REPORT ACCUSES NORTH KOREA OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

North Korea has committed "crimes against humanity" against its own people according to an independent report published on October 30 that made a long-shot appeal for the UN Security Council to deal with the issue. The report describes Pyongyang's brutal treatment of its citizens, from the beatings of pregnant women to force miscarriages to the abduction, torture and execution of political prisoners. Commissioned by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, former Czech president Vaclav Havel and former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, the paper seeks to spotlight rights abuses that have been previously reported but are often overshadowed by concern about North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
"It is clear that (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-il and the North Korean government are actively committing crimes against humanity," they said in a letter introducing the report, which was prepared by the non-profit, independent US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and by the DLA Piper law firm.
"We strongly urge the UN Security Council to take up the situation of North Korea. Protecting the people of North Korea requires nothing less," they added.
The report, largely based on previously published material, estimates that North Korea imprisons "upwards of 200,000 people in its modern-day gulag" and that double that number have died in the its prison network over 30 years.
It describes prisoners being fed near-starvation diets that they supplement with insects, being beaten until their eyeballs pop out and being entombed in "sweatbox" solitary cells so small they are forced to crouch for months.