UN official says North Korea increasing punishment
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North Korea is meting out harsher punishment to citizens who try to flee the country, a sign that overall human rights conditions remain dire in the communist state, a United Nations official said Friday.
"The current situation is extremely grave," said Vitit Muntarbhorn, a Thai professor who investigates human rights in North Korea for the UN, though he has never been allowed to enter the country. North Korea has long been regarded as having one of the world's worst human rights records. The country holds some 154,000 political prisoners in six large camps across the country, according to South Korean government estimates. (AP)
