Pyongyang slams U.N. special rapporteur’s report on N. Korea’s human rights

North Korea on Tuesday denounced Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N. special rapporteur for North Korean human rights, for submitting a report on North Korea's human rights abuses to the U.N. General Assembly, calling her a "puppet and top-class servant" of the United States. In the report, Salmon said North Korea continues to further tighten its control over the population, restricting the right to freedom of movement after it imposed COVID-19 preventive measures in early 2020. It also took issue with North Korea's enactment of several laws that included death penalty provisions restricting human rights, including the right to freedom of expression. North Korea said it "categorically" rejects the U.N. report, calling it a product of the U.S.' conspiracy to tarnish North Korea's image, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The North defended its COVID-19 measures, as "the most advantageous emergency anti-epidemic measure" that ensured North Koreans' right to life in the midst of the global health cris is. In terms of three so-called evil laws, North Korea said its legislative measures are meant to protect its ideology and social system from "heinous ideological and cultural poisoning by the U.S. and the West seeking the internal erosion and collapse of the sovereign state." the KCNA said. North Korea is accused of stepping up the surveillance and punishment of its people, in particular, youths, by implementing the three laws, including the act enacted in 2020 to "reject the reactionary ideology and culture." The laws are aimed at preventing North Koreans from accessing outside information. "The 'special rapporteur' on human rights situation of the DPRK, who echoes the rubbish and false rumors spread by the U.S. and the vassal forces to play the role of a missionary for its anti-DPRK 'human rights' conspiratorial racket is, indeed, a puppet and top-class servant of the U.S.," the KCNA said. DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Source: Yonhap Ne ws Agency