UN panel on North Korean abuses says report still stands despite prison camp survivor's 'inaccuracies' | South China Morning Post

UN panel on North Korean abuses says report still stands despite prison camp survivor's 'inaccuracies' | South China Morning Post


UN panel on North Korean abuses says report still stands despite prison camp survivor's 'inaccuracies'

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 22 January,





ASIA
North Korea calls defectors 'human scum' in bid to deflect UN rights probe21 Jan 2015


The head of the UN commission that produced a damning report on North Korean rights abuses has dismissed Pyongyang's claim that doubts about the credibility of a prominent witness made the panel's findings "invalid."

"The partial retraction of Shin Dong-hyuk of the testimony he gave to the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea is not significant for the report, conclusions or recommendations of the commission," said retired Australian judge Michael Kirby yesterday.

Shin, a well-known defector and Pyongyang critic, admitted this week that elements of his best-selling gulag survivor book Escape from Camp 14 were inaccurate, although he stressed the crucial details of his suffering and torture still stood.

For his part, Kirby noted Shin was only one of 300 witnesses interviewed by his commission, whose overall findings were based on a mass of "overwhelming" corroborative evidence. "In the big picture of gross abuses of human rights of the entire population of North Korea over more than 65 years, his experience - although very important to him and his family - is not critical to the inquiry," he added.

But a spokesman for North Korea's Association for Human Rights Studies said Shin's admissions "self-exposed" the flimsy foundations of efforts to censure Pyongyang for its rights record.

In a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency, the spokesman noted Shin was one of the best-known defectors who testified to Kirby's panel.

The commission's conclusion that North Korea was committing human rights violations "without parallel in the contemporary world" was the basis of a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last month.

It urged the Security Council to consider referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The North Korean spokesman said Shin's recent retractions proved the commission's report was "a false document cooked up on the basis of false testimonies made by human scum".

"So, needless to say, all the resolutions on human rights forcibly adopted against (North Korea) on the basis of such false documents are invalid," he added.

The Security Council held its first discussion on the North's rights record in December, but any referral to the ICC would almost certainly be vetoed by permanent members China and Russia.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Witness doubts don't alter abuse report, says UN