ICC Note: In what is perhaps a surprise to no one, China has condemned a recent United Nations report on the horrific human rights situation inside North Korea. China is North Korea’s strongest ally and regularly protests attempts by other nations and the international community to censure North Korea for its development of nuclear weapons and its complete lack of any basic freedoms. North Korea is also considered the world’s worst persecutor of Christians, with as many as 30,000 Christians believed to be imprisoned in political prison camps and hundreds of thousands more living with the daily fear of arrest and even execution if their faith is revealed. Most observers believe that the North Korean regime would quickly collapse without the massive amount of food aid delivered by China. 
3/24/2014 China (ChristianToday) – A report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council which condemns the mistreatment of North Korean citizens and calls for urgent international action has been criticised by Chinese representatives.
Australian Michael Kirby – a former judge – led an independent inquiry into the treatment of those in forced labour camps in the country led by Dictator Kim Jong-Un, and presented his findings before the Council on Monday.
“The Commission of Inquiry has found systematic, widespread and grave human rights violations occurring in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It has also found a disturbing array of crimes against humanity,” he announced.
“These crimes are committed against inmates of political and other prison camps; against starving populations; against religious believers; against persons who try to flee the country – including those forcibly repatriated by China.
“These crimes arise from policies established at the highest level of the State. They have been committed, and continue to take place in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, because the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place.
“The gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” he said.
Kirby likened the situation in North Korea to gross violations of human rights in Nazi Germany, South Africa during the Apartheid, and Cambodia under the rule of the Khmer Rouge.
Each time, Kirby noted, “the world said ‘never again’,” and yet the mistreatment of human beings continues in North Korea while the world stands by.
“We can no longer afford to remain oblivious to it, nor impotent to act against it,” he said.
Christian persecution charity Open Doors estimates that a quarter of the 120,000 people thought to be suffering in North Korean labour camps are Christians. The country is officially recognised as the worst country for the persecution of Christians by the World Watch List, retaining this title for the 12th year in a row.
Believers are forced to hide their faith, and those that are discovered are severely punished, or even killed.
Kirby has called for immediate and urgent action, branding North Korea as “a dark abyss where the human rights, the dignity and the humanity of the people are controlled, denied and ultimately annihilated”.
…
[Full Story]