UN calls for prisoner amnesty
A top UN rights expert called yesterday for North Korea to begin freeing prisoners under a “general amnesty” ahead of next week’s historic nuclear summit.
Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, called on Pyongyang to “issue a general amnesty to release hundreds of prisoners”.
He hailed North Korea’s recent release of three American prisoners, and urged the country to broaden its “amnesty” to anyone being arbitrarily detained there, which he said was basically all prisoners.
“There is no rule of law in the country ... no due process of law,” he said.
He said he understood prisoner releases would be part of a possibly drawn-out process and that Pyongyang would not throw open the doors to all of its prisons immediately.
But he said he thought “a good signal of the government would be to start releasing prisoners”.
His comments came less than a week before unprecedented talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump are scheduled to take place in Singapore.
The summit is due to be held following a rapid détente between Pyongyang and Washington — as well as South Korea — in a turnaround from a dramatic escalation of tensions last year, when the North ratcheted up its nuclear weapons programme.
Ojea Quintana insisted that human rights needed to be addressed as part of the security negotiations.
Kim lookalike to make impression at summit
As the world awaits the historic summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, one man who has risen to prominence for his impressions of the North Korean leader is preparing for his own appearance in Singapore.
The Hong Kong-based Kim impersonator, who goes by the name Howard X, will take part in an alternative summit on the sidelines of the meeting between the US president and Kim, scheduled for Tuesday.
In recent months Howard has worked the international circuit and appeared at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics alongside a Trump impersonator. There he was hauled away by police after dancing and waving the unified Korean flag in front of North Korea’s female cheerleading team.
Howard says the duo have been hired by a Singapore hotel to give their own take on the landmark meeting. Their aim is to encourage the public to discuss politics via satire, Howard said.
But he admits his family have reservations about his new career path. “The first thing they said was ‘Don’t get killed’,” Howard said, adding his mother had taken out life insurance for him. Born in Hong Kong, Howard grew up in Australia and previously worked as a musician.