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Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se delivers a speech at the 34th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Feb. 27, on the topic of human rights violations in North Korea.

“There can be no peace without human rights, and no human rights without peace.”

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se delivered an address at the 34th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council at the U.N. Offices in Geneva on Feb. 27. He emphasized that human rights violations are a threat to peace in the international community. “We should no longer allow innocent North Koreas to suffer such serious human rights abuses,” he said.

“Time and again, we have witnessed cases where persistent human rights violations posed serious threats to peace. A case in point is North Korea,” said the minister. “According to U.N. reports, some 80,000 to 120,000 people are imprisoned to date in political camps. Indeed, the whole country has turned into a massive gulag with unrelenting surveillance. Over the past five years, several hundred high-level officials have been openly or extra-judicially executed in North Korea. All of these acts constitute a serious violation of various international human rights, and it is also an outright challenge to the rules-based international order.”

“Last year, the General Assembly adopted the strongest-ever North Korean human rights resolution by consensus, highlighting for the first time the responsibility of the North Korea leadership for their human rights abuses. It also expressed grave concern about the human rights situation of North Korean workers sent abroad and the impact of diverting resources to advance programs to build weapons of mass destruction,” said the minister. “It’s high time to end impunity for human rights violators, including its leadership,” he stressed.

Finally, the minister highlighted the “need to mainstream human rights throughout the U.N. system, and the need to take a holistic approach encompassing all three pillars of the U.N. — peace and security, human rights and development — in order to protect human rights and dignity around the world.”

“The Republic of Korea fully supports such endeavors of accountability and looks forward to working closely with the international community to this end,” he said.

By Lee Hana
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs
hlee10@korea.kr