US in no position to lecture ‘disobedient’ countries on human rights, says North Korea

Pyongyang derided the US as a ‘hotbed’ of rights abuses and injustices, after Washington issued a report criticising North Korea’s record

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In a photo taken on June 2, 2017, North Korean soldier Lieutenant Kim poses for a portrait before the military demarcation line at the truce village of Panmunjom within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:06pm, 25 Apr 2018Updated: 1:52pm, 25 Apr 2018

North Korea condemned US criticism of its human rights record as “ridiculous”, days before leader Kim Jong-un’s summit with the South and ahead of a meeting with US President Donald Trump.

The isolated North has been accused of a litany of state-sanctioned rights abuses including extrajudicial killing, torture, brutal crackdowns on dissent and even kidnapping foreign citizens.

The US State Department’s rights report on the North, released last week, described “egregious human rights violations” in the authoritarian state from public executions to widespread surveillance of citizens.

Pyongyang angrily slammed the report for “viciously slandering” the nation, accusing the US of being a “hotbed” of rights abuses itself, beset by “cancer-like” gun violence and “all sorts of injustice, deprivation of rights”.

People watch a TV screen showing file footage of US President Donald Trump, right, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a news programme at the Seoul Railway Station. Photo: AP

This is really ridiculous and reminds one of a thief crying to stop the thief

North Korea’s KCNA news agency

Washington was appointing itself as a “human rights judge”, the official KCNA news agency said in a commentary late Tuesday.