Human rights crises in N. Korea and others require international attention: Blinken

WASHINGTON -- Human rights crises in countries such as North Korea demand the United Nations and its member states' efforts to address them, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday while urging the international community to condemn what he called Russia's unlawful and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

"Even as we focus on the crisis in Ukraine, it is far from the only part of the world where the council's attention is needed," Blinken said in a virtual meeting with the UN Human Rights Council.

"The human rights crises in Burma, Cuba, the DPRK, Iran, Nicaragua, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, among others, also demand this council's ongoing attention," he added, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The US regularly calls out what it calls "egregious" human rights violations in North Korea.

Washington named the North Korean regime as one of 11 governments with a policy or pattern of human trafficking in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, released in July 2021.

North Korea was also designated one of only 10 state violators of religious freedom in November. (Yonhap)