N. Korea's human rights conditions still dismal: report

SEOUL, March 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's people still face the threat of torture
and harsh treatment at the hands of their government, but there are modest signs
of progress, South Korea's human rights watchdog said Wednesday.
In a report by the National Human Rights Commission, 78 percent of North Korean
defectors now living in the South said they have heard torture is used in gulags
in the communist North. Fifty-seven percent said they have heard concentration
camps for political prisoners continue to exist, but had not necessarily seen
one.
The watchdog and the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul interviewed 152
North Korean defectors who arrived in South Korea between July 2008 and February
this year to compile the report.
In the survey, 76 percent of the defectors said they had personally witnessed a
public execution, though the report said that the overall number of public
executions has decreased since 2000.
More than half of the respondents replied that a shortage of food is the most
daunting problem facing their homeland and said they had directly encountered
people dying of starvation.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has said that roughly
3 to 5 percent of the North's total population -- or about 600,000 people --
starved to death in the 1990s. The North has suffered a dire food shortage since
it was hit by severe floods in that decade.
The commission's report also indicated that the North is extremely vulnerable to
economic fluctuations and natural disasters, meaning a serious food crisis may be
repeated in the future.
The watchdog noted, however, that North Korea's failing economy has reduced
Pyongyang's ability to govern effectively. This has in turn somewhat relaxed
control over individuals and led to a small amount of improvement in civil and
social liberties.
"International pressure and treaties can encourage the North to change its
rules," the report said. "But it may be too soon to say these changes are
fundamental or structural. The international community should continue to keep a
close eye on the human rights situation in the North."
brk@yna.co.kr
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