The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has debated a report which accuses North Korea of systematic torture, starvation and killings comparable with Nazi-era atrocities.
Their findings were based on testimony from hundreds of victims, defectors and witnesses. The report called for the closure of political prison camps and for countries such as China to stop forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees. The camps are believed to hold up to 120,000 people, many of whom are Christians: reliable sources estimate that as many as one in four of the Christians in North Korea are in labour camps or prisons
Watch the victims’ testimonies here on UN Web TV.
Meanwhile a top North Korean diplomat at the UN in New York has said that the US must “roll back” its “hostile policies” and stop raising tensions through continued military drills with South Korea and orchestrating “conspiracies” on the North’s human rights situation. He called on the US to stop isolating it politically, militarily and economically citing the nation’s first high-level talks with South Korea since 2007 and planned talks with Japan, as proof of a commitment to relieving tensions.