Human Rights (North Korea)

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend’s constituents are engaging with him on the issue. As I will say in a little while, we could press the UN to take the matter to the International Criminal Court, which would be one positive step that could come out of the UN commission of inquiry. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we must not let the report just gather dust on the shelf.

The UN report concludes that,

“the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

The chairman of the commission of inquiry, Mr Justice Michael Kirby, has compared the situation in North Korea to the holocaust, and, as he says, that is no exaggeration.

The inquiry has made a variety of recommendations, but most particularly, it calls, as I have just said, for a case to be referred to the ICC. I welcome the Government’s support for the inquiry’s recommendations; their efforts at the Human Rights Council in March, when a UN resolution endorsed the commission of inquiry’s findings and recommendations; and the recent briefing at the UN Security Council in the form of an Arria formula meeting. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what steps the United Kingdom is considering taking in future; what role the UK will play in continuing to lead international efforts to ensure that the commission of inquiry’s report is turned into a plan of action and does not sit on a shelf; and specifically what steps the Security Council can take to seek a referral to the ICC or another appropriate mechanism for justice and accountability.

Today, the Conservative party human rights commission released its report, entitled, “Unparalleled and Unspeakable: North Korea’s Crimes against Humanity”. I pay huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for her leadership of that inquiry and her tireless campaigning on the issue. I will leave it to her, if she should be fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr Streeter, to focus on the findings and recommendations of her report in detail, but I commend the report to the House and hope that the Minister will study it carefully.

Momentum is beginning to grow in other ways as well. The outstanding work of the all-party group on North Korea—if any colleagues present are not members, I encourage them to join—under the chairmanship of Lord Alton of Liverpool, has kept the issue on the agenda in Parliament for the past decade. The work of advocacy organisations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International; campaigns by groups such as Open Doors and Release International; and the efforts of the international coalition to stop crimes against humanity in North Korea, have helped bring about the attention that is finally being given by the UN to North Korea’s human rights crisis. New organisations, such as the recently launched North Korea Campaign UK and the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, will help to bring the situation to a new level of public awareness and campaigning.

All those are vital steps to shine a light on the darkest corner of the world and to place North Korea’s human rights crisis where it belongs: at the centre of the international agenda. However, much, much more is needed.

Breaking the information blockade that surrounds North Korea is key to bringing about change, as has already been mentioned. I welcome the steps already undertaken by the UK to promote academic and cultural exchanges and scholarships for North Koreans to study abroad. I also welcome the activities of others, including distribution of information into North Korea via USB sticks, DVDs and other portable devices, and—crucially—radio broadcasts.

As Professor Andrei Lankov argues in his book, “The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia”:

“In order to initiate changes in North Korea, it is necessary to put North Korea’s rulers under pressure from its people and the lower echelons of the elite. Only North Koreans themselves can change North Korea…The only long-term solution, therefore, is to increase pressure for a regime transformation, and the major way to achieve this is to increase North Koreans’ awareness of the outside world. If North Koreans can learn about the existence of attractive and available alternatives to their regimented and impoverished existence, the almost unavoidable result will be the growth of dissatisfaction toward the current administration. This will create domestic pressure for change, and the North Korean government will discover that its legitimacy is waning even among a considerable part of the elite.”

Every tool available should be used to break the information blockade, but there is one that is not currently being used: the BBC World Service. A sustained campaign has developed over the past year or two for the establishment of a BBC Korean-language radio service to broadcast to the Korean peninsula, north and south. An excellent report by the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, called “An Unmet Need: a Proposal for the BBC to Broadcast a World Service in the Korean Language”, was published in December 2013. The report notes:

“In spite of restrictive media policies, severe punishments and radio jamming operations, changes to the global media environment are gradually impacting media consumption within the DPRK”—

that is, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, although of course it is a state that is neither democratic nor run for its people. The report goes on:

“Today, a surprisingly large percentage of North Koreans can access media devices that are capable of receiving foreign media”.

Intermedia reports that almost half of North Korea’s radio listeners are able to access illegal radios and over a quarter have actively listened to foreign radio broadcasts.

