North Korean refugees who escaped over the border to China told their harrowing stories of starvation and inhumane treatment to members of a UN Commission set up six months ago to investigate human rights violations in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Testimony from former North Korean detention camp inmates was so distressing it moved the chairman of the Commission, former Australian High Court judge Michael Kirby, "to tears", he told reporters at the UN in New York.
"I'm not ashamed to say that you would have to be a stony-hearted person not to be moved by the stories the Commission of Inquiry has received," Kirby told AA. The investigation will result in a comprehensive, official UN report that, it is hoped could pave the way for increased UN pressure on North Korea.
“Of course, many of these violations maybe known previously and they are written about, like political camps and famine but now we have heard first hand from many women refugees in China about the burden they had to feed their families in north Korea,” Sonja Biserko, a member of the UN inquiry team added.
The Commission is investigating dozens of alleged human rights violations in North Korea - some of them are associated with torture and starvation in prison camps, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and abductions of nationals to other countries is also being investigated.
The UN Commission might make one more field trip to the Republic of Korea, and is due to begin the analysis phase of its work on November first. The Commission is scheduled to present its final report on situation in North Korea to the Human Rights Council in March 2014.
“The Commission's task is to raise awareness of their human rights situation," said Biserko, who is a well known human rights activist from Former Yugoslavia nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Particularly important, Mrs. Biserko told AA, was the fact that "many neighboring countries, especially China can be very helpful – can be part of the solution."
"We hope to be able to open the dialogue with China in order to get more support from them for solving those problems,” Biserko told AA.
According to the New York based Human Rights Watch, organization that monitors human rights globally – “more than 200,000 North Koreans, including children, are imprisoned in camps where many perish from forced labor, inadequate food, and abuse by guards.” Human Rights Watch has been pressing for a UN commission of inquiry to investigate possible crimes against humanity in North Korea.
Biserko is a also founder and president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. Biserko has extensively written on the war in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, including on war crimes and Srebrenica genocide.
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