nuclear bombs and that it was putting off multilateral talks to protest against America’s "hostile" attitudes towards the Communist nation.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry said it was suspending participation in nuclear talks for "an indefinite period" after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s described the North as an "outpost of tyranny," an apparent reference to international concern over the persecution of political dissidents and religious groups, including Christians.
The developments came just days after Christian human rights groups reportedly welcomed an initiative from a United Nations human rights investigator to give North Koreans who have fled the country due to food shortages or political "persecution" a refugee status and international protection.
Reuters news agency quoted Vitit Muntarbhorn, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, as denouncing the practice of "collective punishment based upon ‘guilt by association’", imposed on family members of people accused of a political or ideological crime.
CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED
Open Doors and other human rights watchdogs believe that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il runs a brutal and bizarre state, where Christians are among those groups persecuted for "ideological crimes" with many living in labour camps and Communist style prisons.
There are believed to be 400,000 Christians in the 25-million strong nation, with many of them meeting illegally in small groups, known as house churches. At least dozens of Christians are known to have disappeared, Open Doors said.
In the first such U.N. report on the North, Muntarbhorn also voiced concern that detainees were held without due process "under appalling conditions compounded by wide-ranging allegations of torture, forced labour and lack of access to legal help".
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights set up the post of special investigator for North Korea last April with the task of probing reports of torture, public executions, forced labour and "infanticide" in prison and labour camps. The Geneva-based commission, which holds its next annual six-week meeting from March 14-April 22, will take up the 19-page report, Reuters and other sources said.
MORE DIFFICULT
However the apparent impasse over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program was expected to make it even more difficult for Western observers to track alleged human rights abuses in North Korea, where officials have also said they would not allow the U.N. representative to enter the country.
Commentators have also blamed the widening of the rift between North Korea and the United States on missteps by both sides.
Pyongyang reportedly called President George W. Bush’s call for the spread of freedom in his January 20 inaugural speech as a diabolical U.S. scheme to turn the world into "a sea of war flames."
CONSULT WITH ALLIES
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Washington would examine the statement and consult with allies, but added that North Korea had no reason to believe it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against the United States.
"The president of the United States said in South Korea that the United States has no intention to attack North Korea," she told RTL TV of the Netherlands. "They have been told they can have multilateral security assurances if they will make the important decision to give up their nuclear weapons program."
The statement was met with alarm in the streets of Tokyo — well within range of North Korean missiles, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported from Tokyo "It’s scary. I’m from Ishikawa prefecture (state), which is closest to North Korea and where they say a missile would land if they fired one," Hideko Hashimoto, 61 told AP. "I always thought it was scary." (With: BosNewsLife News Center, Stefan J. Bos and reports from across the region)
