The Rights Office, Ohchra interviewed 314 witnesses who left the RPDC – more commonly known as North Korea – and has consulted several organizations and experts to assess human rights conditions since 2014.
The situation has not improved and, in many cases, has worsened, “bringing even more suffering to the population,” said spokesperson Liz Throssell, information journalists in Geneva.
James Heenan, head of the office working on the RPDC, stressed the seriousness of human rights violations, where even a minor offense can lead to a sanction.
Killed to share online shows
“We have credible evidence that individuals were executed-not only to watch the K-Dramas. The crime is for distribution at a certain level, foreign information, foreign media, “he said.
The report revealed that new laws, political and practices have led to increased surveillance and control over citizens, some of which found themselves in forced work camps, as political prisoners.
Work in “shock brigades”
In a form of forced work called “shock brigades”, the Pyongyang authorities would have used thousands of orphans and street children to work in coal mines and other environments, exposing them to dangerous and long hours of work, according to the United Nations report.
Heenan also added that schoolchildren are also used to doing “exhausting” work collected harvesting and although they were supposed to be in class.
“The government says that it is a sort of study program to help them acquire life skills. But the information we have had for many years he responds to the qualification of forced work because children have no choice, “he said.
The physically demanding and dangerous work of brigades is also undertaken by residents of the military or penitentiary system, as well as by mainly poor families of families who wish to become party members or improve their social status.
Deaths would be frequent under these conditions, but rather than increasing security measures, PDR publicly glorifies deaths as a sacrifice to the chief, according to the report.
The widely used death penalty
In 2014 and 2015, many senior officials were reportedly performed for “anti-state acts”, the report said.
Although this trend later decreased, escape said that from 2020, execution was used for the distribution of unauthorized media, drugs and economic crimes, prostitution, pornography, traffic and murder.
Since 2015, six new laws have made it possible to use the death penalty for offenses such as vaguely defined “anti-state” propaganda.
The respondents said they also witnessed public executions in the past decade. The report explains that the government has organized public tests and executions to inspire fear in the population and dissuasive.
“To block the eyes and ears of the people, they reinforced the repression,” said one of the witnesses to Ohchr.
Not enough progress
The escape expressed that certain improvements had been made to the treatment of people in detention establishments. North Korea has also ratified two other human rights treaties, but the report ultimately concludes that it is far from respecting its obligations under international law.
The RPDC remains more isolated than any other nation, adding more to the difficulty of monitoring and implementing fair human rights standards.
“What we have seen is a lost decade,” said head of human rights in the UN Volker Türk. “And it hurts me to say that if the RPDC continues on its current trajectory, the population will be subject to more suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have endured for so long. »»
Originally published in The European Times.
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