HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE DPRK

All citizens who have reached the age of 17 have the right to elect and to be elected, irrespective of sex, race, occupation, length of residence, property status, education, party affiliation, political views or religious belief.

Workers accounted for 12.7% of the deputies to the 13^th Supreme People’s Assembly (parliament) of the DPRK elected in March this year, while farmers 11.1% and women 16.3%. These figures intuitively show on how high a level the people’s political rights are displayed.

In the DPRK all the people conduct free political activities affiliated with various political parties including the Workers’ Party, Social Democratic Party and Chondoist Chongu Party and social organizations.

 The country provides legal guarantee to the rights to speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and religious belief. Let us take religious belief as an example. There are many legal religious organizations in the country. Typical religious buildings are Jangchung Cathedral, Pongsu Church, Jongbaek Orthodox Church and Pohyon Temple in Mt. Myohyang.

The country has already solved such social problems as exploitation and oppression of man by man and the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Provided with every condition necessary for living by the state and society, all people lead an equal and stable life.

From their childhood they take it for granted that they lead a stable life at the expense of the state. In the DPRK every member of society is fully provided with all rights of a social being including the rights to work, rest, free education and free medical care.

The country’s labour law reads in part; Unemployment has disappeared in the DPRK once and for all. In fact, a jobless person is nowhere to be seen in the country. Any person able to work has the right to select a job in accordance with his hope and aptitude and the state provides all the people with stable jobs. Honoured disabled ex-soldiers and weak and disabled persons are also provided with corresponding jobs.

The country enforces a free universal 12-year compulsory education system, which is considered to be the highest level of education in the world. There is a school in any place where there are children of school age, be it an out-of-the-way mountainous area and a small lighthouse islet. University and college students study, even receiving stipends.

Every citizen in the DPRK receives medical treatment free of charge on equal terms, be he or she, a government official, an ordinary worker or a farmer and irrespective of sex, age, place of residence, occupation and property status. The country’s free medical care system is a perfect and thoroughgoing one by which all that are necessary for medical treatment are offered free of charge. Under the free medical care system a daughter of a road maintenance worker was cured of her paraplegia free of charge and a chartered plane carried an ordinary worker’s wife pregnant with triplets to the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital. Such phenomena, which are difficult to find in other part of the world, have become a daily occurrence in the DPRK.

Regarding the construction of dwelling houses as an important undertaking to provide the people with conditions for a cultural and stable life, the state pays close attention to it. Of particular note here is that the state builds all the houses at its expense and provides them to the people gratis. Over the recent years ordinary lecturers, researchers and other working people moved to new homes in modern Changjon Street, Unha Scientists Street and apartment blocks for the lecturers of Kim Il Sung University.

The elderly, disabled and children with no one to support them are taken care of at the expense of the state.

In the DPRK women have equal social positions and rights with men and enjoy special social benefits. Through various policies like granting maternity leave, shortening working hours of mothers with several children and building more maternity houses, nurseries and kindergartens, the state takes special care of mothers and children. Prolific mothers are awarded the title of Mother Hero.

Marriage and the family are protected by the law. Citizens are guaranteed inviolability of the person and the home, privacy of correspondence and all other human rights.

That human rights are excellently ensured in the DPRK is because the country is guided by the Juche idea.

The Juche idea, a man-centred world outlook, holds up man as the most powerful and precious being in the world and demands that everything serves the people. It is quite natural that human rights should be ensured on the highest level in a country which is guided by such an idea.

It is not fortuitous that a US evangelist Billy Graham said after he visited the DPRK; I did not think it necessary to evangelize the country. Both Old and New Testaments are permeated with the God’s love for man. However, the country pursued philanthropy running through the Testaments as state policies. Then why did I need the Testaments in such a country?