South Koreans lose faith in promise of improved human rights in the North: survey
After a series of summits in 2018 between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, hopes soared in the South for improved human rights in the North. But that rapprochement has since stalled and, according to a survey released earlier this week, South Koreans have lost confidence in the ability of its authoritarian northern neighbour to change direction.
According to the poll released by the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), nearly twice as many South Koreans see "no possibility" of any improvement in human rights conditions in the North compared with 2018. The NKDB said the results were based on the responses of 1,000 participants contacted by phone.
Although 65.1 per cent of South Korean citizens in 2018 believed change was possible, that number plunged to 37 per cent this year, according to the survey by the Seoul-based non-profit group, which tracks alleged rights abuses in the North.
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Of the respondents, 21 per cent said they believed conditions in the North had deteriorated. Just 16.5 per cent said they had improved, down from 21.1 per cent last year.
The 2018 summits led to pledges for increased cooperation and exchanges designed to denuclearise the Korean peninsula. Any thaw in ties has since reversed: Pyongyang in June blew up an inter-Korean liaison office after expressing fury over Seoul's failure to stop activists flying propaganda leaflets across the militarised inter-Korean border.
North Korean defectors send balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. Photo: EPA alt=North Korean defectors send balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. Photo: EPA
Nearly 65 per cent of respondents to the NKDB survey said they supported "active intervention" to improve conditions on the basis of universal human rights, although 30 per cent regarded it as a domestic issue in the North and said external interference was not warranted.
The two Koreas remain technically in a state of war, after fighting in the 1950-53 Korean war ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Under three generations of the Kim dynasty, North Korea has become one of the world's most repressive and tightly controlled countries.
A United Nations Commission of Inquiry report released in 2014 found the North Korean government to be responsible for human rights violations without "parallel in the contemporary world", including murder, torture, rape and forced abortions.
According to the NKDB survey, 43 per cent of respondents favoured "pressure through international cooperation" to improve human rights in the North. Dialogue was preferred by just under 28 per cent, followed by expanding international aid, and recording and highlighting human rights abuses, with 15.9 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively.
"While the DPRK continues to isolate itself, especially in the midst of the outbreak, reports from the Special Rapporteur on Democratic People's Republic of Korea have shown the human rights situation in North Korea remains dire," said Hanna Song, a researcher at NKDB. "Political prison camps are still being run, public executions continue and the freedom of movement is still heavily restricted."
North Korean human rights activism is a contentious issue in the South, where attitudes towards engagement are often split along ideological lines.
Moon's centre-left Democratic Party earlier this month passed legislation banning activists from disseminating propaganda fliers and other material across the border with the North, citing the need to ensure harmonious inter-Korean relations and the safety of border residents.
The law has been heavily criticised by conservative opposition politicians, activists and human rights groups as an unreasonable restriction on free expression, and capitulation to Pyongyang.
In a Realmeter opinion poll carried out in June, 50 per cent of South Koreans said they supported banning the propaganda leaflet campaigns, compared with 41 per cent against.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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