The remit of the BBC Trust sets out as a specific purpose for the World Service that it should

“enable individuals to participate in the global debate on significant international issues.”

A BBC strategy document, “Delivering Creative Future in Global News”, makes it a priority for the World Service to access

“a number of information-poor language markets with a clear need for independent information”.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He has touched on an interesting point about the BBC World Service. I believe that one reason why the Foreign Office is reluctant to ask the BBC to broadcast a Korean service is that it underestimates the number of North Koreans who could receive it, but if it looks at the figures, there is a much stronger case than it believes for asking the BBC to broadcast to North Korea.

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is right and I agree with him—the evidence available to us shows that despite the restrictions and the regime’s best efforts to stop them, more and more people in North Korea are managing to listen to such broadcasts.

Recently, Stephen Bosworth, the former US ambassador to the Republic of Korea and former US special representative for North Korea policy, said:

“I would like to lend my support to the effort to bring the BBC World Service to North Korea. I believe the interests of the people of North Korea and the rest of the world are best served by opening North Korea to information from the outside. The BBC World Service could clearly play an important role in that process.”

The all-party group on North Korea, the Conservative party human rights commission and the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, among others, have addressed many of the questions put forward by the BBC and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, particularly on cost-effectiveness, commercial opportunities, availability of shortwave radios in North Korea and availability of transmitters to broadcast. Has the Minister had an opportunity to read “An Unmet Need”, to assess the information provided by various groups in response to BBC and Foreign Office concerns and to review the Government’s position?

Last night, I was e-mailed by one of Radio Free Asia’s correspondents in Washington, and gave a radio interview over the telephone with that station. Given that today’s debate is in the British Parliament, it is a little ironic that perhaps the only broadcast into North Korea to be mentioned today will be one from an American-run radio station, and not a British radio communication.

There are many other concerns; I will briefly highlight some, in the hope that other Members might elaborate on them during the debate. First, there are the severe violations of freedom of religion or belief in North Korea, and particularly the extreme persecution of Christians. There is China’s policy of forced repatriation of North Korean refugees, which returns them to a dire fate and is in breach of international law. Further, there are the desperate humanitarian needs of the people of North Korea and the question of whether the United Kingdom could and should be providing aid. There are also concerns about possible breaches of existing sanctions and the need for more targeted sanctions to prevent the export of North Korean resources produced by forced labour in political prison camps and slave labour in the mining sector, as well as the trade in blood minerals.

Finally, there is a need to develop a much better understanding of how the brutal regime in North Korea works by engaging regularly with North Korean defectors, of whom there are several hundred in the United Kingdom. Last week, one prominent defector, Jang Jin-sung, addressed the all-party group ahead of the launch of his new book, “Dear Leader”. He provided a detailed insight into the centrality of the regime’s rather Orwellian- sounding Organisation and Guidance Department, or OGD. Understanding the key power structures in the North Korean regime is essential if we are to use our levers of influence in the most effective way.

In 2010, The Times published an editorial, headlined “Slave State”, which stated:

“The condition of the people of North Korea ranks among the great tragedies of the past century. The despotism that consigns them to that state is one of its greatest crimes.”

The UN inquiry and the courage of an increasing number of North Korean exiles and international NGOs are at long last beginning to shine a light on those crimes and awaken the conscience of the world. In this House, we have a responsibility to do all we can to ensure that the light shines brighter, the darkness is exposed and the appalling suffering of the North Korean people is brought to an end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful to have caught your eye in this important debate, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). I also pay sincere tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who clearly showed her passion for this subject in the way she spoke about it. With the Conservative party human rights commission, she has produced a comprehensive report. I participated in some of the hearings, and I congratulate her on the report. I have read every word of it, and it would repay any Member of the House to read from it.

