Speaking at the first open UN Security Council meeting since 2017 on human rights in North Korea, Volker Türk said the North Korean people have suffered periods of severe economic hardship and repression in the past, but “currently they seem to be suffering from both ”.
“According to our information, the population is becoming increasingly desperate due to the dismantling of informal markets and other survival mechanisms, while their fear of state surveillance, arrest, interrogation and detention increases,” he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un closed his nation’s borders to contain the COVID-19. But Türk noted that as the pandemic has subsided, the North Korean government’s restrictions have become more extensive, given that guards have been authorized to shoot anyone unauthorized approaching the border and the presence of all foreigners, including UN personnel, remains prohibited in the country.
As examples of the increasing crackdown on human rights, he said, anyone caught viewing “reactionary ideology and culture” — which implies information from abroad, especially from South Korea — can now face five to 15 years in prison. And those who distribute such material face life in prison or even the death penalty, she added.
On the economic front, Türk said, the government has closed virtually all markets and other private means of generating income and has increasingly penalized such activity.
“This clearly restricts people’s ability to support themselves and their families,” he stressed. “Given the limits of state-run economic institutions, many people appear to be facing extreme hunger and severe drug shortages.”
