[imText1]May 31, 2006
The following statement was issued today by Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Leila Zerrougui, the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture; and Vitit Muntarbhorn, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea:
Four United Nations human rights experts today expressed their dismay at the refusal of the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to respond in any meaningful way to concerns expressed in relation to the scheduled execution of an individual for alleged treason. The individual, Son Jong Nam, was reportedly tortured by the National Security Agency, and then sentenced to death without a trial, and without the benefit of any of the procedural safeguards required by international human rights law.
In late April, the experts called upon the Government to postpone the execution and review the conviction. On May 5, 2006, the Government replied to the concerns expressed by characterizing the experts’ letter as a “a product of conspiracy undertaken in pursuit of the ill-minded aim of spreading fabricated information while following the attempts of those hostile forces to defame, disintegrate and overthrow the state and social system of the DPRK on the pretext of human rights. The letter has no relevance to genuine human rights”. In effect, the Government refused to cooperate with the four experts who constitute various special procedures established by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
“We are profoundly dismayed by this response and deplore the failure of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to cooperate with the special procedures established by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights”, said the experts. They called upon the Government to reconsider its position, suspend the scheduled execution and abide by its international human rights obligations.
