South to prosecute North's human rights violators after unification

The perpetrators of human rights violations in the North will face criminal punishments once the two Koreas are unified, said the government in Seoul on Tuesday...

Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho speaks at a forum in Seoul on Dec. 18. [NEWS1]

The perpetrators of human rights violations in the North will face criminal punishments once the two Koreas are unified, said the government in Seoul on Tuesday.

“We will hold accountable these perpetrators in the North once the two Koreas are united and we can hold relevant judicial proceedings,” said the Unification Ministry in announcing the updated government plan to address North Korean human rights violations jointly with the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry on Tuesday.

The plan is updated every three years and announced by the unification minister once a bipartisan committee at the National Assembly approves it. The last plan the Moon Jae-in administration announced expired at the end of 2022.

The Democratic Party has not responded to repeated requests by the Yoon Suk Yeol administration and the Unification Ministry to recommend members to the committee to approve a new plan for 2023 onward, according to the Unification Ministry, hence its decision to announce an updated plan jointly with the other ministries on Tuesday.

The plan includes a deeper interview process for North Korean defectors to record in detail the human rights violations they had experienced in the North. According to the ministry, this will add to records the South Korean government can use to hold human rights violators in the North accountable.

The joint ministerial statement also included plans to raise awareness of the egregious human rights violations in the minds of North Korean residents.

“We will inform North Korean residents of the human rights situation they face by improving their access to information,” said the ministries in their statement, adding that they will support private organizations’ projects and activities to feed various content and information to the people of North Korea.

Following the escalation of tensions between the two Koreas, marked by the North’s continued ballistic missile launches, the Unification Ministry warned in September that it is considering resuming loudspeaker broadcasts at the border.

The broadcasts ended in April 2018 with the enactment of a law during the former Moon Jae-in administration.

However, the law articulates that the president of South Korea can announce a short-term hiatus of the law’s application, enabling a legal resumption of the loudspeaker broadcasts.

An amendment that banned activists from flying leaflets across the border from the South since 2020 was recently ruled unconstitutional in Seoul.

The plan announced by the ministries on Tuesday also stressed a need to raise awareness of the human rights situation in the North with the public in South Korea.

The National Unification Advisory Council’s survey in May this year found that seven out of 10 people in their 20s and 30s in Korea were positive about raising awareness about North Korean human rights violations.

The ministries also vowed to update the official records on the separated families.

Many separated families from the 1950-53 Korean War are in their 80s or 90s, with around 39,000 surviving. Another 94,000 died between 1988 and Nov. 30 this year, according to the Unification Ministry.

“We will continue to conduct the DNA surveys,” said the Unification Ministry, adding that it will continue to stress to the North Korean regime the need to prioritize the separated families’ reunions.

The last reunion was held in 2018, when 833 family members in South Korea could participate in the reunion in the North organized by the two Koreas, according to the ministry.

The ministry will also collect the DNA information of the second and third generations of separated families to ensure a means for the extended families to reconnect in the future.

“Ultimately, we want a future where the residents of two Koreas can travel freely across the Korean Peninsula,” said the ministry.

BY PARK HYUN-JU,ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]