Report counters claims of crimes against humanity made in report by UN earlier this year

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

North Korea has said it will publish its own "rosy" human rights report, six months after a United Nations 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" spread 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 of 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 commission concluded that many of the violations constituted crimes against humanity, and suggested they could be placed before the international criminal court.

"The gravity, scale and nature of these violations revealed a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," it 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 Korea has been ruled for more than six decades by the Kim family dynasty, which 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.

Meanwhile, South Korea proposed a fresh round of high-level talks with North Korea on Monday to discuss another possible reunion for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean war.

The first round, held in February, had marked the highest-level official contact between the two Koreas for seven years and led to a family reunion later the same month.

The South's unification ministry, which handles cross-border affairs, said it was proposing a meeting at the border truce village of Panmunjom on 19 August.

The last family reunion – held at a North Korean mountain resort in February – was the first for more than three years.

Millions of people were separated during the 1950-53 conflict that sealed the division between the two Koreas. Most died without having a chance to see or hear from their families on the other side of the border, across which all civilian communication is banned.

About 70,000 South Koreans – more than half of them aged over 70 – are still on a waiting list to join the rare reunion event.

In a separate announcement, South Korea also said on Monday that it would provide $13.3m (£7.9m) in funding for UN humanitarian projects in North Korea – its second indirect aid package for the North in a month.

Seoul's unification ministry said $7m would go to World Food Programme (WFP) projects in the North, and $6.3m (to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The decision came a month after the ministry approved $2.9m in financial support for Seoul civic groups providing assistance to North Korea.

It was the first time that Seoul had funded such civic projects in four years, after the government imposed tough economic sanctions on Pyongyang.

The UN estimates that nearly 2.4 million people in the impoverished North need regular food assistance and 28% of children under five suffer chronic malnutrition.

Pyongyang has been playing hawk and dove in recent months, carrying out an extended series of missile tests while making occasional peace gestures towards Seoul.