I want to concentrate on human rights in North Korea. Before I do, however, I want to put on record that North Korea is one of the world’s putative nuclear states. It carried out nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013. Whenever my right hon. Friend the Minister has dealings with any of the five powers in the six-party talks, I would urge him to see whether we can get the talks back on track. In my recent discussions with the Chinese—I was in Beijing last week and met Foreign Office Ministers at Minister of State level—it was clear that they, too, do not want a rogue nuclear state on their doorstep. There is, therefore, good cause to hope that China, which has the most influence of any country on the DPRK, can put some pressure on it to at least prevent it from becoming a nuclear power and deploying ever longer range ballistic missiles, potentially carrying nuclear warheads.

The UN commission of inquiry has been widely quoted today; indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton quoted widely from it. One of the most telling quotes from it was from Mr Justice Kirby, the retired and very respected Australian judge who wrote it. Let me quote just one sentence of what he said:

“The gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world”.

That is a pretty damning indictment, if ever there was one, of the inhuman treatment that the country metes out. The ordinary citizens of North Korea are sentenced to a slow death, because they do not have enough food. Their life expectancy is probably not beyond their thirties. If they go into one of the camps—and there are between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners—they face a quick death sentence, because they are starved there, and work harder; but it is not only that. The appalling thing about North Korea is that if someone commits a crime it is often not only that person, but their children and their children’s children, who are imprisoned. That often applies to those poor people who try to escape the misery across the Chinese border. They are sent back, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton has said, to appalling conditions in the prison camps. They are routinely tortured and forced to have abortions. People’s babies are routinely slaughtered in front of them and the other inmates of the camp. The regime is truly inhuman.

In an article in the Korea Times the other day Kim Mikyoung said that

“the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is one of the poorest nations, yet one of the proudest; it is one of the most sanctioned states, yet one of the most defiant; it is one of the weakest, yet one of the most resilient.”

Its people are incredibly resilient, considering the treatment that the state metes out to its poor citizens. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton said, the little known Organization and Guidance Department for the Workers Party of Korea is responsible for many aspects of ordinary Koreans’ lives—the prison camps and the re-education that happens in them, the “dear leader’s” guard and the watching of that guard to see who adulates the leader. Such is a state where the citizens spy on each other.

The recommendations of the UN commission are comprehensive and should be implemented in full, including by taking the report to the UN Security Council and referring the DPRK to the International Criminal Court. Along with the report of the commission of inquiry, the report produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton produced a number of excellent findings, and I encourage everyone to read it.

I put a question to my hon. Friend the Minister during the urgent question debate obtained by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton on 16 December.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Before the break, I was about to draw attention to the Minister, because in response to a question that I put to him in the debate on 16 December 2013 on the urgent question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, he said:

“It is important that whenever we see a chink of light, we try to widen it to expose to the people of North Korea that there is a better world out there.”—[Official Report, 16 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 482.]

I entirely agree. The report prepared by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton has shone a strong light on North Korea, and we must continue to try to change the situation there. The leadership are aware of the current attention. They know that we are on their case. We must now use the report to show the people that there is a better world out there. Knowledge is power. People need knowledge so that they, and we, have the power to change things.

[Andrew Selous]

On the “knowledge is power” point, does my hon. Friend share my concern that apparently the number of defectors getting out of North Korea has dropped by some 40% since Kim Jong-un became leader? He has increased the number of troops on the Korean-Chinese border, as have the Chinese on the other side, because they understand that knowledge getting out is harmful to them.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is clear that the new, younger leader, Kim Jong-un, is more unpredictable than his predecessors. He is more ruthless. He is stationing more troops on the border to prevent people from getting out. Unfortunately another factor in the figure that my hon. Friend has just given the House is the hardening attitude of the Chinese towards sending people back, which is completely inhuman. We need to say to the Chinese that it is not acceptable.

We have certain tools that allow us to shine this light on the regime, and I would like to discuss briefly three of them. The World Service has been mentioned several times in the debate, and figures have been given for the number of people who could potentially receive it in the DPRK. I have no way of knowing whether those figures are true—perhaps the Minister has reliable figures—but as I said in the debate on the urgent question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, I do not think that the Government can leave the matter completely to the BBC.

