UN official calls for international efforts to deal with N. Korea abductee issue
A top UN official on North Korean human rights has called for more concerted international efforts to raise awareness about Pyongyang's crimes against humanity.
He says North Korea's past abduction of foreign nationals should be addressed.
Arirang's Connie Kim has more.
A senior human rights investigator at the United Nations is calling for concerted international pressure to get North Korea to address its kidnapping of hundreds of foreign nationals.
In a report released on Monday, Marzuki Darusman, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in North Korea,... said countries should come together to bring back surviving abductees and shed light on all abduction cases.
The strategy laid out in the report calls for efforts to refer the North Korean leadership to the International Criminal Court and a global approach to improve North Korea's dire human rights situation,... with the goal of bringing a close to all enforced disappearances by Pyongyang.
North Korea's systematic abductions of foreign nationals gained the spotlight with the publication of a UN commission of inquiry report last year that said Pyongyang had engaged in abduction as a matter of state policy.
The report says North Korean agents have abducted hundreds of foreign nationals,... mainly from South Korea, Japan and China, since the 1960s.
Adding to the urgency, Darusman said Japanese authorities are investigating 881 possible abduction cases believed to have been carried out by Pyongyang.
Japanese authorities have already identified 12 other abductees.
Darusman's report will be presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva next week.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong, speaking at a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva last week, flatly rejected the landmark UN report released last year,... calling it "politically motivated."
Connie Kim, Arirang News.
He says North Korea's past abduction of foreign nationals should be addressed.
Arirang's Connie Kim has more.
A senior human rights investigator at the United Nations is calling for concerted international pressure to get North Korea to address its kidnapping of hundreds of foreign nationals.
In a report released on Monday, Marzuki Darusman, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in North Korea,... said countries should come together to bring back surviving abductees and shed light on all abduction cases.
The strategy laid out in the report calls for efforts to refer the North Korean leadership to the International Criminal Court and a global approach to improve North Korea's dire human rights situation,... with the goal of bringing a close to all enforced disappearances by Pyongyang.
North Korea's systematic abductions of foreign nationals gained the spotlight with the publication of a UN commission of inquiry report last year that said Pyongyang had engaged in abduction as a matter of state policy.
The report says North Korean agents have abducted hundreds of foreign nationals,... mainly from South Korea, Japan and China, since the 1960s.
Adding to the urgency, Darusman said Japanese authorities are investigating 881 possible abduction cases believed to have been carried out by Pyongyang.
Japanese authorities have already identified 12 other abductees.
Darusman's report will be presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva next week.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong, speaking at a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva last week, flatly rejected the landmark UN report released last year,... calling it "politically motivated."
Connie Kim, Arirang News.