Nobel peace laureates: UN should work to improve human rights in North Korea
An appeal signed by three Nobel peace laureates urges the United Nations Security Council not to focus merely on punishing Pyongyang's nuclear test but to work to remedy the country's disastrous human rights record.
New York (AsiaNews/CI) The international community "should not concentrate its efforts only on Pyongyang's nuclear test" but should use this time to pass "a non-punitive resolution as a first step in improving North Korea's human rights record".
This appeal was made to the United Nations Security Council yesterday by three Nobel peace laureates: former Czech President Vaclav Havel, former Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, and Elie Wiesel, a Nazi concentration camp survivor and human rights activist.
The signatories told the UN leadership that "North Korea's oppression of human rights must not be overshadowed by the recent nuclear test. The Security Council must squarely deal with this matter separately from the sanctions imposed on the regime after the nuclear test."
The report was co-written by the three men, the law firm DLA Piper, and an NGO, the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
The appeal draws attention to the "death of some million North Koreans in famines due to the failure of the nation's food policy in the 1990s, the 200,000 held in prison camps and the 400,000 who have died there over the last 30 years."
In an article that appeared in the New York Times today, the three men said: "The UN General Assembly and Commission on Human Rights have adopted resolutions condemning North Korea's human rights abuse, only to be ignored by the North. The growing attention on North Korea after the nuclear test provides a good opportunity to improve North Korea's human rights record."
In conclusion, they invited the international community to "adopt a resolution, with no sanctions attached, that includes human rights activists' free access to North Korea, release of all political prisoners, and permission for a United Nations special reporter on human rights to enter the country."
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12/02/2016 15:14
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