The U.S. Congress is allocating funds for the advancement of human rights in North Korea.
The regime’s party organ Rodong Sinmun on Monday criticized the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur of human rights Tomas Ojea Quintana’s recent insistence that human rights must be part of any de-nuclearization agreement.
Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, describes the North Korea situation as “a consistently bad situation in human rights,” VOA adds.
North Korea has a “systematic use of forced labor, both in the penal system also the use of people and forced labor camps and on forced labor crews building infrastructure,” said Robertson.
Some $10 million will be allocated to North Korean human rights, according to the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill. Of the total amount, sixty percent of the funds – a $2 million increase on last year – will be disbursed by the National Endowment for Democracy, reports suggest.
