By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

GENEVA, Switzerland – North Korea has rejected a series of recommendations from the United Nations (UN) to improve its “appalling” human rights record.

In its response, North Korea’s Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ri Chol, rebuffed 50 of the 169 recommendations by the UN. 

At a meeting held on Thursday, Ri said that the recommendations arose out of animosity towards North Korea are aimed at undermining the North Korean regime.  Ri specifically stated that North Korea does not recognize UN’s human rights envoys.

UN urged North Korea to end capital punishment and public executions, forced labor, and military training for children.  The recommendation also included allowing UN human rights envoys to visit Pyongyang as well as improving human rights for the socially weak and allowing reunions of families separated by the Korean War.

The UN recommendation came on the heels of a reported high-profile execution by a firing squad of a former top North Korean government official.  The government official was executed for causing the current inflation and economic crisis in North Korea resulting from last year’s currency reform.

The last high-profile execution took place in 1997 when Pyongyang executed the director of Agriculture Ministry who was blamed for the famine that killed estimated two million North Koreans back in 1990’s.

In addition, Pyongyang has continuously refused to allow UN’s special human rights rapporteurs to investigate first-hand the human rights situation in the country. 

However, “Those who wanted to find some silver lining in the gray clouds of North Korea’s human rights record had pointed to North Korean participation in Geneva at least as evidence that North Korea wanted to put its side of the story,” said Mark Fitzpatrick from International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Nonetheless, members of the UN, including South Korea, the United States, Japan and France, have expressed their disappointment with North Korea’s response.

For more information, please see:

The Christian Science Monitor – North Korea spurns UN push to stop executions and torture – 19 March 2010

RTT – North Korea Shuns UN Recommendations On Improving Human Rights Record – 19 March 2010

Yonhap News – N. Korea rejects U.N. recommendations on human rights – 19 March 2010