“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations
reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary
world,” the Commission -- established by the Human Rights Council in
March 2013 -- says in a report that is unprecedented in scope.
“These crimes against humanity entail
extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape,
forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on
political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible
transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and
the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,” the
report says, adding that “Crimes against humanity are ongoing in the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea because the policies,
institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain
in place.”
The second more detailed section of the report
cites evidence provided by individual victims and witnesses,
including the harrowing treatment meted out to political prisoners,
some of whom said they would catch snakes and mice to feed
malnourished babies. Others told of watching family members being
murdered in prison camps, and of defenceless inmates being used for
martial arts practice.
“The fact that the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea…has for decades pursued policies involving crimes that shock
the conscience of humanity raises questions about the inadequacy of
the response of the international community,” the report stated.
“The international community must accept its responsibility to
protect the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from
crimes against humanity, because the Government of the DPRK has
manifestly failed to do so.”
The Commission found that the DPRK “displays many
attributes of a totalitarian State.”
“There is an almost complete denial of the right
to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the
rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and
association,” the report says, adding that propaganda is used by the
State to manufacture absolute obedience to the Supreme Leader and to
incite nationalistic hatred towards some other States and their
nationals.
State surveillance permeates private lives and
virtually no expression critical of the political system goes
undetected – or unpunished.
“The key to the political system is the vast
political and security apparatus that strategically uses
surveillance, coercion, fear and punishment to preclude the
expression of any dissent. Public executions and enforced
disappearance to political prison camps serve as the ultimate means
to terrorise the population into submission,” the report states.
“The unspeakable atrocities that are being
committed against inmates of the kwanliso political prison camps
resemble the horrors of camps that totalitarian States established
during the twentieth century. The institutions and officials
involved are not held accountable. Impunity reigns.”
It is estimated that between 80,000 and 120,000
political prisoners are currently detained in four large political
prison camps, where deliberate starvation has been used as a means
of control and punishment. Gross violations are also being committed
in the ordinary prison system, according to the Commission’s
findings.
The report noted that the DPRK consists of a
rigidly stratified society with entrenched patterns of
discrimination. Discrimination is rooted in the songbun system,
which classifies people on the basis of State-assigned social class
and birth, and also includes consideration of political opinions and
religion, and determines where they live, work, study and even whom
they may marry.
Violations of the freedom of movement and
residence are also heavily driven by discrimination based on
songbun. Those considered politically loyal to the leadership can
live and work in favourable locations, such as Pyongyang. Others are
relegated to a lower status. For example, the distribution of food
has prioritised those deemed useful to the survival of the current
political system at the expense of others who are “expendable.”
“Confiscation and dispossession of food from those
in need, and the provision of food to other groups, follow this
logic,” the report notes, adding that “the State has consistently
failed in its obligation to use the maximum of its available
resources to feed those who are hungry.”
Military spending – predominantly on hardware and
the development of weapons systems and the nuclear programme – has
always been prioritised, even during periods of mass starvation, the
report says. The State also maintains a system of inefficient
economic production and discriminatory resource allocation that
inevitably produces more avoidable starvation among its citizens.
Violations of the rights to food and to freedom of
movement have resulted in women and girls becoming vulnerable to
trafficking and forced sex work outside the DPRK. Many take the risk
of fleeing, mainly to China, despite the high chance that they will
be apprehended and forcibly repatriated, then subjected to
persecution, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention and, in some
cases sexual violence. “Repatriated women who are pregnant are
regularly subjected to forced abortions, and babies born to
repatriated women are often killed,” the report states.
The Commission urged all States to respect the
principle of non-refoulement (i.e. not to forcibly return refugees
to their home country) and to adopt a victim-centric and human
rights-based approach to trafficking, including by providing victims
with the right to stay in the country and access to legal protection
and basic services.
“Crimes against humanity have been, and are being,
committed against starving populations. These crimes are sourced in
decisions and policies violating the universal human right to food.
They were taken for purposes of sustaining the present political
system, in full awareness that they would exacerbate starvation and
contribute to related deaths.”
The Commission also found that, since 1950, the
“State’s violence has been externalized through State-sponsored
abductions and enforced disappearances of people from other nations.
These international enforced disappearances are unique in their
intensity, scale and nature.”
While the Government did not respond to the
Commission’s requests for access to DPRK and for information, the
Commission obtained first-hand testimony through public hearings
with about 80 witnesses in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington D.C.,
and more than 240 confidential interviews with victims and other
witnesses, including in Bangkok. Eighty formal submissions were also
received from different entities.
The report includes a letter sent by the
Commissioners to the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, containing a
summary of their most serious findings, in particular the fact that
“in many instances” the systematic, widespread and gross human
rights violations “entail crimes against humanity,” and drawing
attention to the principles of command and superior responsibility
under international criminal law according to which military
commanders and civilian superiors can incur personal criminal
responsibility for failing to prevent and repress crimes against
humanity committed by persons under their effective control.
In the letter to Kim Jong-un, the Commissioners
stated that it would recommend referral of the situation in the DPRK
to the International Criminal Court “to render accountable all
those, including possibly yourself, who may be responsible for the
crimes against humanity referred to in this letter and in the
Commission’s report.”
Among wide-ranging recommendations to the DPRK, to
China and other States, and to the international community, the
Commission calls on the Security Council to adopt targeted sanctions
against those who appear to be most responsible for crimes against
humanity, stressing that sanctions should not be targeted against
the population or the economy as a whole. |