North Korea has condemned a recent U.S. government report on its human rights conditions

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In an annual report submitted to Congress, the U.S. State Department said the human rights conditions in North Korea are still "deplorable."

"Defectors continued to report extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detention, arrests of political prisoners, and torture," said the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012.



Now, a spokesman for the North's foreign ministry has denounced the annual U.S. report, saying it is proof of a hostile policy by Washington that's aimed at toppling North Korea's leadership.

In a scathing rebuke, the report was described as a "reactionary and dangerous tool to intrude and intervene in countries that are against the U.S.," the Korean Central Broadcasting Station said, monitored in Seoul.

However, the UN human rights commissioner, Navi Pillay, has called North Korea’s human rights conditions “the worst in the whole world.”

Assessing the North human rights standards is no easy feat, with outsiders having limited access to the country and any successful entrants being under constant close surveillance.

Citizens are prohibited from leaving their own state and DPRK authorities recently indicated that they would "annihilate" up to three generations of a family if a one member fled the country.

According to Human Rights Watch, those arrested or even accused of the most arbitrary crimes in the reclusive state are subjected to "obedience-training", even though North Korea's criminal code prohibits inhuman treatment.

Amnesty International also claim that around 200,000 prisoners – nearly 1 percent of the population – are held in six large political prison camps.

More than half of previously imprisoned refugees had witnessed a death due to beating or torture, a past report revealed.