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UN envoy: N. Korea leader responsible for rights abuses
Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations special envoy on North Korea, speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Friday
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Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations special envoy on North Korea, speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Friday. Darusman, currently in Japan to assess North Korean human rights development, says harsh human rights conditions in the country have hardly changed and that criminal responsibility should be pursued against leader Kim Jong Un. (AP/Mari Yamaguchi) (AP/Mari Yamaguchi)
Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations special envoy on North Korea, speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Friday. (AP/Mari Yamaguchi)
Harsh human rights conditions in North Korea country have barely changed and its leader Kim Jong Un should be held criminally responsible, the top UN envoy on North Korea said Friday.
Marzuki Darusman said in Tokyo that his repeated requests to visit North Korea during six years as special rapporteur have never gone through.
He said that global effort to improve the human rights in North Korea must continue.
"In addition to continuing political pressure to exhort the DPRK to improve human rights, it is also now imperative to pursue criminal responsibility of the DPRK leadership," he said. The North's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Darusman was in Japan to assess North Korean human rights developments. He has talked with Japanese police and legal experts, as well as relatives of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago. His visit comes on the heel of North Korea's nuclear test earlier this month.
He said any act seen as violence against the international community overshadows Pyongyang's effort to improve the human rights conditions and worsens the situation.
North Korean Ambassador-at-large Ri Hung Sik said in November that he had met Darusman once, but "we don't see any benefits" talking to him again because "he has been talking of regime change whenever he's abroad."
