Kim Son Gyong, vice-minister for International Organizations of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, released the following press statement on Friday:

The U.S. kicked up a heinous anti-DPRK “human rights” smear campaign on June 12, taking advantage of the fact that the ROK held the chairmanship of the UNSC in June.

In fact, the ROK has neither elementary ability nor a bit of will for ensuring the international peace and security as a colonial servant which has left the whole sovereignty to the U.S. So, it is the biggest shame disgracing the name of the UN for the ROK to sit at the UNSC.

I scathingly denounce and reject the illegal anti-DPRK “human rights” racket of the U.S. and its vassal forces as the most intensive manifestation of the hostile policy toward the DPRK and a grave politically-motivated provocation to tarnish the image of our dignified state.

Recently, the U.S. and its followers have often held confabs discussing “human rights issues” at the UN arena. Such behaviors are prompted by their sinister intention to tarnish the image of the DPRK at any cost by resorting even to the despicable “human rights” smear campaign since they could not contain it by military force.

The DPRK is very accustomed to such evil doings of the U.S. which have been set as a formula.

If the UNSC has to deal with the human rights issue of a certain country, it will be natural to call into question the poor human rights situation in the U.S. and the ROK which are totally depraved due to all sorts of social evils.

The U.S. is an open criminal state which should be put in the dock at a human rights tribunal as it has connived at and fostered such institutional and wide-ranging human rights abuses as racial discrimination, gun-related crimes, child maltreatment and forced labor at home while imposing unethical human rights standards on other countries to create unrest and confusion abroad.

Moreover, the ROK has no elementary qualification to talk about human rights issue as it is a cesspit of human rights abuses where streets are filled up with the protesters of all social strata saying that “they could no longer live under the regime utterly indifferent to the people’s life and lives” due to its pro-U.S. sycophancy, fascist dictatorship and anti-popular misrule.

It is the pressing task for the U.S. and the ROK to settle the human rights abuses at their own homes.

Now the righteous international community is expressing deep apprehension and bitter criticism over the fact that the UNSC serves as a tool for realizing the political purpose of a specified state, dealing with the “human rights issue” of an individual country against its authority.

The U.S. has asserted that the “human rights issue” is for international peace and security, deliberately linking it with the DPRK’s measures for bolstering up its defence capabilities. But this only reveals its despicable nature to deprive the DPRK people of all their rights.

The biggest threat to global peace and security is the interference of the U.S. and the West, conducted in the plea of “protection of human rights” at present, and their ambition for hegemony.

The spirit of the World Declaration of Human Rights, which comprehensively reflects the unanimous will of mankind, is fading away with each passing day due to the illegal standard of human rights set by the U.S., which distinguishes a “human rights abuser” or a “model of human rights” depending on whether it is an anti-U.S. state or a pro-U.S. state.

If such abnormal practice, in which the UN and other international bodies are being turned into a theatre of hegemony where high-handed and arbitrary practices by a specified state are rampant, persists in any longer, the international bodies will lose their justification for existence, to say nothing of their authority and position.

The politicization, selectivity and double standards of human rights pursued by the U.S. and the West are a criminal hotbed that causes distrust, conflict, confrontation and division in different parts of the world at present.

It is the philosophy proved again by the current tragic situation in the Middle East that it is impossible to defend the people’s right to life, the most elementary one of human rights, without sovereignty.

It is the DPRK’s top priority in ensuring human rights to thoroughly defend the independent rights and interests of tens of millions of its people from the illegal hostile and existent threat by the U.S.

The DPRK will never tolerate the hostile forces’ despicable “human rights” racket but reliably defend its sovereignty and security interests and socialist system.