Kim Jung Un and DPRK leaders
United Nations investigators informed Kim Jung-Un the supreme leader of North Korea, that he and many of his officials may face international justice for organized torture, forced labor and deliberate starvation.
U.N. investigators informed Kim that he should refer all those responsible, possibly "including yourself", to the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, the regime completely rejected the statements and claims made in the over-300-page report explaining the atrocities that take place in the most isolated state in the world. They stated that all the evidence was fabricated material by the U.S., E.U. and Japan.
The investigators also filed a report to China, North Korea's closest ally that they should stop "aiding and abetting crimes against humanity". The Chinese government has been known to arrest and transport North Korean defectors back where they are highly likely to be executed or sent to one of the many concentration or penal labor camps.
Michael Kirby, the chairman of the independent Commission of Inquiry, told Reuters that the things happening in North Korea today are very similar to the atrocities of the Nazis during World War II. He explained that they had accumulated data on exactly what the citizens experience through testimonies by defectors which were given in public hearings in Korea, Japan, the United States and England. Some of these witnesses were guards at the penal camps.
Kirby explained that one of the most serious crimes taking place is deliberate starvation. Prisoners were often starved to death after carrying out a considerable amount of heavy labor every day. Other atrocities include rape, execution, torture, and even human experimentation for the development of chemical weapons. Kirby stated that "The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world." North Korean officials have however, have stated that such actions and concentration camps do not exist.
Though there is some excitement at the possibility that the DPRK leaders could be put on trial like the Nazis at Nurnberg, experts pointed at the possibility that China may veto any kind of action the U.N. may undertake to pressure North Korea to keep accountable of the culprits and give up their nuclear programs.
