AFP, Geneva :
The crimes of North Korea’s regime are as chilling as those of the Nazis, South Africa’s apartheid regime or Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and must be stopped, the head of a UN inquiry said on Monday.
“Contending with the great scourges of Nazism, apartheid, the Khmer Rouge and other affronts required courage by great nations and ordinary human beings alike,” Michael Kirby told the UN Human Rights Council.
“It is now your solemn duty to address the scourge of human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” he said.
His comments came a month after the investigators released a searing 400-page report documenting a range of gross human rights abuses in the country, including the extermination of people, enslavement and sexual violence.
“The gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” Kirby said.
“The country is a dark abyss where the human rights, the dignity and the humanity of the people are controlled, denied and ultimately annihilated.”
North Korea, which refused to cooperate with the commission, has “categorically” rejected its report.
The country’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, So Se Pyon, said Monday the findings were “shameless fabrications” by “hostile forces”.
But Kirby said “the world has ignored the evidence for too long,” adding: “There is no excuse, because now we know.”
The commission, which was created in March 2013 by the Human Rights Council, was denied access to North Korea and relied for its findings on hearings in South Korea and Japan with 320 North Korean exiles.
The report included shocking testimony from North Koreans who escaped, highlighting “the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation”.
In their hard-hitting report, the commissioners insisted North Korea’s leaders should be brought before an international court for a litany of crimes against humanity.
