LONDON: Almost three years ago, the United Nations concluded that “the gravity, scale and nature” of human rights violations in North Korea “reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world”. In a damning report published after a year-long inquiry chaired by Australian judge Michael Kirby, the UN argued that North Korea is guilty of crimes against humanity and should be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A previous UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Vitit Muntarbhorn, had earlier described North Korea as “sui generis”—in a category of its own.
There is little doubt that North Korea is the world’s most closed, most repressive state, in which virtually every article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is denied or violated. There is no freedom of speech or religion, and no freedom of information. If you look at a satellite map of the Korean Peninsula, the South is lit up brightly; the North, where electricity is almost as scarce as hope, the map is almost completely black. That symbolises both the economic poverty and the political and spiritual darkness under the North Korean regime.
North Korea is ruled by the only dictatorship that is both a dynasty and, in its own mind, a deity. At least 100,000 people, perhaps as many as 200,000, are in dire condition in North Korea’s prison camps, or kwan-li-so. Extreme torture, sexual violence, slave labour, starvation and execution are commonplace. Anything other than absolute loyalty to the Kim dynasty results in incarceration and torture. Even inadvertent perceived insults, such as accidentally sitting on a newspaper with one of the Kim family’s picture on it, are a punishable crime.
Three key policies in North Korea lie at the heart of the regime’s total denial of freedom of religion, conscience and expression.
Firstly, the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-ideology System, a set of regulations introduced by Kim Jong-Il in 1974 and revised by the current Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un three years ago to consolidate his power and legitimise his succession. North Korean school children are taught the Ten Principles at school. One North Korean, when asked what was most memorable about Kim Il-Sung or Kim Jong-Il during his school days, replied: “I remember learning that he was sent from heaven, a leader of the people and a leader of the world.” Citizens are required to evaluate themselves daily on whether they have been living up to the Ten Principles. Kim family portraits are hung in homes and displayed in public spaces, cleaned regularly and inspected by the authorities.
Secondly, North Korea has a system of social classification which determines everything, including access to education, health care and jobs. The songbun system divides the people into three classes—the “core” or loyal class, the “wavering” class and the “hostile” class. This classification is determined at birth and reflects a person’s family background. Anyone suspected of religious belief or political dissent or with a history of such in their family is classified as an enemy of the state and placed in the “hostile” class.
Thirdly, the policy of “guilt by association”. When a person commits a political crime, their children and grandchildren are punished with them. And even if a person is not religious, but has relatives who are, they can be detained.
Ten years ago, my organisation published a major report, North Korea: A Case to Answer, A Call to Act, documenting these atrocities and calling for a United Nations inquiry. Ten years on, North Korea’s human rights record has certainly moved higher up the international agenda, with the BBC establishing a Korean language broadcast to the peninsula, north and south, to break the regime’s information blockade, and the UN Security Council placing human rights in North Korea on its agenda. As a result of the UN inquiry, a UN field office has opened in Seoul, to continue the vital work of documenting abuses so that one day the evidence can be used in a prosecution of the regime’s leaders.
But the key recommendation to refer a case to the ICC is held up by two major powers, China and Russia, who threaten to veto such a proposal. Hopes of justice and accountability are stalled.
There are, however, four things we can do. The first is to continue to keep the threat of an ICC referral on the table, and in the meantime to continue to build up international support so that, at some point in the future, we achieve such an overwhelming consensus among member states that China and Russia feel it would not be worth their while using political capital to defend their pariah client.
Another initiative that should also be considered is an informal public tribunal—of the kind held for Iran, Vietnam and Japanese “comfort women”—presided over by retired senior judges, calling witnesses to present evidence and testimony of human rights violations in North Korea. It would not have legal authority but it would be a powerful way of keeping the spotlight on the darkest corner of the world and shaming those who have the power to act but fail to use it.
Thirdly, we must use every means possible to prise open the world’s most closed state—through educational and cultural exchanges, distribution of CDs and USB sticks with western and South Korean films, music, literature and information on them, and other forms of critical engagement.
And fourthly, we should invest in developing the skills of North Korean defectors who have escaped from their country and live as refugees in exile. We should prepare them for the day when they can safely return home and contribute to rebuilding their country and reconciling the peninsula.
North Korea’s crimes against humanity have gone on for too long, with impunity, with the world looking the other way. It is now time to act to end the suffering of the people of North Korea.
Benedict Rogers is a London-based human rights activist.