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U.N. seeks inspection of North Korea for forced disappearances

A U.N. working group has sent a request to conduct an on-site survey, but North Korea is highly unlikely to allow the group into the country.

By Elizabeth Shim
North Korean women wash clothing on the banks of the Yalu River near Sinuiju, across the Yalu River from Dandong, China's largest border city with North Korea, in Liaoning Province, on May 28, 2015. Photo by Stephen Shaver
North Korean women wash clothing on the banks of the Yalu River near Sinuiju, across the Yalu River from Dandong, China's largest border city with North Korea, in Liaoning Province, on May 28, 2015. Photo by Stephen Shaver | License Photo

SEOUL, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- The U.N. had sent North Korea a request to conduct an on-site survey in the country for an investigation into forced disappearances and abductees, but Pyongyang has yet to respond to the request.

U.N. Special Rapporteur on North Korea Marzuki Darusman said the query was made to comply with recommendations that were made in a U.N. North Korea human rights report issued in March, Voice of America reported.

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The details of the U.N. activity were included in an annual report from the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances that was submitted ahead of the 30th regular session of the Human Rights Council.

North Korea is highly unlikely to allow the U.N. working group into the country and Pyongyang previously has refused to acknowledge enforced disappearances.

North Korea also does not acknowledge abductions of South Korean citizens that include Korean War-era prisoners of war who are among the 200,000 abductees that include repatriated Koreans from Japan and kidnapped Japanese citizens, according to a U.N. COI report from February 2014.

The U.N.'s annual report raised the issue of six North Koreans, two of whom were defectors living in China at the time of their disappearance. North Korean security agents allegedly kidnapped the married couple in April 2003. The remaining four North Koreans were last seen in Chongjin, North Korea near the China border in 2011, and the reason for their disappearance is not known.

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North Korea continues to sentence its citizens to labor camps for breaking its strict laws against information and media from the outside world.

The Telegraph reported on Friday that a 12-minute video footage dating from 2013 that was smuggled out of North Korea showed two North Korean men being sentenced to time at a labor camp for watching an American film, then loading the film to a flash drive and copying it to a DVD.

The North Korean official in the footage said the two defendants were immersed in the corrupt ideology of capitalism, and tells the crowd that the two were exposed by "agents in South Korea operated by our party."

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