I must say the timing is odd for this when the North is talking peace with Japan and the South and China is making rapprochements with its neighbors.
"EU Confirms North Korea Invite for Rights Visit" Associated Press
A European Union official on Friday confirmed that North Korea has invited the EU's special representative for human rights to visit, which would be a significant step toward resuming a human rights dialogue that Pyongyang broke off in 2003.
On Thursday, a North Korean diplomat to the United Nations told The Associated Press that the invitation to Stavros Lambrinidis had been sent.
"The invite is currently being considered," the EU's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, said in an email. "The two sides will discuss timing and substance of a visit through appropriate diplomatic channels."
The EU has said Lambrinidis recently met with a Pyongyang representative.
Kocijancic also said a team of experts from the union's diplomatic service had been scheduled to visit Pyongyang next week for meetings with authorities, but "new Ebola-related entry restrictions" enacted by the government have postponed it.
See: North Korea to quarantine visitors in light of Ebola
For North Korea to offer any dialogue on human rights, a topic which its government until recently would not discuss, is seen as significant by the international community. But such an offer also has been greeted with skepticism by rights groups and some diplomats.
I think North Korea opening up is significant any time.
North Korea also has offered the possibility of visits by United Nations rights officials, but the North Korea diplomat, Kim Un Chol, said Thursday that those offers would be dropped unless a U.N. resolution on the country removes any reference to the International Criminal Court before Saturday.
When Bliar or Bush are before the bar let me know; otherwise, the while ICC is nothing but a kangaroo court charging poor white Serb, black Africans they double-crossed, and now the Asian token of North Korea.
Come to think of it, are they taking up Israeli war crimes?
Kim treated the EU invitation as a separate issue and said the visit by Lambrinidis is expected next March.
North Korea has been on the defensive since a U.N. commission of inquiry early this year detailed what it said were vast human rights abuses in the impoverished but nuclear-armed country and warned that leader Kim Jong Un could be held accountable.
Were the U.N. not so arbitrary while pushing its political agenda that might mean more.
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"Try North Korea in court, UN official urges" by Anna Fifield | Washington Post October 29, 2014
TOKYO — The United Nations’ point man on North Korea’s human rights violations called Tuesday for Pyongyang to be referred to the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, saying it is time to take actions against the regime ‘‘to a new level.’’
Why now?
The damning report from Marzuki Darusman, the UN’s special rapporteur dealing with North Korea, comes six months after a UN commission of inquiry released a 372-page report detailing brainwashing, torture, starvation, and imprisonment for ‘‘crimes’’ such as questioning the system or trying to escape it, or secret Christianity.
That report contained a litany of human rights abuses and seems to have marked a turning point for North Korea, which now appears genuinely alarmed by the prospect that leader Kim Jong Un and his associates could be called before an international tribunal.
‘‘The international community must seize this unique opportunity and momentum created by the commission of inquiry to help to make a difference in the lives of the people of [North] Korea, including victims, and to ensure accountability of those responsible for serious violations of human rights, including crimes against humanity,’’ Darusman wrote in his report, published Tuesday.
When are they going to take that opportunity against the U.S., U.K., Israel?
However, he noted that North Korea has not accepted any of the commission’s findings. ‘‘This sadly reflects its continued state of denial of the widespread, grave, and systematic human rights violations and crimes against humanity reported by the commission, and the need for fundamental change,’’ he wrote.
Pyongyang has traditionally refused to talk about its well-documented human rights violations, threatening to walk out of nuclear negotiations if the issue were raised. But North Korean diplomats and propagandists, with their trademark colorful language, are now actively engaging critics, apparently alarmed that snowballing international pressure could lead its top officials — including Kim — to be charged with crimes against humanity.
In other words, the North Koreans are acting like Israel.
Unusually, a North Korean delegation attended a panel on its human rights violations at the UN in New York last week, at which Michael Kirby, the Australian judge who led the commission of inquiry, and two North Korean defectors spoke.
Kim Song, the head of the North Korean delegation, called their allegations a product of ‘‘political conspiracy of the United States and hostile forces in their attempt to overthrow our political and social system.’’ North Korean officials videotaped the testimony of the two defectors, in what attendees said was a clear attempt to intimidate them.
We use whatever we can.
Pyongyang released a character assassination video Tuesday titled ‘‘Lie and Truth’’ in which the father of defector Shin Dong Hyuk says his son’s testimony is false. Shin — who was born in a prison camp and lived a life of starvation, hard labor, and torture until he escaped at age 22 — has become one of the most prominent critics of North Korea.
In the video, a man identified as Shin’s father urges Shin to ‘‘come to your senses and return to the embrace of the [Workers’] Party.’’
‘‘The dictator is holding my father hostage,’’ Shin wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday, confirming that the man was indeed his father, whom he had assumed was dead. ‘‘No matter what the dictator does to my father, they cannot cover my eyes; no matter what the dictator does, they can not cover up my mouth,’’ he wrote.
Another North Korean official caused surprise at a UN briefing earlier this month by admitting to the practice of ‘‘reform through labor detention camps,’’ although what he described was a long way from the brutal gulags depicted by escapees such as Shin.
And before Darusman released his report, North Korean officials invited him to visit the country, a change from its previous practice of denying entry to anyone investigating the human rights situation.
Engaging on questions of human rights, even bombastically, appears to be North Korea’s way of trying to tackle the growing chorus of voices calling for its leaders to be put on trial for crimes against humanity, analysts and defectors said.
The calls for North Korea’s senior leaders to go before a tribunal have ‘‘shaken’’ them into discussion, said one Western diplomat who has dealt with Pyongyang, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ‘‘They want to remove that risk.’’
I'm not saying North Korean jails are country clubs; I just don't feel qualified to criticize since I am a citizen of the world's worst offender -- the United States of America.
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What hasn't been much of a concern lately:
"North Korean leader was sidelined by foot surgery, South says" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times October 29, 2014
SEOUL — The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose prolonged absence from public view aroused rumors that he was ill or deposed, or both, was recovering from surgery on his left foot, South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers on Tuesday.
*******
Its representatives told lawmakers that Kim, who has appeared to be gaining weight, had undergone surgery for tarsal tunnel syndrome, a painful foot condition caused by the compression of a nerve, according to two lawmakers who briefed reporters on what they were told.
The intelligence agency did not disclose how it had obtained the information, but added that a European expert had operated on Kim, the lawmakers said....
And now they are sending human rights observers.
The lawmakers also quoted intelligence officials as saying that political purges were continuing in the North as Kim asserted his leadership. Recently, 10 party officials were executed by firing squad on charges of corruption, they said.
Interesting punishment. Is it effective?
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I wasn't concerned I told you that's why he hadn't been seen while the propaganda pre$$ was hoping he was dead.
