“Openness and fairness” in the functioning of government in N Korea

Muhammad Muzahidul Islam :

Openness and fairness are preconditions to the good governance of any country.

All good governments always make efforts to bring these elements in their everyday functioning.

They do so to please their citizens, and by doing so they want to ensure the future mandate of governance.

On the other hand, all authoritarian governments are always far away from this practice; as they do not have any commitments to please their citizens by obeying the rule of law and ensuring the accountability.

Does the North Korean government have any commitments to bring openness and fairness in its functioning?
The openness and fairness in functioning of the North Korean government have been absent for a long.

Even in the worst crisis times, the regime has failed to be open and fair to the people of North Korea and to the international community.

I would like to mention the findings of some reports to substantiate my arguments.

Let me start by the report of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) on North Korea that was established by the UN Human rights Council. The COI had published its report in 2014.

According to paragraph 46 of the said report “The rights to food, freedom from hunger and to life in the context of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea cannot be reduced to a narrow discussion of food shortages and access to a commodity.

The State has used food as a means of control over the population.

It has prioritized those whom the authorities believe to be crucial in maintaining the regime over those deemed expendable”.

Paragraph 47 further states that “Confiscation and dispossession of food from those in need, and the provision of food to other groups, follows this logic.

The State has practised discrimination with regard to access to and distribution of food based on the songbun system. In addition, it privileges certain parts of the country, such as Pyongyang, over others.

The State has also failed to take into account the needs of the most vulnerable.

The commission is particularly concerned about ongoing chronic malnutrition in children and its long-term effects”
North Korean regime has always been reluctant to be open and transparent to the public.

Sometimes it has practised the tactics of the concealment of information preventing the population from finding the truth.

According to paragraph 49 of the report of COI “During the period of famine, ideological indoctrination was used in order to maintain the regime, at the cost of seriously aggravating hunger and starvation.

The concealment of information prevented the population from finding alternatives to the collapsing public distribution system.

It also delayed international assistance that, provided earlier, could have saved many lives.

Despite the State’s inability to provide its people with adequate food, it maintained laws and controls effectively criminalizing people’s use of key coping mechanisms, particularly moving within or outside the country in search of food and trading or working in informal markets”.

Even in Covid-19 crisis times the regime has failed to play a transparent role in providing the necessary important information.

According to the report of the Freedom House (Freedom in the world 2023, North Korea) “The government operates opaquely and without accountability.

Information about the functioning of state institutions is tightly controlled for both domestic and external audiences.

Authorities restrict Covid-19-related information, disclosing only fragmentary public-health data.

However, in May 2022, the regime reported the detection of Covid-19 cases as early as April and declared a national emergency.

However, authorities reported no new cases after July.

“Victory” over the outbreak was declared in August, with 4.8 million people having had “fever” and 74 dying according to official figures that outside experts called unreliable.

Also in August, Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un’s sister, disclosed that the country’s leader had suffered a “fever” during the outbreak. Later that month, the regime said it detected several cases near the Chinese border. Little information about vaccination rollouts was provided”.

People of North Korea are not free to communicate or disseminate information enjoying the global internet facilities.

Individuals are not free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution.

According to the said report of Freedom House “Nearly all forms of private communication are monitored by a huge network of informants.

Domestic third-generation (3G) mobile service, available since 2008, may serve at least 6.5 million subscribers. Ordinary mobile users can connect to a state-run intranet but not the global internet.

Mobile phones operating on this network function as state surveillance tools, which can review individuals’ application usage and browsing history and take screenshots of activity.

Newer mobile phones include measures to prevent the consumption of contraband media, with some resorting to hacking to circumvent them.

Only a few elites have internet access, reaching it through their own service.

Domestic and international mobile services are kept strictly separate.

Individuals using Chinese-origin phones have faced crackdowns, while officials sent to China must install surveillance software on their devices”.

North Korea has already ratified some important international human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

And it does mean that North Korea has obligations to undertake the necessary measures domestically in line with those international human rights instruments.

One could argue, in the light of the published reports that North Korea has not been honest and sincere in discharging the obligations that come from those international human rights instruments.

And consequently, people of North Korea have been suffering from the rights they are supposed to enjoy.

It is the expectation of the people of North Korea and international community that North Korean government must bring the openness and fairness in its functioning.

(The writer is a barrister-at-law, human rights activist and an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.)