28 May 2019
Spokesperson for the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights:
Marta Hurtado
Location: Geneva
Subject: (1) North Korea report
(2) Anti-Semitism
(1) North Korea report
People in the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK) are trapped in a vicious cycle, in which the failure
of the State to provide for life’s basic necessities forces them to turn to
rudimentary markets where they face a host of human rights violations in an
uncertain legal environment, according to a new report published by the UN
Human Rights Office on Tuesday. The report highlights how the public
distribution system in the DPRK has been broken for over two decades and how,
as people seek to eke out a living in a legally precarious parallel economy,
they are exposed to arbitrary arrest,
detention, and extortion.
Based on 214 first-hand accounts of
escapees gathered by UN Human Rights staff in South Korea in 2017 and 2018, the
report describes how the most fundamental rights of ordinary people in the DPRK
are widely violated because of economic mismanagement and endemic corruption.
“The rights to food, health, shelter, work, freedom of movement and liberty are
universal and inalienable, but in North Korea they depend primarily on the
ability of individuals to bribe State officials,” said UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.
According to UN entities operating
in the DPRK, in 2019 around 10.9 million people (over 43 per cent of the total
population) are undernourished and suffer from food insecurity. “These are
extraordinary and appalling figures,” said Bachelet. “You rarely find this
level of deprivation even in countries wracked by conflict.”
The full press release and report
are available here:
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24651&LangID=E
(2) Anti-Semitism
We condemn the rise in anti-Semitic
incidents taking place in a number of European countries and the United States.
Just in the past week, after a significant increase in anti-Semitic incidents
in Germany, the Government official charged with combatting anti-Semitism felt
the need to urge Jews in parts of the country where incidents have been taking
place, to consider avoiding wearing kippas (skullcaps) on their heads in
public, in order not to draw attention to their race and religion.
And in Austria, a number of
pictures of Holocaust survivors displayed in a street exhibition entitled “Lest
we forget” in central Vienna have been vandalised not once, but three times.
Initially, swastikas were painted on the faces of the survivors, and then on
Sunday night large sections of the faces on the pictures were cut out.
These events in Germany and Austria
cannot, unfortunately, be described as isolated, with other European countries
also experiencing increases in acts of vandalism, including of Jewish
businesses and gravestones. Most disturbing of all, acts of physical violence
against Jews have also increased in a number of countries in recent years, with
particularly sharp rises in violent incidents reported in both Germany and
France. However, the worst incidents have taken place in the United States,
where 11 people were killed during an attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in
Pittsburgh last October, and in April a woman was killed and three other
worshippers were injured in another attack on a synagogue in Southern
California.
The rise in attacks targeting Jews,
along with other groups targeted because of their race or religion, is a matter
of grave concern, and we urge all governments to redouble their efforts to
combat racism and related intolerance in all its forms. Under international
law, people are entitled to legal protection from incitement to hatred and
violence. When abuse rises to the level of incitement – whether it be on the
street or on the Internet – it should be prohibited by law, while respecting
freedom of expression, which has permissible restrictions in such cases.
On a more positive note, it was
encouraging to learn yesterday that a number of people in Vienna have taken a
stand against the acts of anti-Semitism, thereby working to repair the damaged
pictures of the Holocaust survivors and joining forces to guard the exhibition
from further attacks.
ENDS
For more information and media
requests, please contact: Rupert Colville - + 41 22 917 9767 / rcolville@ohchr.org
or Ravina Shamdasani - + 41 22 917 9169 / rshamdasani@ohchr.org or Marta
Hurtado - + 41 22 917 9466 / mhurtado@ohchr.org
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