Countering 'lies and fabrications'

North Korea has announced that it is to carry out a thorough investigation into the human rights of its citizens and publish an "all-inclusive report" detailing the "genuine human rights performance" of the regime.

The investigation is to be conducted by the state-run DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies, according to KCNA news agency. The announcement comes six months after the United Nations Commission of Inquiry released a damning report into North Korea's human rights record.

The 374-page UN report detailed multiple alleged cases of murder, rape as an instrument of torture, state-sponsored abductions, enslavement, starvation and a litany of other abuses.

More than 80 witnesses gave testimony in Seoul, Washington and London before the three-member panel of experts, headed by Michael Kirby, a retired Australian judge who admitted to being "moved to tears" by some of the defectors' experiences.

'Political plot'

Pyongyang dismissed the UN report as a "political plot" and "a product of politicization of human rights on the part of the EU and Japan, in alliance with the US hostile policy."

North Korea denied that the rights of its citizens are routinely abused and vowed to "strongly respond" to any effort to bring about regime change in the North. Despite the denials, the UN report has clearly stung the country's leadership, and analysts believe that conducting an internal investigation is an attempt to bolster the regime's position.

"Hostile forces have gone desperate in their moves to mislead public opinion while kicking up the anti-DPRK racket of 'human rights', full of lies and fabrications, in a bid to slander and to harm to the DPRK," KCNA reported. "Under this situation, it [is] a very important issue to let people clearly know about the human rights performance of the DPRK and help them do away with their prejudice and misunderstanding," the state-run news agency added.

Conclusions foregone

Activists who have monitored the North's abuses of its own people say they already know the conclusions of the North Korean report, even before the study has commenced.

"It's clearly going to be a rebuttal of the UN report that will be a grand statement of North Korea's compliance with human rights standards around the world," said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. "They have chosen to ignore the UN report and have been hoping that the issue would just go away, but the UN report has given groups such as ours new momentum and we're not going away," Scarlatoiu told DW from Seoul.

"North Korea has never even admitted the existence of the network of gulags in the country," he added, stressing that "if they did, that would be a huge step in the right direction. But I am not very hopeful that will happen yet."

'Heart of darkness'

Ken Kato, director of Human Rights in Asia and a member of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea, is similarly unimpressed with the regime's plan to investigate itself. "We still have to get to the very core of this issue, the heart of North Korea's darkness," said Kato, adding that if Pyongyang "had really wanted to demonstrate their commitment to human rights, they would have cooperated with the UN commission instead of refusing them entry to the country."

"This 'investigation' has no credibility, it's just propaganda," he criticized.

However, activists believe there are positives that can be taken from the North Korea's announcement. "That they have taken this step suggests to me that bad publicity is taking its toll on the regime and the international pressure is working," said Kato.

This view is shared by Greg Scarlatiou. "The interesting thing, at least to me, is that this issue really seems to have bothered them this time," he said. "The reason they are conducting this investigation is because it goes directly to the North Korean regime's most vulnerable point; its legitimacy."

Question of legitimacy

"Any regime that runs a vast political prison system, which holds people on the flimsiest of charges, which has such little regard for human rights, that government cannot possess the degree of legitimacy that they crave," he said, adding that the stark contrast between human rights as well as economic development in the two Koreas will not have gone unnoticed in Pyongyang either.

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, waded into the issue on August 13, calling on North Korea to immediately shut down its gulag system - "not tomorrow, not next week, but now." Kerry added that the abuses meted out on its own citizens by the regime "just has no place in the 21st century."