In March of 2013 The United Nations Human Rights Council created a Commission of Inquiry with a mandate to “investigate systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” The results are out and it is fucking bleak.
Overall they have found evidence of an array of crimes against humanity, enacted throughout North Korea due to “policies established at the highest level of State,” and have thus called for the international community to take “urgent action”.
The aim of the inquiry was to investigate whether human rights violations of the following nature were being committed:
. Violations of the right to food,
. Violations associated with prison camps,
. Torture and inhuman treatment,
. Arbitrary detention,
. Discrimination,
. Violations of freedom of expression,
. Violations of the right to life,
. Violations of freedom of movement, and
. Enforced disappearances, including in the form of abductions of nationals of other States.
The report concluded that, “The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world. 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. 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.”
Throughout the gathering of documentation for the report they heard shocking victims’ testimonies and a number of accounts from survivors, witnesses and perpetrators of atrocities. In conjunction with the release of their findings they have compiled a video which, warning, is beyond upsetting:
Included in the IOC is a letter addressed directly to the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, outlining the findings and informing him that the case has been recommended for immediate attention by 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.”
