U.N. Presses North Korea to Account for Abductions

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/asia/un-presses-north-korea-to-account-for-abductions.html

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GENEVA — A United Nations human rights investigator called for sustained international action to pressure North Korea into accounting for hundreds of foreign citizens it is believed to have abducted over several decades.

In a report released Monday, Marzuki Darusman, the special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, urged “sustained and resolute action” by the international community aimed at “shedding light on all cases of abductions” and returning those still alive to their countries of origin. His report, on strategies for resolving those cases, is to be presented next week to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

North Korean agents abducted hundreds of foreign citizens from the 1960s to the 1990s, mostly from Japan, China and South Korea, the report states, but a commission of inquiry into North Korea’s human rights practices also recorded abductions of people from Lebanon, Malaysia, Romania, Singapore and Thailand, and possibly other countries.

The Japanese authorities have identified 12 abducted citizens who still have not been returned to Japan, but they are investigating 881 other possible abductions, Mr. Darusman said.

In view of the number of countries whose citizens are said to have been seized, “an international approach to the issue is now required,” he said in his report, urging the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly to take up the issue and recommending the convening of an international conference to address forced disappearances.

The initiative is also intended to maintain pressure on North Korea to address the findings of a landmark inquiry last year by a Human Rights Council commission, which urged the Security Council to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for violations including abductions that were “unique in their intensity, scale and nature.”

North Korea showed some signs of engaging with the international community on human rights after the publication of that report, but later backtracked, Mr. Darusman said, making it more essential than ever that “the international community redouble its efforts to effect meaningful changes.”