North Korea condemned US criticism of its human rights record as “ridiculous” as a diplomatic whirlwind accelerated ahead of leader Kim Jong Un’s summits with the South and 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 latest 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. “I plan to tell… Kim that resolving the Japanese abduction issue will help establish peace in northeast Asia,” Moon’s office cited him as saying. The two promised to co-ordinate closely and discussed a possible meeting between Moon and Trump before the US-North Korea summit, it added.

Source: Dhaka Tribune April 25, 2018 06:33 UTC