PYONGYANG - North Korea condemned the United States' latest report on its human rights practices, branding it as an unwarranted intrusion into its internal affairs. The criticism follows the recent publication by the U.S. State Department of the 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which highlighted severe human rights violations within North Korea.
According to Yonhap News Agency, North Koreans continued to suffer from a range of human rights abuses in the past year, including forced repatriations, extrajudicial killings, forced abortions, and extreme forms of child labor. The document also noted Pyongyang's failure to take credible steps to identify or punish officials responsible for these violations. In response, a spokesperson for North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement through the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), rejecting the report’s findings and motives. The spokesperson accused the U.S. of using the report as a pretext for political aggression aimed at destabilizing North Korea's government.
The statement also criticized the United States for its alleged hypocrisy, claiming that the U.S. supports military operations abroad that lead to civilian casualties, all the while judging other nations by its unilateral human rights standards. Furthermore, the spokesperson warned that continued military threats and the politicization of human rights by the U.S. could prompt North Korea to take decisive actions to safeguard its sovereignty and security.