About half of 451 North Korean defectors questioned in a survey endured physical violence at the hands of North Korean authorities, a rights group said yesterday, as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un prepared to meet US President Donald Trump for a summit.
On Sunday, US lawmakers called Kim the “leader of perhaps the world’s most repressive regime,” but analysts say that as in the leaders’ first summit, human rights are unlikely to be addressed in their second.
Trump and Kim are due to meet in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, today and tomorrow, eight months after their historic Singapore summit.
Photo: AP
On the top of their agenda is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and what concessions the US might offer in return for North Korea giving up its weapons.
North Korea’s poor human rights record is not likely to figure prominently, if at all.
The survey, conducted between 2015 and 2018 and released by Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group, found that three out of four North Korean defectors had, before they fled North Korea, experienced physical violence or the death of close family members, by execution or starvation, forced repatriation, arrest or detention.
About 48 percent of the respondents said that they had personally experienced violence perpetrated by the North Korean authorities, including beating, torture, rape and other sexual assault.
There has been dismay that rights seem to have been relegated down the agenda in dealing with North Korea.
In Seoul, protesters yesterday tore up photographs of Kim and threw them to the ground.
“We are skeptical of the US-North Korea summit without discussing human right issues,” said Ihn Ji-yeon, a leader of the anti-North rally and a spokeswoman for the Korean Patriots Party.
British Minister of State for the Commonwealth and United Nations Tariq Ahmad on Monday told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, that human rights in North Korea had not improved.
“Despite some welcome signs on the political track, there has been no improvement in the human rights situation,” he said.
“Meeting the challenge of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, as well as addressing other issues such as North Korea’s systemic, gross violations of human rights, is of concern to all Americans and to our allies and partners,” US senators said in a letter to Trump on Sunday.
However, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha told the Geneva council that “human rights cannot thrive in the absence of peace.”
She said that progress toward a “nuclear-free Korean Peninsula,” which had started, would have enormous rewards, including an improvement in human rights.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in