PRESS STATEMENT OF THE PERMANENT MISSION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA TO THE UNITED NATIONS

The Permanent Mission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the United Nations releases the following press statement with regard to the “Conference on North Korean Human Rights” to be hosted by the United States in Washington D.C. The United States and south Korea are going to convene so-called "Conference on North Korean Human Rights: the Road Ahead" on 17 February in Washington by bringing together Michael Donald Kirby, former chairman of COI and Marzuki Darusman, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK. The Permanent Mission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the United Nations condemns the convening of such human rights gathering as a political human rights plot against the DPRK and makes clear its position as follows; The "Conference on North Korean Human Rights: the Road Ahead " constitutes a product of the hostile policy of the United States against the DPRK, and it is nothing but a rubbish event for the United States to get rid of the predicament driven at home and abroad, due to the recent confession by the defector of the fabrication of his testimony and to the disclosure of CIA's torture crimes. We made due request to the U.S. on our participation in the gathering, since we are the party directly concerned. But the U.S. ignored our request for participation because they are afraid of disclosure of their plot for fabrication. The US is advised to clean up its own human rights ravages. If the U.S. is sincerely interested in human rights, they should, above all, call into question the CIA's torture crimes and the gross human rights violations committed by "national security law" in south Korea, far from clinging to the attempted fabrication of falsehood and plot through such as the kind of above "conference". The United States does not have qualification at all to talk about human rights situation of other countries, since it is the worst human rights violator in the world. We, the people of the DPRK are proud of our political and social system chosen by ourselves and we will strongly respond to any attempts to overthrow our system under the pretext of human rights. New York, 15 February 2015