The UN Security Council on Friday met to discuss North Korea's "appalling" human rights situation, overriding a bid by China, Russia and three other countries to block the meeting. It was the third time Beijing has failed to stop the annual discussion at the Security Council since a UN commission of inquiry in 2014 accused Pyongyang of committing atrocities unparalleled in the modern world.
Angola, Egypt and Venezuela joined China and Russia in a vote in favour of scrapping the meeting. But nine countries including Britain, France and the United States supported the move in the 15-member council. Senegal abstained. Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi argued that the council should focus on threats to global peace and security, saying North Korea's human rights situation should not be considered as such a menace.
"The Security Council is not a forum for discussing human rights issues and still less for the politicisation of the human rights issues," he said. This discussion is "detrimental, with no benefit whatsoever," he added, urging council members to "avoid making any rhetoric or actions that may provoke or lead to escalation of the tensions."
Pyongyang's sole ally and trade partner, China has long argued that international efforts should firmly focus on talks to denuclearize North Korea. US Ambassador Samantha Power shot back that "it stretches credulity, really, to suggest... that the brutal governance practised by the regime is neutral for international peace and security." The UN commission of inquiry found compelling evidence of torture, execution and starvation in North Korea, where between 80,000 and 120,000 people are being held in prison camps.
Over the past year, UN rights officials have interviewed 110 North Korean defectors, many of whom spoke of torture and ill-treatment in detention, UN rights official Andrew Gilmour told the council. Some North Korean detainees were kept in isolated cells so small they were unable to sit and many were deprived of food, water, he said. "There has been no improvement in the truly appalling human rights violations in the country," said Gilmour. The meeting followed the adoption just a week ago of tougher sanctions against North Korea, including new measures to curb the reclusive state's coal exports to China, in response to Pyongyang's fifth and biggest nuclear test. South Korea's Ambassador Cho Tae-yul told the council that North Korea had squandered $200 million on two nuclear tests and 24 missile launches - funds that Cho said should have been spent on easing the dire humanitarian situation.
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