North Korea’s diplomatic mission at the United Nations on Friday blasted a plan by the Japanese government to hold an international symposium on Pyongyang’s human rights situation in New York next week.
“Japan has been deliberately escalating (a) ‘human rights’ campaign against the DPRK proceeding from its own heinous political purpose while taking sides with the U.S. hostile policy against the DPRK,” a press release from the mission said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.
Eriko Yamatani, the Japanese minister in charge of the abduction issue, said in March that the Japanese government is hosting the symposium on North Korea’s rights violations, which include abductions, on May 5.
She and Marzuki Darusman, the U.N. special investigator on North Korea’s rights situation, are scheduled to address the event. Families of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents decades ago are also expected to take part.
The North Korean statement said that Japan “has been holding various symposiums in an attempt to deceive the people of the world by drawing attention to the so-called ‘abduction’ and ‘human rights’ issues of the DPRK.”
The North Koreans also slammed the Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe, who “again rubbed salt (into) the life-long bitter wounds of the victims of sexual slavery by labeling them as victims of ‘human trafficking’,” referring to the so-called “comfort women” who were recruited to work at Japanese military brothels during World War II against their will.
“All the acts perpetrated by the Japanese authorities behind the ‘human rights’ issue of the DPRK in the forefront are based on their vicious aims to erase and bury the Japanese past crimes against humanity at any cost,” the statement said.
The North Korean diplomats also scorned Japan’s call for U.N. Security Council reforms, saying that “the defeated and enemy country” is “making desperate efforts” to become a permanent member of the council.
On Thursday, a North Korean diplomat made a scene at a panel discussion at the United Nations on rights abuses in the country by speaking out of turn to criticize the United States, prompting U.S. Ambassador
Samantha Power to order the microphone shut off.
The diplomat left the venue soon afterwards along with his two colleagues after drawing jeers from North Korean defectors who were attending the event.
==Kyodo
Category: Daily Witness, National
