North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's summits with the presidents of South Korea and the United States have not changed his country's abysmal human rights record, the U.N. independent investigator on human rights in the isolated Asian nation said Tuesday.
Speaking at a news conference, Tomas Ojea Quintana said he is "very concerned" that statements following Kim's meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump made no mention of human rights in North Korea.
He pointed to reports of "systematic, widespread abuses" of human rights and a U.N. commission of inquiry's findings in 2014 that possible crimes against humanity have been committed in North Korea.
"The human rights situation at the moment, at the moment, has not changed," Quintana said.
Quintana said dealing with North Korea's nuclear arsenal is extremely important for humanity, and he strongly supported rapprochement between the two Koreas and talks with the U.S. that have decreased tensions and improved prospects for peace.
But he stressed that North Korea's human rights record must not be ignored.
Quintana recalled that in his previous job as U.N. investigator in Myanmar, he raised alarm about "crimes against humanity" being committed by the military during that country's political transition in 2012 but his concerns were put aside.
"And now we see the consequences," he said, alluding to findings of military abuses against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority.
He said he isn't saying the situation in North Korea is the same, but "we shouldn't undermine the principle of human rights because sooner or later it will come back."
"As the process of rapprochement and talks are moving so fast, we the human rights people — we also need to move fast and bring proposals, different proposals," Quintana said.
He said one of his proposals is to ask the new U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, to initiate "a process of engagement" with North Korea.
He also urged North Korea "to show commitment to the human rights agenda" and allow him to visit the country and talks to its leaders.
Quintana, a human rights lawyer from Argentina appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, was in New York to present his latest findings to the U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee.
He said he proposed to North Korean officials in Geneva last March that the government should start releasing political prisoners as a signal of commitment to human rights.
"We saw in the media there was an amnesty by the leadership and some prisoners were released," Quintana said. "That was very important news."
But Quintana added that when he wrote to North Korea seeking details, he got no response.
He said in response to a question that the Trump administration has told him it supports his work and backs a General Assembly resolution condemning North Korea's human rights situation.
On Monday, North Korea's official KCNA news agency accused "some dishonest forces including Japan" of "working hard to cook up" a politicized resolution on human rights. It called the annual resolution the result of a "conspiratorial and criminal scenario of the hostile forces to defame" North Korea.
KCNA said Western countries should not be held up as "the human rights standard of the world," saying that "misanthropy and abnormal way of life are rampant" in the West.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.
Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.
Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.
“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.
The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”
"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”
The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.
Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.
The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.
But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.
While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.
Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.
That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”
“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”
Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)
