The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in South Korea yesterday called for an impartial investigation into the killing of a fisheries official by North Korean troops at sea last month, as the man’s family urged the UN to conduct its own probe.
The death of the official, whose family identified him as Lee Dae-jun, sparked a dispute over why and how he was found floating in North Korean waters nearly 36 hours after he went missing.
The South Korean government said that their investigation suggested Lee wanted to defect to the North, but his family disputed that.
Photo: AFP
Lee’s brother, Lee Rae-jin, told reporters outside the UN human rights office in Seoul that he wanted to expose the North’s “atrocities” and ask for a “fair and objective investigation” by the UN.
In a statement on Twitter, the UN office said that both Koreas are obligated to carry out a “prompt, impartial, and effective investigation” and to make the findings public, but made no mention of the UN playing a role.
North Korea should also engage with the South to return the man’s remains, the UN office said.
Lee Dae-jun’s teenage son wrote a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in accusing the government of failing to save his father’s life.
“Would you have acted the same way if it were your own child or grandchild going through this pain?” he wrote to Moon.
Moon’s office said that the president planned to respond to the boy personally.
A spokesman the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said that it would respond to the family after reviewing their request for information.
South Korea has accused the North of dousing Lee’s body in fuel and setting it on fire to prevent any possible COVID-19 infections.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un offered an apology for the killing, but Pyongyang denied it burned his body and has not responded to Seoul’s call for a joint probe.
Meanwhile, Kim has ordered a nationwide drive to boost the ailing economy ahead of a key party congress in January next year, state media reported.
The decision was made during a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
“We have performed historical feats with our costly efforts, boldly overcoming unprecedentedly grave trials and difficulties this year, but we should not rest on our laurels,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said. “We still face the challenges that cannot be overlooked and there are many goals we have to attain within this year.”
The Workers’ Party is due to lay out a new economic plan at its January congress.
Additional reporting by AFP
China has possibly committed “genocide” in its treatment of Uighurs and other minority Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang, the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China said in a report on Thursday. The bipartisan commission said that new evidence had last year emerged that “crimes against humanity — and possibly genocide — are occurring” in Xinjiang. It also accused China of harassing Uighurs in the US. China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centers” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills, which others have called concentration camps. The UN says that
A racing pigeon has survived an extraordinary 13,000km Pacific Ocean crossing from the US to find a new home in Australia. Now authorities consider the bird a quarantine risk and plan to kill it. Kevin Celli-Bird yesterday said he discovered that the exhausted bird that arrived in his Melbourne backyard on Dec. 26 last year had disappeared from a race in the US state of Oregon on Oct. 29. Experts suspect the pigeon that Celli-Bird has named Joe — after US president-elect Joe Biden — hitched a ride on a cargo ship to cross the Pacific. Joe’s feat has attracted the attention
The Polish Supreme Court on Friday quashed a lower court’s green light for the extradition of a businessman to China for alleged fraud, a charge he has denied, saying that he is being targeted for supporting Falun Gong. Polish authorities took Chinese-born Swedish citizen Li Zhihui, now 53, into custody in 2019 on an international warrant issued by China for alleged non-payment in a business deal, Krzysztof Kitajgrodzki, his Polish lawyer, told reporters. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the case would return to a lower appellate court for review. Kitajgrodzki told reporters that it was still not a given that his client
DELIVERING HOPE: The Japanese PM pledged to push ahead with plans to stage the Games, despite polls showing about 80% think they will not or should not happen Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga yesterday vowed to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control and hold the already postponed Olympic Games this summer with ample protection. In a speech opening a new session of parliament, Suga said that his government would revise laws to make disease prevention measures enforceable with penalties and compensation. Early in the pandemic, Japan was able to keep its caseload manageable with nonbinding requests for businesses to close or operate with social distancing, and for people to stay at home, but recent weeks have seen several highs in new cases per day, in part blamed on eased attitudes
RSS