Human rights in North Korea

The human rights record of North Korea is often considered to be the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations, the European Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of it. Most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty. Western human rights groups such as Amnesty International and nations such as the United States have asserted that, in practice, there is no right to free speech, and the only media providers that are deemed legal are those operated by the government in North Korea. According to reports from Amnesty International and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, by 2017 an estimated 200,000 prisoners were incarcerated in camps that were dedicated to political crimes, and were subjected to forced labour, physical abuse, and execution. The North Korean government strictly monitors the activities of foreign visitors. Aid workers are subjected to considerable scrutiny and they are also excluded from places and regions which the government does not want them to enter. Since citizens cannot freely leave the country, it is mainly from stories of refugees and defectors that the nation's human rights record has been constructed. The government's position, expressed through the Korean Central News Agency, is that international criticism of its human rights record is a pretext for overthrowing its Juche-based system, while the abuses of its critics go unpunished. The General Assembly of the United Nations has since 2003 annually adopted a resolution condemning the country's human rights record. The resolution of December 19, 2011, passed by a vote of 123–16 with 51 abstentions, urged the government in Pyongyang to end its "systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights", which included public executions and arbitrary detentions. North Korea rejected the resolution, saying it was politically motivated and based upon untrue fabrications.

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Related concepts (9)

Kim Il Sung

Kim Il Sung (ˈkɪm_ˈɪlˈsʌŋ,_-ˈsʊŋ; , kimils͈ʌŋ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a Korean politician and the founder of North Korea. He ruled the country from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. Afterwards, he was declared its eternal president. His birth name was Kim Song Ju (). He held the posts of the Premier from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to 1994. He was the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) from 1949 to 1994 (titled as Chairman from 1949 to 1966 and as General Secretary after 1966).

Kwalliso

North Korea's political penal labor and rehabilitation colonies, transliterated kwalliso or kwan-ri-so, constitute one of three forms of political imprisonment in the country, the other two being what Washington DC based NGO Committee for Human Rights in North Korea described as "short-term detention/forced-labor centers" and "long-term prison labor camps", for misdemeanor and felony offenses respectively. It is unknown if there are any operating as of 2023. Durations of imprisonment are variable.

North Korean defectors

North Korean defectors are North Koreans who have fled from the country in spite of legal punishment for political, ideological, religious, economic, moral, personal, or nutritional reasons after the division of Korea after the end of World War II and the Korean War. North Koreans flee to various countries, mostly South Korea and China. In South Korea, they are referred to by several terms, including "northern refugees" and "new settlers". Towards the end of the North Korean famine of the 1990s, there was a steep increase in defections, reaching a peak in 1998 and 1999.