[JURIST] UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea [JURIST news archive] Vitit Muntarbhorn [UN appointment release] said Monday that he found there to be a "broad range of egregious human rights violations" [press release] in the country. In a report to the UN Human Rights Council [official website], he criticized the country for using access to food as a method of controlling its population and for using torture in its prisons despite a formal ban. He also cited several areas in which the country needed to improve in both the short and long term, and called on the country to cooperate with the UN to improve the situation:

Of special importance for the country, in the short term, is the need to ensure effective provision of and access to food and other basic necessities for those in need of assistance, and to enable people to undertake economic activities to satisfy their basic needs and supplement their livelihood without State interference; to end the punishment of those who seek asylum abroad and who are sent back to their country; to terminate public executions and abuses against the security of the person, and other violations of fundamental rights and freedoms; to cooperate effectively to resolve the issue of foreigners abducted by the country; and to respond constructively to the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur.

In the longer term, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea should seek to modernize its national system by instituting reforms to ensure greater participation of the people in the process and compliance with international human rights standards; reallocate national budgets, including military budgets, to the social sector; take more extensive food security-related measures; and guarantee personal security and freedoms by dismantling the pervasive surveillance and intelligence system, reforming the justice and prison system, and abiding by the rule of law.