{"id":34115,"date":"2018-06-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csw-yeo.1wp.site\/blog\/human-rights-must-be-included-in-talks-to-ensure-true-peace-in-north-korea-1963\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T22:07:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:07:37","slug":"human-rights-must-be-included-in-talks-to-ensure-true-peace-in-north-korea-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/blog\/human-rights-must-be-included-in-talks-to-ensure-true-peace-in-north-korea-1963\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Must be Included in Talks to Ensure True Peace in North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just over a week ago, US President Donald Trump met with Kim Jong-Un<\/a>, leader of the world\u2019s most repressive regime which has been accused by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry<\/a> of \u201ccrimes against humanity\u201d. It was historic \u2013 the first time a sitting American President and a North Korean dictator had met face-to-face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the surface, in words attributed to Winston Churchill, \u201cjaw jaw\u201d has to be better than \u201cwar war\u201d. It is good that the two men have moved from talk of \u201cfire and fury\u201d and whose nuclear button is bigger to discussion of denuclearisation, peace and prosperity. Perhaps a new era may be dawning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, one very fundamental issue seemed to be missing from the agenda: the human rights of the people of North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“However, one very fundamental issue seemed to be missing from the agenda: the human rights of the people of North Korea.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

CSW has been documenting the human rights crisis in the world\u2019s most closed nation for almost two decades. Our report, North Korea: A Case to Answer, A Call to Act<\/a>, was one of the first human rights reports to call for a UN Commission of Inquiry, in 2007. We co-founded the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea<\/a> in 2011. We led the applause for the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry when it came in 2013, gave evidence to its hearings, and have championed its recommendations since its report was released in 2014. Two years ago we released a new report on violations of freedom of religion or belief in North Korea \u2013 Total Denial<\/a> \u2013 and earlier this year we published a ground-breaking new report on changes in the country over the last decade, titled Movies, Markets and Mass Surveillance<\/a>. And just before the summit, CSW joined over 300 other non-governmental organisations in sending a letter<\/a> to Kim Jong-Un, urging him to make \u201clasting improvements to the dire human rights situation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Every one of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights\u2019 thirty articles is denied or violated in North Korea \u2013 in particular freedom of religion or belief<\/a>.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Every one of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights\u2019 thirty articles is denied or violated in North Korea \u2013 in particular freedom of religion or belief<\/a>. If you identify as a Christian in North Korea, you are risking a death sentence. Christians worshipping in secret risk certain incarceration in a prison camp, and possible execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, we have interviewed \u2013 and hosted \u2013 North Korean escapees<\/a>, giving them platforms to tell their horrific tales of torture first-hand. It is therefore no surprise that they feel angry at the way last week\u2019s summit proceeded. Kim Yong-hwa<\/a> said that it was like \u201cstabbing the heart\u201d of North Koreans. Jung Gwang-il<\/a>, who met President Trump earlier this year, says he feels let down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To sideline human rights is disappointing enough<\/a>, but for President Trump to salute a North Korean General<\/a>, express admiration for the fact that when Kim speaks, North Korean people sit up, and declare that \u201cI want my people to do the same<\/a>,\u201d is appalling. North Korean people have no choice, and if they are even suspected of anything other than absolute devotion to the ruling family, they end up in a gulag. Mr Trump said he was joking. But Mr President, gulags are no joke. And North Korea\u2019s regime has incarcerated at least 100,000 people, perhaps twice that number, in prison camps that have been compared to Auschwitz<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet we in CSW are not opposed to the summit itself. Indeed, in principle we welcome engagement. We have long advocated engagement. In 2010, I travelled to North Korea with Britain\u2019s tireless champion of human rights in North Korea, Lord Alton, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for North Korea, to engage the regime. We published a report \u2013 Building Bridges, Not Walls<\/a> \u2013 which advocated critical engagement. But human rights must be clearly on the table, as they were in the Helsinki Process with the Soviet Union \u2013 a model for engagement with North Korea. For as Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov said during his 1975 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, \u201cinternational confidence, mutual understanding, disarmament, and international security are inconceivable without an\u00a0open society with freedom of information, freedom of conscience, the right to publish, and the right to travel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should not be forgotten that the Trump-Kim summit took place on 12 June, the 31st<\/sup> anniversary of President Ronald Reagan\u2019s Berlin Wall speech<\/a>. That speech linked the security of the world with the basic human rights and freedoms<\/a> of an oppressed people. \u201cFreedom and security go together: the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace, said President Reagan.\u201d Just as Ronald Reagan called on Mikhail Gorbachev to \u201ctear down this wall\u201d and \u201copen this gate\u201d, Mr Trump should deliver the same message to Mr Kim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Our task now is to insist that at every stage of engagement with North Korea from now on, human rights are part of the discussion.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Our task now is to insist that at every stage of engagement with North Korea from now on, human rights are part of the discussion. In the meantime, we must increase efforts to increase the information flow into North Korea, to counter the regime\u2019s propaganda and undermine its information blockade. As our new report, Movies, Markets and Mass Surveillance: Human Rights in North Korea after a Decade of Change<\/em><\/a> shows, in the last ten years increased flows of information, through radio broadcasts and smuggling of DVDs and USBs with South Korean dramas on them, have enhanced awareness about the outside world, and about human rights. Together with economic changes, this has led to an opening of hearts and minds in North Korea \u2013 despite, not because, of the regime. In this new engagement, we must build on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Justice Michael Kirby, who chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry, said in a recent article<\/a>, \u201cI am glad that President Trump and Chairman Kim met in Singapore \u2026 But I cannot put out of my mind the people who came to the public hearings of the United Nations inquiry. They told their stories of suffering. They trust the world and the United Nations to right the wrongs. Their testimony is on the Internet. It haunts our world. But not North Korea where it is inaccessible to all but the elite around Kim. I will begin to respect his word when he opens up his isolated country to allow United Nations inspectors to visit the mass detention camps. Let him do this immediately and then I can join in the rejoicing for the self-proclaimed triumph of the Singapore Summit of June 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real peace is impossible, unless the human rights and dignity of the people of North Korea are respected, crimes against humanity end and accountability established. That must remain the goal for which we work and pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Benedict Rogers, CSW’s East Asia Team Leader<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n

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