North Korea will publish its own "rosy" human rights report, six months after a UN inquiry published a list of violations so severe as to amount to crimes against humanity.
The North's Association for Human Rights Studies said the report would counter the "lies and fabrications" put around by unspecified "hostile forces" about the rights situation in the isolated state.
North Korea is regularly listed among the world's worst human rights offenders in indexes compiled by governments, UN agencies and rights watchdogs.
In one of the most comprehensive reports to date, a UN Commission on Inquiry into the North's rights record published its findings in February, detailing a wide range of systemic abuses including murder, enslavement and torture.
The chair of the report, former justice of the High Court of Australia Michael Kirby, wrote to Kim Jong-un to warn him that he could face trial at The Hague for his personal culpability in crimes against humanity.
"The gravity, scale and nature of these violations revealed a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," the report said.
North Korea rejected the report as a "sheer fabrication" invented by the United States and its allies.
A spokesman from the North's rights association said its own report would help people "do away with their prejudice and misunderstanding" about the rights situation.
"The report will show the true picture of the people of the (North) dynamically advancing towards a brighter and rosy future," he said in an interview with the North's official KCNA news agency.
No release date was given, with the spokesman only saying the report would be published in "the near future".
The impoverished but nuclear-armed North has been ruled for more than six decades by the Kim family dynasty that has maintained power with an iron fist and zero tolerance for political dissent.
The country is estimated to have 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners in its sprawling gulag system.
Those who are caught crossing the border to China in a bid to flee poverty and repression at home are often sent to jail or executed.
Share
