'Critical test' for North Korea as civilian suffering remains rife, warns UN rights expert

The human rights situation in North Korea remains "extremely serious", and along with international demands for denuclearisation, this constitutes a "a critical test" for the year ahead, a senior UN-appointed expert said.

Tomas Quintana was speaking Friday in his capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea during a press conference in the South Korean capital, Seoul, as he continued to be denied access to its northern neighbour.

"Of those who left the North recently that I interviewed during this mission, every person gave accounts of ordinary people being subjected to exploitative labour and serious human rights violations such as forced evictions in the name of development," he said.

"Stories were told to me of people, including children, being subjected to long hours of labour where they were forced to work without remuneration. One person concluded: "the whole country is a prison."
Their detention happens without "due process guarantees or fair trial, in a manner that amounts to enforced disappearances with the family not knowing their whereabouts," the Special Rapporteur said, before highlighting that people's "fear" of being imprisoned was "very real and deeply embedded in the consciousness of the ordinary North Korean people."