N. Korea lambastes Seoul for human rights campaign

SEOUL, Dec. 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea lashed out Saturday at South Korea's move
to introduce a law on the communist neighbor's widely-reported human rights
abuses, calling it an "unpardonable and grave hostile act."
A subcommittee at the National Assembly passed the bill on human rights in North
Korea late last month with the aim of getting it passed through the floor before
the current session ends on Dec. 9.
The bill calls for the foreign ministry to appoint a special envoy on North
Korean human rights that would cooperate with the international community and the
unification minister to draw up a plan every three years to improve the North's
human rights conditions and report results to the National Assembly.
"This is an intolerable insult and unpardonable politically motivated provocation
to the DPRK as it is a revelation of the ambition of traitors to the nation to
escalate the confrontation with the DPRK because they are steeped in it to the
marrow of their bones," Pyongyang's official news agency KCNA said, using the
abbreviation for the country's formal name, Democratic People's Republic of
Korea.
The KCNA said that the move "proves that the smear anti-DPRK human rights
campaign of the puppet clique of South Korea has reached a graver phase." The
conservative administration of President Lee Myung-bak co-sponsored this year's
U.N. resolution condemning the North's human rights situation.
"It is an unpardonable and grave hostile act for them to go mad with an anti-DPRK
smear campaign under the pretext of human rights," it said. "It is impossible to
expect any improvement in the north-south relations as long as the
anti-reunification forces in south Korea go frantic with the moves to escalate
confrontation with the DPRK, swimming against the trend of the times."
The KCNA continued, "The human rights issue does not exist under the dignified
socialist system in the DPRK where the popular masses fully enjoy an independent
life as a full-fledged master of the state and society with all kinds of
political freedom and rights substantially guaranteed."
The U.N. and many global human rights agencies argue on the basis of defectors'
testimony and other evidence that "systemic, widespread, and grave violations"
are prevalent in North Korea.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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