North Korea Human Rights Violations: U.N. Inspectors Report 'Shocking' Proof of Inhumane Acts

U.N. inspectors probing human rights issues in North Korea said they found "shocking" proof of inhumane acts, and called upon the international community to respond.

In a statement released to the United Nations Human Rights Council, U.N. experts said they'd heard horrific accounts of prison camps, starvation and international abductions by North Korean officials. This, panel chariman Michael Donald Kirby announced, showed "large-scale patterns" of atrocities demonstrating "systematic and gross human rights violations," the New York Times reported.

"What we have seen and heard so far - the specificity, detail and shocking character of the personal testimony - appears without doubt to demand follow-up action by the world community," Kirby stated.

The panel will hand over a final report to the council in March.

Kirby, along with three other members of a U.N. team, embarked on a 10-day mission to interview more than 40 witnesses who'd reportedly experienced these violations of human rights.

During public hearings held last month in Seoul and Tokyo, the council heard a stream of first-hand reports from survivors of North Korean prison camps, in addition to those who had escaped from Pyongyang.

"Ordinary people were heard from who faced torture and imprisonment for doing nothing more than watching foreign soap operas or holding a religious belief," Kirby said. "Women and men who exercised their human right to leave the country and were forcibly repatriated spoke about their experiences of torture, sexual violence, inhumane treatment and arbitrary detention.

"We think of the testimony of a young man, imprisoned from birth and living on rodents, lizards and grass to survive and witnessing the public execution of his mother and brother," Mr. Kirby stated, expounding upon one witness' story.

A common issue coming from Pyongyang is the separation of family members from Japan and South Korea, who are reportedly abducted and taken to the North.

Meanwhile, North Korea said on Tuesday that it rejected these allegations, stating that officials in Pyongyang did not subject everyday citizens to violence and autocratic imprisonment.

North Korean U.N, envoy in Geneva Kim Yong-ho said his country "totally rejects" the report, according to the Associated Press.

Kim said the findings were based on stories "fabricated and invented by the forces hostile to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, defectors and rebels."

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