NEW YORK, AUG 17 – Italy joined today a large group of countries calling for a stop of human rights violations in the Democratic People Republic of Korea (DPRK): “The DPRK government’s abuses and violations have been well-documented by credible accounts, which include: arbitrary killings; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; punishment of family members for offenses allegedly committed by an individual; and total state control of expression through censorship and repression”, the US Ambassador Linda Thomas- Greenfield said in a joint statement read outside the Security Council Chamber after a meeting dedicated to the link between the DPRK’s human rights abuses and violations and international peace and security.
Over 50 countries joined the statement. Italy’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Maurizio Massari, stood with his colleagues while Ms. Thomas-Greenfield enunciated a long list of crimes, “including summary executions, assassinations, abductions—including from Japan and the Republic of Korea—, intimidations, and forced repatriation, sometimes with the assistance of other governments, sometimes without their knowledge” perpetrated by the Pyongyang regime.
“Alone, these human rights abuses and violations demand the Council’s attention. But the DPRK government’s human rights abuses and violations also help facilitate its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile advancements”, the statement said, adding that “the DPRK government engages in domestic and overseas forced labor and labor exploitation to generate revenue to sustain and advance its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. And the DPRK’s repressive political climate allows the government to divert resources to weapons development, at the expense of the welfare of the people in the DPRK while they are suffering from severe economic hardship and malnutrition”.
None of this is acceptable, said the US Ambassador: “And there continues to be a lack of accountability for these human rights abuses and violations”.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, addressed the Council from Geneva: continuing “severe, widespread and long-standing” violations against citizens of the DPRK by their own Government, must not be viewed in isolation from wider peace and security issues on the Peninsula, he said, pointing out that many of the abuses “stem directly from, or support, the increasing militarisation of the DPRK.” Türk noted how the widespread use of forced labour, including in political prison camps, by children forced to collect harvests and the confiscation of overseas workers’ wages, all support Pyongyang’s imperative to “build weapons.”
His argument was reinforced by the UN independent human rights expert Elizabeth Salmón who told ambassadors that leaders North Korea have repeatedly demanded citizens to “tighten their belts” to the point of starvation in some cases, “so that the available resources could be used to fund the nuclear and missile programmes.”(@OnuItalia)
