AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE ENGLISH WIRE
2007 Agence France-Presse
North Korea more constructive on human rights: UN rapporteur
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26, 2007 (AFP) - The UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea said Friday that Pyongyang was showing a more constructive attitude but called for progress on the issue of Japanese and other abductees.
Vitit Muntarbhorn said his report to a General Assembly panel recognized "some constructive developments," with North Korea now a party to four human rights treaties, including on discrimination against women and on the rights of the child.
Muntarbhorn, an independent rapporteur who has never been allowed to visit the Stalinist state, said Pyongyang has been "collaborating quite well with UN agencies," providing a lot of access particularly since the devastating floods of last August which left at least 600 people dead or missing.
He also said progress in the six-nation talks on the dismantling of the North Korean program had "a constructive impact on human rights, particularly with various bilateral talks."
But he also made it clear that North Korea should "reform its prison system, eliminate violence against the human person, address effectively the issue of abductions/disappearances and promote due process of law and the rule of law."
Turning to the Japanese, South Korean and other nationals abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970's and 1980's to be trained as North Korean spies, Muntarbhorn said that "while five individuals have returned to Japan, other cases remain unsolved, particularly due to inadequate cooperation and followup on the part of the DPRK North Korea)."
North Korea returned five abductees and their families in 2002, and says others are dead. But Japan contends that more of its nationals are alive and being kept under wraps.
Seoul says more than 480 South Koreans have been abducted since the end of the 1950-53 war, and that 548 South Korean prisoners of war were never sent home after the armistice.
Muntarbhorn, a law professor of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, said he gathered his information by interviewing refugees in countries bordering North Korea and from the many non-government organizations and UN agencies dealing with the hermit state.
On the refugee issue, he said smugglers and traffickers were deliberating targeting women, because neighboring countries are less likely to punish them for illegal entry.
Women were also thought to be more likely to pay for the smuggling on arrival in the destination country.
Regarding children, Muntarbhorn said some of them "face violence, deprivation, neglect and abuse, especially when (they) do not belong to the elite," adding that this was linked to the case of disabled children and street urchins who might be "subjected to sub-standard institutionalization."