Human Rights Priority Country status report: January to June 2016
Updated 8 February 2017
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The human rights situation in the DPRK has shown no improvement in the first half of 2016, and the regime continues to demonstrate no substantive engagement with the international community on human rights.
The UK continued to have direct engagement on several occasions with DPRK officials regarding human rights during this reporting period. The British Ambassador to Pyongyang raised human rights concerns in a number of his meetings with senior officials in Pyongyang. An FCO official met DPRK counterparts during a visit to Pyongyang in March, and raised the UK’s serious concerns at the appalling human rights situation in the country, reiterating the DPRK’s international human rights obligations. At every opportunity we continue to press the DPRK regime to engage meaningfully with international organisations and the international community on human rights issues. In addition, UK officials both in London and Pyongyang continued to have close engagement with a number of NGOs who are concerned with the human rights situation in the DPRK.
From 20 February until 3 May, the DPRK government imposed a 70-day campaign, mobilising its citizens to assist in preparations for the 7th Party Congress of the Worker’s Party of Korea (WPK), held on 9 May. During this campaign, the population were required to work round the clock on various countrywide project activities (such as construction and building repairs), in addition to their normal daily duties, and to attend political gatherings at regular intervals in support of the DPRK leadership. A further 200-day campaign was announced in June, whereby the DPRK population will continue these activities until 17 December. These campaigns demonstrate that there continues to be little or no freedom of movement or assembly in North Korea. Events in this reporting period reinforce our serious concerns about human rights in the DPRK and the DPRK regime’s continued disregard for and violations of international norms and obligations.
On 16 March, the DPRK authorities sentenced Otto Frank Warmbier, a 21-year old American national, to 15 years in prison with hard labour, for alleged “crimes against the state”. His trial was another demonstration of the clear lack of an independent judicial process in DPRK and of the government arresting foreign nationals for political purposes. On 18 March, the then FCO Minister for Asia Pacific, Hugo Swire, released a statement making clear the UK’s concerns about the evident lack of an independent judicial process in North Korea.
On 25 March, Kim Dong Chul, an American national, was presented at a press conference by the DPRK authorities, where he admitted to alleged crimes against the DPRK state. In May, media reports claimed that the DPRK Supreme Court had sentenced Kim to 10 years in prison with hard labour for espionage and subversion.
On 9 May, the DPRK state authorities detained and then expelled a visiting BBC journalist for “distorted reporting that defamed the system and leadership of the DPRK”. FCO officials in London and our Embassy in Pyongyang made strong representation to the DPRK authorities against the expulsion, and reiterated the DPRK’s responsibility to “uphold [their] obligations under international human rights standards, including freedom of expression and freedom of the media”. As the Freedom House “Freedom of the Press 2016” report makes clear, the DPRK “remained one of the most repressive media environments in the world in 2015”.
During 2016, we have maintained our support for small-scale humanitarian project activities through our Bilateral Programme Budget fund, which includes assistance to the more vulnerable elements of DPRK society in remote communities outside Pyongyang.
As with previous years, the UK strongly supported the EU/Japan-led resolution on DPRK at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), which was adopted without vote on 23 March. This resolution reiterated the international community’s concerns about the extensive human rights violations within DPRK, and included the creation of a new panel of experts to look at accountability issues, and the renewal of the mandate for the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK. Unlike previous years, there was no vote on the DPRK HRC resolution and Ri Su Yong, the DPRK Foreign Minister (at the time), stated that the DPRK would never be bound by international resolutions that, he claimed, were politically motivated. This explicit disengagement from the HRC is another example of the DPRK’s continuing refusal to work substantively with the international community on human rights.
On 16 June, the US Special Representative for DPRK Human Rights, Robert King, hosted a like-minded meeting in Brussels to discuss the international community’s concerns about human rights in DPRK. The discussion focused on the information blockade and the rights of DPRK overseas workers, as well as hearing directly from those affected by the regime.
The UK continues to work with other international partners on, and in support of, future human rights resolutions and to raise human rights issues with DPRK officials at every opportunity, as part of our policy of critical engagement.