(Yonhap Interview) New U.N. office head vows to zero in on NK rights violations

By Kim Soo-yeon SEOUL, Sept. 24 (Yonhap) -- The new head of the U.N. office on North Korean human rights vowed Thursday to monitor and look into the North's dismal rights abuses in a comprehensive and accurate manner, calling the situation "very serious." The United Nations opened its field office in June here in a bid to monitor North Korea's human rights violations, recommended by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI)'s landmark report on the North's rights record. Signe Poulsen, representative of the six-member office, said that North Korea's violations of human rights are "very serious," enough to warrant actions from the international community. "Many of these violations are so systematic and so widespread that they constitute crimes against humanity," Poulsen said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency. "That's a high threshold. That's not business as normal. That's really very serious." Poulsen, a national of Denmark, came to Seoul in August after working for the U.N. in different countries like Liberia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea. North Korea has long been branded as one of the worst human rights violators. Pyongyang has bristled at such criticism, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime. Last year, the U.N. took the critical and symbolic step over the issue as the General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution in December that calls for the U.N. Security Council to refer the North's situation to the International Criminal Court. Poulsen said the gravity of human rights violations prodded the global community to focus on the issue. "The scale of violations against people living in North Korea is so large that it concerns all of us," she said. North Korea has denied the existence of political prison camps, claiming that the country only maintains labor camps as correctional facilities for criminals. The North is presumed to operate five prison camps nationwide, which are holding in captivity some 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, according to a report by the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is strengthening his reign of terror by conducting public executions of high-profile officials including former defense minister Hyon Yong-chol. Poulsen said that public executions have continued for a long time as a "pattern" of the North's serious rights violation. The office will mainly collect relevant information based on interviews with North Korean defectors in South Korea and elsewhere. It will later report its findings to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. North Korea has been extremely sensitive toward the establishment of the office, vowing to retaliate against South Korea over the move. Poulsen said she is not afraid of the North's threat, saying that there are many field workers and rights advocates who are putting their lives at risk every day. Touching on the inter-Korean relations, she welcomed South and North Korea's recent deal to resume the reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Poulsen refrained from commenting on her office's role in the Seoul-Pyongyang ties, but she expressed support for such a humanitarian move. "Steps like that are positive and if they can be replicated, it will be more positive," she said. Poulsen said that she will ramp up efforts to gather information on the North's rights abuses in a "comprehensive and accurate" manner despite limitations, as she cannot visit the North for her assignments. "My expectation and my strong hope is that I will be able to fulfill the mandate to the satisfaction of all U.N. member states," she said. sooyeon@yna.co.kr (END)