UN Watch wants North Korea’s Kim Jong-un send to ICC

A non-governmental monitoring group, UN Watch, is petitioning the United Nations Security Council to send North Korea Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a statement, the group accused Kim Jong-un of running a government that does not heed basic human rights principles.

“In North Korea, thousands are kept in concentration camps, tortured, and starved to death. Speak out for the human rights of these innocent victims,” the group stated in a petition published on change.org.

“The 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korea concluded that the gravity, scale and nature of violations in that country reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

“The report found systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity which are based on State policies. The responsibility for these crimes reaches many branches of the North Korean government, and traces its way to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un,” they stated,

The group further added that the UN report report, accused the North Korean supreme leader of committing grave crimes including extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, forced abortions, sexual violence, persecution on political, religious and gender groups as well as starvation.

“Indeed, an estimated 100,000 North Koreans are imprisoned in concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands more are deprived of food and other basic needs. These crimes against humanity, according to the UN commission of inquiry, are caused by the regime’s policies, institutions and patterns of impunity.”

International media had reported on Monday that there had been plans by Kim Jong-un to launch a missile during US elections.

“Kim Jong Un may fire an intermediate-range ballistic missile Tuesday to send a strong message to President Obama’s successor that the hermit kingdom will not abandon its nuclear and long-range missile development programs, despite international condemnation and sanctions,” New York Times reported.

Last week, US Special Representative for North Korea Policy, Joseph Y. Yun, and South Korea’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, Kim Hong-kyun, met in Seoul to discuss regional issues including North Korea’s nuclear threats.

The meeting came a month after North Korea test-fired a missile that failed immediately after launch, after the United States and South Korea agreed in Washington to bolster military and diplomatic efforts to counter the North’s nuclear and missile programs, which it is pursuing in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.