• A combination photograph shows founder of North Korea Kim Il-sung (L), North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (C) and Kim Jong-il's youngest son Kim Jong-un (R).
    © 2011 Reuters
    North Korea: UN Should Investigate Crimes against Humanity

    The United Nations should immediately establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity in North Korea.

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  • Human Rights in North Korea

    The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in December 2012 and the ascension of his son, Kim Jong-Un, as new paramount leader, has had little discernable effect on North Korea’s severe and unrelenting violation of human rights. The government sends those accused of political offenses to forced labor camps called gwalliso, where conditions are horrific and torture and mistreatment common, and imposes collective punishment against families of perceived offenders.  Even as North Koreans faced famine in 2011, the government maintained its ‘military first’ policy on food distribution unabated.  Freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly are non-existent.    

Reports

North Korea

  • North Korea: UN Should Investigate Crimes against Humanity
    Jan 23, 2012

    The United Nations should immediately establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity in North Korea.

  • Joint letter to Supreme Commander Kim Jong-un
    Jan 8, 2012
    We, the undersigned independent international non-governmental organizations, write to recognize the passing of your father and acknowledge your leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and to raise a number of concerns and ideas which we believe would enhance your leadership, improve the standing of your country and benefit your people.
  • North Korean mourners, crying to survive?
    Dec 22, 2011

    Since Kim Jong Il's death was announced on Monday, many people have marveled at the mourning scenes featured on North Korean state television, made viral on the Internet: North Koreans prostrate, weeping, hitting the ground.  

  • Is There Any Way To Help the People of North Korea?
    Dec 22, 2011
    How does one get the measure of Kim Jong Il’s legacy in North Korea? His victims, like those of his father before him, are so many, in lives ended and lives stunted, that they become faceless and formless in our minds, like those tens of thousands of dancers in the mass performances Kim liked to stage. An Egyptian protester beaten, a Burmese dissident imprisoned, a Chinese blogger censored—such singular injustices are easier to grasp, and thus more likely to make us angry, and to spur us to act. The North Korean regime has been protected by the sheer enormity of its crimes, which discrete images cannot easily capture.
  • North Korea: Kim Jong-Il’s Legacy of Mass Atrocity
    Dec 19, 2011
    Governments should mark North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s death with a clear demand that the new leader choose a path of reforming the country’s abysmal human rights situation, Human Rights Watch said today.
  • North Korea: Letter to Republic of Korea Political Leaders
    Dec 12, 2011

    On the eve of the 63rd anniversary of the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we are writing to express to you our deep concern for the ongoing human rights abuses suffered by the people of North Korea, and the lack of action by the Republic of Korea’s National Assembly to address these conditions.

  • Human Rights Organizations Call for Action on North Korea on International Human Rights Day
    Dec 8, 2011
    Over 40 human rights organisations from around the world, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Freedom House, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), are marking the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by calling for international action to stop crimes against humanity perpetrated by North Korea’s dictatorship.
  • North Korea: Joint Letter from International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea
    Oct 3, 2011

    We represent a variety of non-governmental organizations representing millions of concerned citizens around the world who have established an international coalition to address crimes against humanity in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). 

  • North Korea: UN Inquiry Needed
    Sep 8, 2011

    The following news release calling for a United Nations commission of Inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity in North Korea was issue by a coalition of organizations including Human Rights Watch on September 8, 2011.  

  • Silent Spring in North Korea
    Jun 27, 2011
    The regime of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il, like that of his father before him, operates with almost total censorship despite the efforts of North Korean exiles and others to smuggle in transistor radios and video CDs.
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