Kerry calls for greater attention to N.K. human rights violations

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Tuesday for greater international attention to North Korea's human rights violations, saying that remaining silent about the problem would be the "greatest abuse of all."

Kerry made the appeal during a ministerial meeting he hosted in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, stressing that the communist regime is committing such brutalities as collective punishment, arbitrary executions and prison camps.

"We simply cannot be blind to these egregious affronts to human nature and we cannot accept it and silence will be the greatest abuse of all," Kerry said.

Kerry stressed that the U.N. Commission of Inquiry's report on the problem has lifted the veil on the issue.

"No longer can North Korea's secrecy be seen as an excuse for silence or ignorance or inaction because in 400 pages of excruciating details and testimonies from over 80 witnesses, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry's report of the DPRK (North Korea) has laid bare what it rightly calls systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights," he said.

Kerry also said that the North's sentencing of American citizens to labor camps "without a trial, fair trial is just as unjust as it is reprehensible."

"If we don't stand with men and women suffering in anonymity in places like North Korea, then what do we stand for? If we don't give voice to the voiceless, then why even bother to speak about these issues?" Kerry said.

"So we say to the North Korean government, all of us here today, you should close those camps, you should shut this evil system down," he said, referring to the North's political prison camps, also known as gulags.

jschang@yna.co.kr
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