North Korea calls US 'kingpin' of rights abuse after surveillance revelations
North Korea rushed to the defence of American civil liberties on Tuesday, saying revelations of mass surveillance operations showed the United States was the “kingpin” of rights abuse.
Rights groups and defectors have long accused the North, one of the world’s most closed societies, of totalitarian practices. These include brutal suppression of dissent, the operation of a prison camp network holding some 200,000 inmates and a “military-first” policy that has led to periodic famines.
A commentary in the state newspaper Minju Joson said allegations of monitoring of telephones and emails by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden meant Americans and foreigners alike had been “subject to the espionage that has been applied indiscriminately by the US intelligence institution”.
“...This clearly proves once again the US is a kingpin of human rights abuses as it puts the world under its watch network and has conducted espionage against mankind,” said the commentary, cited by the official KCNA news agency.
“Each individual is entitled to live and develop with dignity as a social being,” it said. “But in American society, where the jungle law prevails, only the strong men’s rights over the weak men are recognised.”
This clearly proves the US is a kingpin of human rights abuses as it has conducted espionage against mankind
It said that explanations by US officials that the programmes sought to prevent terrorism were “just a lame excuse to cover up (the) crime”.
