CSW urges EU to support calls for a UN inquiry

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has today written to the Foreign Ministers of all EU member states, urging them to call for the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity in North Korea. The letter comes just days after reports have emerged from North Korea of the alleged execution of three Christians and the imprisonment of at least 20 others.

The EU is tabling the annual UN General Assembly resolution on human rights in North Korea, to be introduced in October. In its letter to European Foreign Ministers, CSW argues that there is a “prima facie case of crimes against humanity committed by the [North Korean] regime, including murder, extermination, enslavement/forced labour, forcible transfer of population, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, persecution, enforced disappearances of persons, and other inhumane acts. The use of public executions as a method of generating fear and obedience is also illegal under international law.”

CSW cites evidence that “prisoners .. face systematic and severe torture, intense forced labour, dire living conditions, chronic food shortages and brutal punishments. Guilt by association is applied to detainees’ families, so that an estimated 200,000 people are incarcerated within a system of camps known as ‘North Korea’s gulags’. The barbaric system is calculated to cause extreme fatigue and sickness, and refugees have stated that imprisonment in the camps amounts to nothing more than a harsh, drawn-out death sentence. Life expectancy in the camps is one to two years – the same as that in Nazi concentration camps 70 years ago.”

The former UN Special Rapporteur to North Korea Vitit Muntarbhorn consistently highlighted the appalling situation of human rights in North Korea. In his final report to the UN General Assembly in October 2009 he described the “egregious and endemic” nature of the situation.

CSW’s National Director Stuart Windsor said, “The regime in North Korea is committing the most barbaric violations of human rights and it is time that the UN General Assembly took meaningful action to prevent the continuing suffering of the North Korean people. A Commission of Inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity is an essential step towards justice and an end to impunity, and we urge the EU to support this recommendation and work proactively to achieve it.”

For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Kiri Kankhwende, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on +44 (0)20 8329 0045 / +44 (0) 78 2332 9663, email kiri@csw.org.uk or visit www.csw.org.uk.

CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all.

Unsubscribe or receive CSW press releases via RSS

Ends

Notes to Editors:

1. In his report to the UN General Assembly in October 2009 the former UN Special Rapporteur to North Korea Vitit Muntarbhorn called on the international community to “mobilise the totality of the United Nations to promote and protect human rights in the country; support processes which concretise responsibility and accountability for human rights violations, and an end to impunity.”