North Korea on Wednesday denounced the United Nations Human Rights Council’s adoption of a resolution on its human rights record, calling it a “grave political provocation” against the country’s dignity and sovereignty.
In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, a spokesperson for the North’s Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang “condemns and rejects in the strongest terms” the resolution, which it claimed targets its political system.
The spokesperson argued that country-specific human rights mechanisms violate the principles of sovereign equality and noninterference in internal affairs, as outlined in the UN Charter.
The remarks came after the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning North Korea’s human rights violations on Monday without a vote by consensus at its 61st session in Geneva. A total of 50 countries, including South Korea, joined as co-sponsors, marking the 24th consecutive year of its adoption.
The ministry also criticized what it described as a longstanding practice of adopting such resolutions, saying it has been “extremely polluted” by politicization, selectivity and double standards over more than two decades.
It added that the council should instead focus on investigating what it called “large-scale crimes against humanity” caused by hegemonic powers through acts of state terrorism and violations of sovereignty.
The statement further claimed that children, who it said should be under special protection, are increasingly becoming targets of precision-guided weapons, resulting in repeated civilian casualties, though it did not directly mention a recent incident in Iran in which at least 175 people, including students and teachers, were reportedly killed in a strike attributed to the United States.
The ministry also warned that countries participating in what it called “slander” against North Korea’s political system would “be held accountable.”
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