “unspeakable atrocities”, comparable with Nazi abuses uncovered after the second world war.

“The entire body of evidence gathered so far points to what appear to be large-scale patterns of systematic and gross human rights violations,” Kirby, a former justice of Australia’s top court, told the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee last October, adding that Pyongyang had refused to cooperate with the inquiry.
But any attempt to follow up the final report with prosecution will most likely be blocked by China. North Korea itself labels any attack on its human rights record as a US-led conspiracy.

	Evidence gathered so far points to what appear to be large-scale patterns of systematic and gross human rights violations

	Michael Kirby
The preliminary report did not say what kind of prosecution might be considered. North Korea is not a member of the International Criminal Court, but the UN Security Council can ask the Hague-based court to investigate alleged abuses by non-signatories.
China, the North’s major ally and main benefactor, stands ready to veto any attempt to mobilise the Security Council to open an investigation against Pyongyang.
“In some respects I have been disappointed with the United Nations, although the UN is trying to resolve the issue” said Shin Dong-hyuk, a North Korean defector who has given the UN panel harrowing accounts of his life and escape from a prison camp. As a 13-year-old, he informed a prison guard of a plot by his mother and brother to escape and both were executed, according to a book on his life called Escape from Camp 14.
“The Human Rights Council, the biggest organisation in the UN, has not solved any problems,” Shin said in an interview in Seoul ahead of the report’s release.

More than 200,000 people are believed to be held in North Korean prison camps, according to independent estimates.
The UN panel has worked to bring new attention to the allegations of horror at North Korea’s gulags with evidence and testimony from exiles, including camp survivors, in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington but has failed to gain access to North Korea.
Shin said China continues to use North Korea as a tool to keep US influence in the region under control.
“So far China has neglected North Korea’s human rights issue and supported its dictatorship,” he said.
WON’T BAT AN EYELID
After more than two years in power, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shows no signs of changing the iron-fisted rule of his predecessors, forging ahead with a reign of terror and ordering the execution of his powerful uncle following a brutal public purge.
“North Korea won’t bat an eyelid,” said Hwang Jae-ok, vice president of the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul, who has extensively studied Pyongyang’s human rights record. “It has built up a strong tolerance to sanctions and pressure.”
The North has been under gradually tougher international and US sanctions since its first nuclear test in 2006.
The sanctions have not stopped Kim, believed to be in his early 30s, from stepping up the nuclear and missile programmes launched by his father and accomplishing what experts have said were notable successes that have turned the clock back on years of disarmament efforts led by Washington.
Human rights activists hope the panel’s report work and the global attention it generates will seep back across North Korea.
But Baek Kyung-yoon, a North Korean female army captain who fled to the South in 2000, said her former compatriots are unlikely to have the luxury of pondering about human rights or anticipating improvement.
“Loyalty (to the regime) is everything and it’s nonsense to discuss human rights there,” Baek said on Wednesday, ahead of the premiere of The Apostle: He Was Anointed By God. The Korean-language film is based on her experience of ordering the torture of a man who possessed a few pages from the Bible.
A US Christian missionary, Kenneth Bae, was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labour after being convicted of state subversion. Pyongyang has abruptly rescinded a visit by a US special envoy to seek Bae’s release for a second time.
Religious persecution is one of 11 areas of inquiry by the UN panel, which also include food deprivation, torture, executions and abductions.
Despite his frustration with the lack of visible progress, Shin, who had a finger chopped off with a butcher knife by prison guards as a punishment, still hopes the United Nations can bring change in North Korea.
“Personally the COI (Commission of Inquiry) is my last remaining hope. Even if there is little chance for change, I am betting everything I have.”


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North Korea

North Korea prison camp survivor Shin Dong-hyuk awaits UN report with scepticism 

North Korean defector Shin Dong-hyuk, who has given the UN panel harrowing accounts of his life and escape from a prison camp. Photo: Reuters

North Korean soldiers salute. The United Nations is set to release a detailed report on human rights violations in North Korea. Photo: AP

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shows no signs of changing the iron-fisted rule of his predecessors. Photo: Reuters

UN not taken seriously by North Korea, says defector Shin Dong-hyuk

North Korean defector Shin Dong-hyuk.

North Korea promotes military chiefs as it marks late leader’s birth 

A man bows before the statues of Kim Jong-il, right, and his father, Kim Il-sung. Photo: AP

North Koreans pay their respects in front of two portraits, one of founding leader Kim Il-Sung (left) and the other of his son Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang. Photo: AFP

Northern exposure: a tour through North Korea’s top end

A North Korean guide at the Wangjaesan Grand Monument, outside the town of Onsong, on the northeast border with China.

A Kim Jong-il mural on Mount Chilbo.

A mountain road sign designed to make people smile.

The boat club at Chujin beach.

The view through a tour-bus window on the road from Rason city to the Wongjong border crossing with China.

A fishing village outside Chongjin, North Hamgyong province.

North Korea has increased excavation work at main nuclear test site

North Korea okays family reunions despite Southern drills with US

North Korea's Won Tong Yon (left) meets his Southern counterpart Kim Kyou-hyun for negotiations in Panmunjom yesterday. Photo: AP

South Korean Unification Ministry officials (right) shake hands with their North Korean counterparts at a meeting at the border village of Panumjom. Photo: AP

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