A stunning catalog of torture and the widespread abuse of even the weakest of North Koreans reveal a portrait of a brutal state "that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," a United Nations panel reported Monday.
North Korean leaders employ murder, torture, slavery, sexual violence, mass starvation and other abuses as tools to prop up the state and terrorize "the population into submission," the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights (COI) in North Korea said in its report
The commission said it would refer its findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for possible prosecution. It also sent a letter warning North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he could face prosecution for crimes against humanity, and said other options include establishing of an ad hoc tribunal by the United Nations.
Even before the report's release, China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and staunch ally of North Korea, has said it would not to allow human rights charges to proceed to the ICC.
The almost yearlong investigation traced the abuses directly to the highest levels of the North Korean government while simultaneously blaming world leaders for sitting on their hands amid untold agony.
The U.N. panel released its 400-page report after hearing from more than 320 witnesses in public hearings and private interviews.
North Korea is a state, it concluded, "that does not content itself with ensuring the authoritarian rule of a small group of people, but seeks to dominate every aspect of its citizens' lives and terrorizes them from within."
"The suffering and tears of the people of North Korea demand action," commission Chairman Michael Kirby told reporters.
The government of North Korea -- also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK -- rejected the report as a ginned-up effort to undermine its government.
"It is nothing more than an instrument of political plot aimed at sabotaging the socialist system by defaming the dignified images of the DPRK and creating an atmosphere of international pressure under the pretext of 'human rights protection,'" the government said in a prepared statement.
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