Seoul dismisses Pyongyang's report on South's human rights

The Unification Ministry on Monday hit back at North Korea's latest report on the state of South Korean human rights, which included a myriad of unfounded claims regarding life in the South.

Footage broadcast by the North's state-controlled Korean Central Television on Friday afternoon showed leader Kim Jong-un crying at the military parade that took place the previous night. [YONHAP]

The Unification Ministry on Monday hit back at North Korea's latest report on the state of South Korean human rights, which included a myriad of unfounded claims regarding life in the South.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, Unification Ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam called the North’s latest report an illustration of “just how far removed the North is from the values and standards of international society,” while noting that the ministry’s practice is to “not respond to each and every claim made by the North’s propaganda outlets.”

The 98-page report was released by a Pyongyang publisher under the control of the United Front Department of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party on July 21, over three months after the Unification Ministry made its annual report on the state of North Korean human rights available to the public for the first time. Though the United Front Department ostensibly exists to develop and manage relations with South Korea, many of its activities focus on propaganda, espionage and political subversion.

Its report on South Korean human rights, which mimics the structure of the Unification Ministry’s report on North Korean human rights, is divided into four chapters titled, “Merciless extirpation of socio-political rights,” “Stomping on economic and cultural rights,” “Degradation of women and rampant immoral behavior” and “Suffering of human rights under the heel of the boots of invaders.”

But unlike the Unification Ministry’s 445-page report, which cites testimony given by 508 North Korean refugees in support of its findings, the North’s report on South Korean human rights appears little more than a compilation of online conspiracy theories, fabricated observations and exaggerations of South Korean news stories.

In one particularly outlandish example, the North said in its report that the state of the South Korean economy is so dire that “Haven’t you just been fired?” is a common greeting in the South.

The report also claimed that over 5.8 million South Koreans have lost their jobs since President Yoon Suk Yeol took office last year, but the most recent data released by Statistics Korea actually shows the number of unemployed South Koreans last month fell to a 15-year low of 807,000.

The North’s report also made sweeping generalizations about income inequality in South Korea that appeared to have little basis in fact.

The report said that impoverished elderly South Koreans “resent the young and their society and choose suicide to end their suffering” and also claimed that “88 percent of university students engage in after-school labor to earn tuition money, with female students resorting to selling their bodies.”

The figure seemed to have been lifted from a survey of university students conducted by part-time work portal Albamon that was cited in a January 2020 article by the Chosun Ilbo, a right-leaning South Korean daily.

In that survey, 88.9 percent of respondents planned to take on a part-time job during their winter vacation, but only 20.2 percent of those students said their reason for doing so was to pay their tuition fees.

By contrast, over 77 percent said their reason for working during the break was to support their living expenses or augment their allowance, while 30.3 percent and 26.3 percent said part-time work was their means of saving up for travel or future purchases. The survey allowed respondents to choose multiple responses.

The report also dedicated its entire fourth chapter to criticizing the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

“South Korea’s territorial sovereignty has been completely handed over to the United States, which takes and uses places without any restrictions when it deems them necessary for military strategy,” the report claimed, characterizing South Koreans as being “nothing more than ducks by the water, pheasants in the mountains, and mice in the fields for the U.S. military.”

But the report did not mention that South Korea’s law enforcement regularly prosecutes U.S. soldiers who commit crimes while off-duty, as per the South Korea-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, or that the environmental impact assessment necessary to begin operation of the U.S. military’s Terminal High Altitude Air Defense anti-missile battery was repeatedly delayed under the previous Moon Jae-in administration, despite the urging of then-United States Forces Korea commander Robert Abrams.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]