Han Tae Song, Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland delivered a statement at the ongoing 46th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on March 12.
At the General Debate on Item 4 “Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention”, the Permanent Representative referred to the fact that the Human Rights Council was established to serve as a forum for dialogue where all human rights issues are to be addressed in a fair and equal manner without any distinction.
He continued:
However, the Council has now turned into the forum where the debate of human rights is politicized under the sway of interests of the West, and human rights situations of some sovereign states are criminalized on the basis of false and fabricated information only to serve the despicable political purpose of the West.
On the other hand, the human rights situations of the West, where the crimes of human rights violation are rife, have never become a subject of due debate in the international human rights arena. This is a tragic reality of today. The deep-rooted racism and racial discrimination, police brutality, gun-related crimes, torture and other cruel or inhuman treatment in detention facilities in homeland and abroad as well as political pressure and military actions which infringe upon the sovereignty of other countries or threaten the lives of the people in those countries – these are just tips of the iceberg of the gravest human rights violations of the Western countries.
And dire human rights violations such as islamophobia, xenophobia, white supremacy, resurgence of neo-Nazism, maltreatment of minorities or migrants and systematic discrimination, trafficking in persons and sexual violence, which are rampant in Western countries, are also today’s reality of the West. Japan – a world number one abductor state that committed unprecedented crimes against humanity in the past such as forced abduction and drafting of 8.4 million Koreans and forcing 200,000 Korean women into sexual slavery for Japanese military – continues to refuse sincere reflection, apology and compensation for its wrong past, and instead persistently pursues a policy of political pressure and national discrimination against the Korean residents in Japan.
The lives of millions of working masses miserably fall a sacrifice to the election campaign, partisan strife and racial discrimination even in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic in the Western countries chanting “protection of human rights.” These realities speak clearly for themselves to the absurdity of so-called “freedom and democracy” much touted by them. This being the fact, instead of drawing lessons from the wrongdoings caused by their unjust human rights policy and institutional contradictions and acting with prudence and self-control, these countries behave themselves as “human rights judge” and contrive extraterritorial evil laws such as “North Korea Human Rights Act”, “Global Human Rights Sanction Regulation-2020” and “EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy”, and justify their interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. It is the height of absurdity.
The Permanent Representative underlined that the government of the DPRK strongly urges HRC and OHCHR to uphold the guideline of its work as well as the principles of respect for national sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries as enshrined in the UN Charter, and refrain from the politicized and discriminated practice of unfairly dealing with the situations of specific countries, and he reiterated the unwavering position of the DPRK to strongly oppose all attempts to misuse human rights issue for despicable political purpose and urged certain countries to refrain from using Xinjiang- and Hong Kong-related issues for interfering in China’s internal affairs.
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