Human rights on the agenda

BEIJING: The United States said Thursday North Korea’s record as one of the world’s worst human rights violators will be raised during ongoing six-party talks over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme. “We will be raising the whole range of our concerns including human rights during the talks,” a US embassy spokeswoman told AFP. In a sign that rights violations are not far off Washington’s mind, the US State Department issued a scathing report Wednesday, the first day of the talks, blasting the North as one of the world’s worst human rights offenders. “Our annual human rights report highlights abuses in North Korea in 2003 and underscores the fact that North Korea is the world’s worst human rights violator,” the embassy spokeswoman said, citing a statement from the US State Department. “North Korea subjects its citizens to rigid controls over every aspect of their lives, denying them freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly and association and the right to petition or peacefully change their government,” she said. “We share the international community’s deep concerns over these violations of basic human rights.” The annual review on global human rights said the Stalinist state ruled by Kim Jong-Il “committed widespread abuses of human rights” and that basic human rights were “unheard of”. The 2003 review said “reports from North Korea continue to paint a bleak picture of one of the world’s most inhumane regimes”. —AFP

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