North Korea denounces UN human rights expert as US ‘puppet’
- Elizabeth Salmon, the new UN expert on human rights in North Korea, is on her first official visit to South Korea
- North Korea’s Foreign Ministry criticised Salmon and the ‘human rights’ racket of the US and other hostile forces
North Korea called the UN’s top expert on the country’s human rights “a puppet” of the United States, warning on Friday that it won’t tolerate an American-led plot to use the rights issue to overthrow its political system.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of its rights record, viewing it as an attempt to slander and rattle its authoritarian rule of its 26 million people, most of whom have little access to foreign news.
Its latest reaction comes as Elizabeth Salmon, the UN special rapporteur on the North’s human rights, is making her first visit to South Korea this week to meet officials, activists and North Korean defectors since her appointment last month.
In her inaugural statement, Salmon said North Koreans face “new and more serious hardships” because of severe pandemic-related curbs that added to decades-long abuses, which she said must not be neglected.
She said she was convinced that international solidarity should be more decisively mobilised to protect human rights in North Korea.
On Friday, an unidentified spokesperson at the North’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement slamming the UN rapporteur without mentioning her name directly.