North Korea
As the Global Report on Missing Persons* notes, “Enforced disappearance is a key human rights issue in North Korea. Torture, extrajudicial killing and disappearances, suppression of freedom of expression and association, and other breaches of fundamental human rights are widespread and systematic.”
Legal provisions exist for families of detainees to be notified regarding the reason and place of detention, but “this provision is not fully enforced. Especially, if a person commits ‘anti-State’ or ‘anti-nation’ offenses or happens to be related to political offenders, they may be sent to a special facility called kwanriso,”** where offenders may be held incommunicado and without due process.
The United Nations appointed a Special Rapporteur on DPRK human rights in 2004, and the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK in 2013. The Commission recommended that the UN Security Council should refer crimes against humanity in North Korea to the International Criminal Court.
