South Korea backs U.N. measure to hit North on rights
04 Nov 2008 14:00:37 GMT Source: Reuters
By Rhee So-eui and Jon Herskovitz SEOUL, Nov 4 (Reuters) - South Korea said on Tuesday it had joined the sponsors of a U.N. resolution criticising North Korea for its suspected human rights abuses in a move likely to anger its prickly neighbour and further chill already frosty ties. "Our government joined to support the EU-led resolution based on our principle that human rights, as a common value, must be handled separately from other issues," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Under liberal presidents over the past 10 years, South Korea has walked on egg shells when it came to human rights, feeling that open criticism of its communist neighbour would derail improving ties between the states technically still at war. South Korea had mostly abstained from other votes on U.N. resolutions on rights abuses in North Korea but a new president who took office in February pledged to take a tough line toward Pyongyang and rethink a quiet approach to diplomacy. The resolution, which calls on the North to end suspected serious human rights abuses, will be circulated on Tuesday at the United Nations and a vote is expected later this month, the ministry said.Human rights groups and governments such as the United States and Japan say North Korea punishes dissent with a network of political prison camps, where torture is common. They say it uses public execution as a tool of intimidation and guilt by association by throwing family members of those who run afoul of the state into jail. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by David Fox)
An anti-China activist scuffles with police as he protests against Chen Yunlin, the chairman of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), at the Ambassador Hotel in Taipei November ...
