The DPRK permanent mission to the UN Office and International Organizations in Geneva issued the following press statement on March 24:

Recently, the EU submitted again the “resolution” slandering the DPRK’s genuine policy of protecting and promoting human rights and its actual situation to the 55 th  Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The submitting of the anti- DPRK “resolution”, which has become an inveterate evil practice of the EU, is nothing but a clear politically-motivated plot utterly contrary to the purpose and principle of the UN Charter which stipulates respect for sovereignty and non-interference in other’s internal affairs and to the efforts of the UN member states to protect and promote human rights through dialogue and cooperation.

It is the core of the “resolution” of the EU to insist on the infringement upon sovereignty under the signboard of “protecting human rights”.

The DPRK permanent mission to the UN Office and International Organizations in Geneva brands the recent “resolution” submission of the EU as a grave political provocation taking sides with the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK to bring down its social system, and vehemently denounces and rejects it.

Today the fair international community is sneering at the shamelessness of the EU countries, in which all sorts of human rights violations are rampant like malignant cancer, as they are styling themselves the “human rights founders” and “human rights model” and trying to teach others.

Many member states of the UN Human Rights Council maintain their stand that the “human rights resolutions” against specific countries are nothing but politicized documents which are not recognized by relevant countries.

It is the European countries where typical human rights violations such as racial discrimination, maltreatment of immigrants, human trafficking, police violence and sexual abuse are rampant and children, disabled persons and old people who deserve social protection are forsaken as victims of all social evils.

The EU is the very one that brought about the worst humanitarian crisis by disturbing the stability and creating discord among the Middle East and African countries and is taking a cold attitude remaining indifferent to innocent refugees whether they drown in the Mediterranean Sea to death or suffer from coldness and diseases in refugee camps.

The EU is besmirching the sacred UN human rights arena by fabricating someone’s non-existing “human rights issue” though it could not even properly settle its existing and urgent human rights violations. This is not because it is truly interested in protecting and promoting human rights.

It is the main purpose of the “improvement of human rights” touted by the EU to justify its interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of “human rights and democracy”, distorting the universal definition of human rights and preaching its “values”.

No one or no other international law gave the EU an authority to interfere in internal affairs of independent sovereign states and impose its principle on them.

The “strategic independence” and “independence” advocated by Europe will only highlight the true nature of the EU which is strategically subordinated to the U.S. policy of hegemony.

The protection of human rights and the defence of sovereignty are inseparably related.

The DPRK regarding the people-first principle as its state policy will as ever fulfill its responsibility and role to defend the sovereign right of the state and protect and promote the human rights of the people.