Human Rights in North Korea
According to the United Nations, human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of religion, opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights without discrimination.
Unfortunately, North Korea, or the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) report found that the North Korean government committed systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations that constitute crimes against humanity (Human Rights Watch).
Ruled by third-generation totalitarian leader Kim Jong Un, the government uses threats of torture, arbitrary arrest, executions, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, and forced labor to maintain fear and control. It systematically denies basic liberties, including freedom of expression, association, and religion. It does not tolerate pluralism, and it bans independent media, civil society organizations, and trade unions. In recent years, the government has tightened domestic restrictions on travel and unauthorized cross-border travel with China and punished North Koreans for making contact with the outside world.
The government does not permit freedom of thought, expression, or information. All media is strictly controlled. Accessing phones, computers, televisions, radios, or media content that is not sanctioned by the government is illegal and considered “anti-socialist behavior” that is punished, including through the use of torture and forced labor. The government also jams Chinese mobile phone services at the border and targets arrest people for communicating with contacts outside the country.
In January 2023, the government enacted the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act, banning the use of the South Korean language in style or appearing to have foreign influence with the threat of six years or more of forced labor and even the death penalty in some cases. It also encourages the authorities to use public trials and executions to “awaken the masses.” For instance, 20 youth athletes were sentenced to three to five years of forced labor for using South Korean vocabulary.
In addition to the extensive abuses noted above, North Korea discriminates against individuals and their families on political grounds in key areas such as employment, residence, and schooling by applying songbun. This sociopolitical classification system, from its creation, grouped people into “loyal,” “wavering,” or “hostile” classes. The government also fails to protect or promote the rights of numerous vulnerable groups, including women, children, people with disabilities, and people in detention and prison. In addition to facing violations of their rights common to the rest of the population, women suffer a range of sexual and gender-based abuses as well. Gender-based discrimination is severe in North Korea.
Lastly, the Ministry of People’s Security classifies defection as “treachery against the nation.” Harsh punishments apply to North Koreans forcibly returned by China, including a potential death sentence. Former North Korean security officials and people who were forcibly returned after 2011 testified that those forcibly returned faced interrogation, torture, sexual violence, humiliating treatment, and forced labor. North Koreans fleeing into China should be protected as refugees sur place regardless of their reason for flight because of the certainty of punishment on return. China treats them as illegal “economic migrants” and fails to meet its obligation to protect refugees as a state party of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol. Beijing denies the staff of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, permission to travel to border areas where North Koreans are present.
On December 11, 2017, for the fourth consecutive year, the UN Security Council put North Korea’s egregious human rights violations on its formal agenda as a threat to international peace and security. On March 23, 2018, the Human Rights Council adopted, without a vote, a resolution that maintained pressure on the need for advancing accountability mechanisms for the eventual prosecution of North Korean leaders and officials responsible for crimes against humanity.
The freedom and human rights of North Korean citizens, besides a few families that serve the government and defectors, are severely oppressed and neglected. Their human rights are not inherent, inalienable, or dignified. Some of them are getting worse treatments than animals. Silence does not mean everything is fine. Just because we do not hear or visibly witness the struggles of North Koreans, it does not mean there is tranquility or justice.
<Work Cited>
“World Report 2024: Rights Trends in North Korea.” North Korea, Events of 2023, Human Rights Watch, 13 Mar. 2024, www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/north-korea.
“Human Rights in North Korea.” Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch, 28 Oct. 2020, www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/05/human-rights-north-korea.