As my hon. Friend’s report makes clear on page 19,

“another argument used by the Government is that the BBC is independent and the Government cannot ‘interfere’ or make a decision on this. Yet under the new 2014 Operating Licence for the BBC World Service, the Foreign Secretary retains his decision-making authority over where, why, how and to whom the World Service is broadcast. The Foreign Office is required to agree to the objectives and priorities of the World Service, and thus can influence where, why and to whom to broadcast. Furthermore, in a letter to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee in February 2013, the Foreign Secretary states: ‘I…provide final agreement to any BBC proposal to open a new service.’”

The current operating licence for the BBC World Service, the new 2014 operating licence, a BBC Trust paper in June 2013 and the Foreign Secretary’s own words confirm that any new language service must be agreed between the BBC Trust and the Foreign Secretary. I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister not to stand aside and say that that is a matter for the BBC, because I do not believe that it is. I believe that the Foreign Secretary could intervene, and I hope that my right hon. Friend has heard enough pleas this afternoon to convince him to ask his boss, the Foreign Secretary, to do so.

[Fiona Bruce]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Does he agree that it is important that the Government take note of the increasing number of Members of Parliament who are calling for that and expressing concern about the human rights atrocities in North Korea? The considerable number of Members in this debate has reflected that, and others regularly join our all-party group. No less than 34 Members came to an open-doors meeting recently, many prompted by cards from their constituents, and 68 have signed early-day motion 1184, which calls on the Government to consider every possible mechanism for accountability for the human rights atrocities in North Korea. Surely that should include consideration of the BBC broadcasting into the country.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. A number of known voices in Parliament have made the case for North Korea for a long time, including Lord Alton, to whom my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has referred. I have visited South Korea and looked across the demilitarised zone into North Korea, where I had my photograph taken. The ambassador said, “There you are; you will now be on the files of the North Korean authorities for evermore, and they will know who you are.” That is the sort of regime that we are dealing with. Those of us who have been campaigning on the matter for a long time—my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton referred to Ben Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, who has done superb work on this subject—are beginning to find a wider camaraderie with people in both Houses of Parliament who want to campaign on this horrendous issue.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the fantastic speeches that we have heard today. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) referred to the number of people who have signed early-day motions. I am not able to sign early-day motions, but I have been urged by a number of constituents to come here and express my concerns and theirs about human rights in North Korea. Will my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) pay tribute to the many Church groups that have campaigned on the matter, which have encouraged MPs to attend debates such as this and encouraged engagement in the issue?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

There is no doubt about it; the increased interest by a number of Members of Parliament, which has been emphasised by the strong attendance at today’s debate, is in no small part attributable to the work that the Churches are doing. I have already referred to Christian Solidarity Worldwide and the work that it has done.

The second tool that we have in our armoury is the British Council, which my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has referred to. The British Council had an excellent programme of training English teachers, but unfortunately when Kim Jong-un and his regime threatened the Foreign Office with the closure of our embassy last year, it had to stop its activities. I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could, in his summing up, say something about the British Council and tell us if and when it is likely to be able to resume its activities.

The third tool in our locker is Kaesong. When I stood on the demilitarised zone and looked through the telescope into North Korea, I could see the industrial zone of Kaesong quite clearly. Working in the Kaesong industrial complex is one of the very few activities where both North Korean and South Korean workers can get together. The factories manufacture things that are needed in the south. The North Koreans who work there receive much-needed hard currency from the south, but, more than that, they are able to interact with South Koreans and encounter their ideas about what is going on in South Korea and the rest of the world. The hope is that they will spread those ideas by word of mouth into the rest of North Korea. That is an important tool in our armoury.

Another important tool in our armoury is the fact that there are an increasing number of electronic devices such as radios and mobile phones. Villages on either side of a valley that were previously unable to communicate with each other suddenly find that through the odd one or two people who have mobile phones, they can communicate with each other. That combined with the internet will probably bring down the regime more quickly than almost anything else.

Finally, in the very few minutes that I have left, I would like to say a word or two about China. As I said, I was in China last week with quite senior members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although they are not prepared at the moment to intervene in condemning the DPRK for its human rights record, it is quite clear that they do not want to see it becoming a nuclear state.

