MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the human rights situation in North Korea, including the persecution of religious minorities

5.4.2022 - (2022/2620(RSP))

with request for inclusion in the agenda for a debate on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law
pursuant to Rule 144 of the Rules of Procedure

Pedro Marques, Andrea Cozzolino, César Luena
on behalf of the S&D Group

See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B9-0183/2022

NB: This motion for a resolution is available in the original language only.

B9‑0194/2022

European Parliament resolution on the human rights situation in North Korea, including the persecution of religious minorities

(2022/2620(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on North Korea,

– having regard to the declaration by the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, of 11 January 2022 and of 25 March 2022 on the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch,

- having regard to the “G7 Foreign Ministers’ Statement on the launch of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile by North Korea” of 25 March 2022,

– having regard to UN Security Council Resolutions 1718(2006), 1874(2009), 2087(2013) and 2094(2013) which explicitly ban nuclear tests by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,

– having regard to the 17th UN General Assembly resolution on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea of 17 December 2022,

- having regard to the relevant resolutions of the UN Human Rights Council, notably the one adopted on 23 March 2021 on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,

–  having regard to the report of 21 March 2022 by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Tomás Ojea Quintana,

– having regard to the report of the Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea of 7 February 2014,

-  having regard to the report of the Group of Independent Experts on Accountability of 24 February 2017;

– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, to all of which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a party,

– having regard to the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,

– having regard to Rules 135(5) and 123(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

 

1. whereas the DPRK has had an extremely problematic human rights situation for decades; whereas the DPRK regime has hardly cooperated with the UN and has rejected all UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly resolutions regarding human rights in North Korea; whereas it has failed to cooperate with the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the country, and has rejected all assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights under the special procedures;
2. whereas the European Union is a defender and promoter of human rights and democracy in the world; whereas the EU-DPRK human rights dialogue has been suspended by the DPRK since 2013; whereas the EU and DPRK held a political dialogue round in June 2015;
3. whereas the UN Commission of Inquiry (CoI) investigated ‘the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights’ in North Korea and released a report on 7 February 2014; whereas the CoI concluded in its report that Pyongyang’s human rights abuses are ‘without any parallel in the contemporary world’ and found ‘an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information, and association’; whereas the CoI found in many instances that the violations of human rights constitute crimes against humanity; whereas the situation of human rights in the DPRK has worsened since 2014;
4. whereas the DPRK Government does not allow any political opposition, free and fair elections, free media, religious freedom, freedom of association, collective bargaining or freedom of movement; whereas there are reports of severe repression of people involved in public and private religious activities in the forms of arbitrary deprivation of liberty,  torture, forced labour and execution;
5.   whereas the DPRK has an extensive and well-structured security system which closely monitors the life of nearly every citizen and does not allow any kind of basic freedom in the country;
6.   whereas the DPRK state authorities systematically deny the basic rights of prisoners and perpetrate extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention and disappearances, including in the form of abductions of foreign nationals, interning more than 100 000 people in  an extensive penal system of detention centres, holding centres, labour training camps, political prison camps and re-education camps, amongst other facilities;
7. whereas the people of the DPRK have been exposed to decades of under-development, in a context of political and economic isolation, recurrent natural disasters and international increases in food and fuel prices; whereas the DPRK is violating the obligation to food of its people;
8. whereas with its brutal human rights violations the regime is also systematically targeting religious beliefs and minorities, including Shamanism, Korean Buddhism, Catholicism, Cheondogyo, and Protestantism;
9. hereas DPRK has closed the borders to any external crossings to avoid the spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) and has not distributed any Covid-19 vaccines to its people, claiming the virus does not exist in the country;
10.   whereas the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery represents a threat to international peace and security; whereas the DPRK withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003, has been conducting nuclear tests since 2006 and officially declared in 2009 that it had developed a nuclear weapon, which means that the threat of the advancement of its nuclear capabilities has clearly amplified; whereas on 20 April 2018 DPRK announced it would immediately suspend nuclear and missile testing and shut down the Punggye-ri site that was used for six earlier nuclear tests; whereas the Council of the European Union condemned the DPRK’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on 24 March 2022, which is a breach of the suspension of intercontinental ballistic missile launches promised by DPRK, and a violation of UN sanctions;
11.   whereas the pursuit of illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programmes constitutes a challenge to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and risks aggravating regional tensions; whereas the EU strongly supports the idea of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, and considers the resumption of the Six-Party Talks to be essential for peace, security and stability in the region; whereas the EU stands ready to support any other meaningful diplomatic process;
12. whereas the EU has transposed all relevant UN Security Council resolutions and has in place its own autonomous sanctions regime with regard to the DPRK, which complements and reinforces the sanctions adopted by the UN, and has 57 listed individuals and 9 entities, which are subject to travel ban and asset freeze sanctions for contributing to the DPRK's nuclear-related, ballistic-missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes or for sanctions evasion;
13.   whereas there has been no EU global human rights sanctions regime put in place for violations in DPRK;
14. whereas the outgoing President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jae-in has proposed an “end-of-war” declaration to DPRK to declare a formal end to the Korean War that ended in 1953 without a peace treaty;

 

1. Condemns in the strongest terms the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights in and by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, including those that may amount to crimes against humanity, including imprisonment and execution on account of religion or belief, against citizens not affiliated to the state-sponsored religious federations, and to allow religious believers to meet freely for worship, build and maintain places of worship and freely publish religious literature;

