Muhammad Muzahidul Islam :
The sufferings of the people of North Korea know no bounds. It would be wrong if I say the sufferings of North Korean people are limited within the geographical boundary of this country.
Those who have been able to escape the territorial boundary have not been able to escape from their sufferings. Victims have gone through diverse types of human rights abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regimes.
We would not be able to judge or evaluate the exact situation of human rights in North Korea if we fail to count the on-the-ground realities.
North Korean people have been victims of diverse types of human rights abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regimes.
We can categorize the victims as residents group, defectors group, detainees group or the individuals who have been forcibly disappeared.
Victims of the residents group include the individuals who live within the North Korean territory and have been subjected to abuses by the authoritarian regimes. Victims of the defectors group include those who have been residing abroad.
The victims of the latter groups include individuals who have been forcibly disappeared or abducted or have been prisoners by authoritarian regimes.
Regardless of the categorization, all the victims have been subjected to human rights abuses.
North Korea is still one of the most repressive countries in the globe. The country is being ruled by third-generation totalitarian leader Kim Jong Un.
He has so far been successful in maintaining fearful obedience by using threats of torture, executions, imprisonment, forced labour and enforced disappearances.
Report of Freedom House (Freedom in World 2024, North Korea) reveals documented human rights violations include widespread torture, public executions, forced labor by detainees, and death sentences for political offenses.
A 2021 UN report noted that forced labor and torture are rampant in the prison system, and that citizens often pay bribes to avoid arrest, mitigate treatment in detention, and secure family visits.
Defectors who seek safety in neighboring third countries are sometimes returned to North Korea, where they face torture and disproportionate punishment.
China’s government considers North Korean escapees to be irregular economic migrants and regularly turns them back, violating international law”.
On discrimination, the said report further provides that “Discrimination is commonly based on perceived political and ideological nonconformity.
All citizens are classified according to their family’s level of loyalty and proximity to the leadership under a semihereditary caste-like system known as songbun.
Those who are classified as “wavering” or “hostile” instead of “loyal” face official discrimination in employment, live in poorer housing, and receive limited educational opportunities, though rules can be manipulated through bribery.
Relatives of suspected political and ideological dissidents, including defectors, are also subject to punishment in what amounts to guilt by association.
The country’s ethnic Chinese population has limited educational and employment opportunities, but somewhat more freedom of travel and trade.
Women have legal equality but face rigid discrimination in practice and are poorly represented in public employment and the military.
Despite fewer opportunities in the formal sector, women are economically active in markets, which can expose them to arbitrary state interference.
A UN report published in March 2023 found that COVID-19 restrictions had disproportionately impacted women and girls, further exacerbating existing challenges in accessing “food, medicine, health care, and livelihoods.”
North Korea has historically denied the rights of people living with disabilities. Defectors report that disabled people have been quarantined, exiled, forcibly sterilized, experimented on, and sometimes executed”.
It is worth mentioning that North Korean people have long previous records of victimization of human rights abuses.
In 2013, the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the situation of human rights in North Korea. The COI published its report in 2014.
According to this report, the crimes against humanity were committed in North Korea.
Let me share with you the relevant portion of this report. Paragraph 76 of the said report provides that “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.
To promote human rights in North Korea and to bring effective actions, one could argue that North Korea has already ratified six important human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). So, North Korea’s domestic measures should be in line with those international human rights instruments.
Further, some rights have already attained the status of jus cogens; the regional and international community should pay due respect to those principles.
Neighbouring countries should respect the principle of non-refoulement by not deporting the North Korean defectors to this country again.
However, isn’t North Korea supposed to bring domestic measures that are compliant with international human rights obligations to promote human rights in its territory? Aren’t the International and regional community supposed to respect the customary rules and principles, and bring effective actions to promote human rights in North Korea?
(The writer is a barrister-at-law, human rights activist and an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh).