[Jim Shannon]

One of the things that China could do today, which would not be a big thing for them but would be a big thing for North Koreans, would be to give North Koreans who leave their country safe passage through China. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that would be a massive step forward?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I agree with my friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I think that is a very valid point. We made the point to the Chinese that when people had gone to all the difficulties of escaping across the border—by golly, it is difficult, particularly with the number of soldiers now deployed on the rivers along which people escape in winter when they ice over—it is particularly unfortunate that China return those people to the DPRK where they face certain torture and probable death, as well as forced abortions and infanticide. We must continue to discuss those matters with China.

I end where I began. We are talking about one of the most terrible regimes in the world, which commits some of the worst human rights atrocities in the world. It starves its people, and it commits against them all sorts of crimes against humanity, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has said. That is completely unacceptable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton has demonstrated, increasing numbers of parliamentarians in both Houses of Parliament are paying attention to the issue, and I expect yet more to do so. Let us all work, wherever we can and in our individual ways, to shine a light on this dreadful situation in the hope that we can bring about an improvement in the standard of living and quality of life for the people of North Korea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. China provides some humanitarian assistance to North Korea; one would therefore hope that it had some leverage over the Government there and could persuade them to change their ways.

The hon. Member for Congleton mentioned the fact that one action that could be considered is referral to the International Criminal Court and the adoption of targeted sanctions. Resolution 25/25, passed by the UN Human Rights Council in March, was a welcome first step in taking the report forward, in particular by extending the mandate of the special rapporteur and requesting increased support, including establishing a field-based structure to strengthen monitoring and improve engagement with all states.

However, it was disappointing that 11 countries at the Human Rights Council abstained on the resolution vote, while six—Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Venezuela, Vietnam and China—voted against it. There is more general concern about the composition of the Human Rights Council. The UK is on the council, but many member states have, shall we say, rather poor human rights records. There is concern about such countries’ failure to respect the special procedure or country-specific mandate holders. It would help if the Minister set out more about what he thinks the Human Rights Council can actually achieve—beyond mere condemnation of the DPRK regime—and how that can be done.

Following the recent universal periodic review, it has been reported that North Korea has actually agreed to consider 185 of the 268 recommendations. However, it has rejected some of them outright, including that it should co-operate with the ICC, end guilt by association, implement the commission’s recommendations, close the prison camps and abolish the songbun system. Critically, the Human Rights Council resolution recommended that the General Assembly submit the report to the Security Council for further action. The Human Rights Council called for the consideration of a referral

“to the appropriate international criminal justice mechanism”,

which would presumably be the ICC. On top of that, it called for consideration of the

“scope for effective targeted sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible for crimes against humanity”.

Will the Minister update us on the Government’s discussions with Security Council members about formally putting the DPRK on the agenda? What sanctions does he think could possibly be effective in targeting the DPRK leadership? Bearing in mind Russia’s and China’s position on the Security Council, what are the prospects and time scales for action and any referral to the ICC?

Now that the commission has reported and the Human Rights Council has passed its resolution, it is crucial that we maintain the momentum and keep the spotlight and pressure on North Korea, to try to secure the co-operation of partners in key positions of influence. It would be so much easier to say that solutions are more easily at hand in other countries, where the UK operates more leverage and where we know that we can, perhaps, achieve more good in a shorter time, but to turn our back on what is happening in DPRK, just because it is a difficult case and the solutions do not immediately present themselves, would be morally wrong. We simply should not contemplate that.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she has been generous in giving way.

The approximately 600 people from the North Korean diaspora in this country have not been mentioned so far. Could we not harness them and perhaps ask the BBC to ask them to help with some editorial work on programmes broadcast into Korea? They would surely want to help their families still left in the country.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. What always has to be weighed up is whether such a move would make life easier or worse for the people in the country. People in the country know how dreadful the situation is there. People from the diaspora community here would, obviously, need to highlight that to win over international opinion, ensuring that this matter is firmly on the political agenda. I am not so sure, although I have only just heard the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, what the impact would be of such footage being displayed in North Korea. There is a particular danger of measures being taken against people’s relatives who are still in the country. We have to be slightly worried about that.