2. Expresses serious concerns over the continuing reports of violations of human rights, including torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; calls on the DPRK government to immediately halt its systematic and widespread violations and abuses of human rights and to shut down all its repressive penal facilities and engage with relevant international actors to reform its penal and judicial systems;

3. Calls on DPRK to work with international organisations, including the Coronavirus Vaccine Global Access (COVAX), to ensure the timely delivery and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines to its people;

4. Strongly condemns the systematic and large-scale use of the death penalty in the DPRK; calls on the Government of the DPRK to declare a moratorium on all executions, with a view to abolishing the death penalty in the near future; calls on the DPRK to put an end to extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, to release political prisoners and to allow its citizens to travel freely, both within and outside the country; calls on the DPRK to allow free expression and press freedom for national and international media, and to allow its citizens uncensored access to the internet;

5.  Condemns the severe restrictions on the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion or belief, opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, as well as discrimination based on the songbun system which classifies people on the basis of State-assigned social class and birth, also considering political opinions and religion;

6. Expresses its particular concern about the severity of the food situation the country is facing and its impact on the population; calls on the Commission to maintain existing humanitarian aid programmes and channels of communication with the DPRK, and to secure their safe delivery to the targeted parts of the population; calls on the DPRK authorities to ensure access for all citizens to food and humanitarian assistance;

7. Expresses its particular concern about the conditions of detention across the penal system, including the denial of health, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, forced labour, rape and other forms of sexual violence, denial of right of life and fair trial and violations of the rights of vulnerable detainees, including women, persons with disabilities and juveniles; calls on the DPRK authorities to ensure access to its penal system to independent human rights monitors;

8.  Calls on the DPRK to engage constructively with international interlocutors with a view to promoting concrete improvements in the human rights situation on the ground, including through dialogues, official visits to the country and more people-to-people contact;

9. Welcomes the 17th UN General Assembly resolution of 17 December 2022 on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which was supported by all the EU Member States; calls on the EU and its Member States to continue to address the grave human rights situation in the DPRK;

10. Underlines the fact that the violations described in the Committee of Inquiry report, many of which constitute crimes against humanity, have taken place for far too long and urges the DPRK Government to implement the recommendations of the report without delay;

11. Is convinced that the time has come for the international community to take concrete action to end the perpetrators’ impunity; demands that those most responsible for the crimes against humanity committed in the DPRK be held accountable, be brought before the International Criminal Court and be subjected to targeted sanctions; insists on the need by the Council to adopt severe human rights sanctions  under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime targeting individuals identified as responsible for those violations;

12. Calls on the EEAS to build support within the United Nations General Assembly to establish, by a resolution, a mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for human rights violations and crimes under international law in DPRK;

13. Strongly condemns the launch by the DPRK of an inter-continental ballistic missile  on 24 March 2022, which violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions and poses a serious threat to international and regional peace and security; calls on the DPRK to refrain from any further action that could increase international or regional tensions and to comply with UN Security Council resolutions by abandoning all its nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missile programmes and existing nuclear programmes, in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, and cease immediately all related activities and to comply immediately with all its international obligations and law, including the UN Security Council and IAEA Board of Governors resolutions as well as other international disarmament and non-proliferation norms and resume dialogue with relevant partners;

14. Insists, ahead of the tenth NPT Review Conference, that the DPRK returns to compliance with the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon State and the IAEA Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, and brings into force the Additional Protocol; calls on the DPRK to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay and to abide by its commitments under the Six-Party Talks Joint Statement of 19 September 2005; affirms its desire for a diplomatic and political solution to the DPRK nuclear issue; reiterates its support for the Six-Party Talks and calls for their resumption; urges all the participants in the Six-Party Talks to intensify their efforts; calls on the DPRK to re-engage constructively with the international communityand engage in actions towards denuclearisation, lasting peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula;

15. Welcomes the adoption of sanctions by the Council in response to the DPRK’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development activities; calls on all UN Members to take action to implement in full the already existing UN Security Council sanctions;

16. Reiterates its call on those countries who are recipients of refugees from the DPRK to respect the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967 protocol and to imperatively refrain from cooperating in any form with the DPRK administration on the extradition or repatriation of North Korean citizens;

17. Calls on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to exert its influence and political and economic leverage over the DPRK to a) ensure that the situation does not escalate further b) take all the necessary steps, in cooperation with the international community, to restore peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, and c) comply with its obligations under the UN Refugee Convention, granting North Korean refugees who cross the border into China their right to seek asylum

18. Calls on VP/HR to use the expert capacity of the Republic of Korea in formulating the EU’s strategy towards the DPRK and believes that the EU has a constructive role to play through its critical engagement with the DPRK Government;

19. Urges the authorities of the DPRK to immediately halt the systematic abduction of persons, and to return third-country abductees to their home countries;

20. Welcomes any humanitarian project between the two Koreas, such as reunions of separated South and North Korean families, that can concretely ease the suffering of the population and calls on both governments to increase these type of initiatives;

21. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, the Government and Parliament of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Government and Parliament of the Republic of Korea, the Government and Parliament of the People’s Republic of China, the Government and Parliament of the United States, the Government and Parliament of the Russian Federation, the Government and Parliament of Japan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK, and the UN Secretary-General.