UN panel urges North Korea to discuss human rights

The head of a United Nations probe has urged North Korea to respond to horrific testimony of human rights abuses heard in Seoul and Tokyo. Retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, who is leading the three-member Commission of Inquiry, has also called for increased awareness about the plight of some 95,000 formerly Japan-based ethnic Koreans who migrated to North Korea decades ago.

Since the late 1950s, the ethnic Koreans went to the North believing they would find a "Paradise on Earth", only to find poverty and discrimination. Some of them managed to return to Japan, but most of them have remained there.

"Evidence we have received has indicated that, from the minute of their arrival, most of them were shocked and suffered deprivations of their fundamental human rights," Mr Kirby said. The Japanese public has given significant support for the issue of its nationals kidnapped by North Korean agents during the Cold War era to train spies in Japanese language and customs. Mr Kirby says an improved level of "understanding" should also be shown for the plight of the ethnic Koreans.

The commission spent Thursday and Friday in Tokyo collecting testimonies of human rights violations in North Korea. It also plans to hear evidence in Thailand, Britain and the United States. The team will investigate a wide range of human rights concerns including starvation and treatment of political prisoners.

The commission - the first UN expert panel to officially examine North Korea's rights record - spent five days in Seoul collecting harrowing testimony of rights abuses in the isolated state. The final report is due to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in March next year. Mr Kirby says he expects the UN to act on any recommendations it might make. North Korea denies that it abuses human rights and has refused to recognise the commission, denying access to the investigators from Serbia, Indonesia and Australia

(2013-08-31/abc)