The Report of the United Nations Secretary-General on the situation of human rights in our country, which had been submitted to the 76 th Session of the UN General Assembly, was made public on August 20.

This report, distributed annually by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, is a plot document full of sheer falsity and fabrications. And obviously, it has all along been categorically negated and rejected by our country.

The point in question is that such conspiracies and slanders have now crossed the line into openly taking issue with the anti-epidemic emergency measures taken by our state to protect the life and safety of its people from the global pandemic as “human rights abuses”.

This is no less than a matter of great astonishment.

The calamity of the malignant virus that has covered this planet is driving the entire humankind into uncertainties and fear.

Recently, not a few countries are taking every possible anti-epidemic measures even to block the affected areas or whole of the country, to say nothing of local airports, ports and railway stations in the face of the rapid spread of variants of virus to a varying degree to suit their respective situations.

I cannot understand at all why only our anti-epidemic measures should be singled out as “human rights abuses” out of the general anti-epidemic measures taken by all countries.

Moreover, contents and forms of measures taken to protect the life and safety of its own people are totally an internal matter that falls within the competence of a given country.

We believe that the UN Secretary-General would be better aware of the implications of his every movement in the international arena and the priority area concerning the current human rights problems, because fairness, objectivity and strict neutrality become an in-principle anchor of his activities.

The human rights violations such as extreme racism, racial discrimination, refugee crisis and gun-related crimes are incessantly perpetrated in the Western countries even at this point in time.

In the overall context, an “excessive interest” has been levelled at our perceived “human rights abuses”, while failing to mention a single word about the above human rights violations. It makes us have a strong doubt if his personal view has been overshadowed by an urging from a certain power hostile to our country.

I take this opportunity to express my sincere expectation that the UN Secretary-General would put an earlier end to the selectivity and double standard deeply rooted in the field of human rights, rather than impairing his international reputation for the lack of prudence.

Our state takes the full responsibility for our people’s life and safety.

Jo Chol Su

Director-General, Department of International Organizations

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea