U.N. Security Council takes up N. Korea's human rights

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council took up the issue of North Korea's bleak human-rights situation for the first time Monday, a groundbreaking step toward possibly holding the nuclear-armed but desperately poor country and leader Kim Jong Un accountable for alleged crimes against humanity. North Korea quickly denounced the move.

The meeting appeared to be the first time any country's human-rights situation has been scheduled for ongoing debate by the U.N.'s most powerful body, meaning the issue now can be brought up at any time. It also came amid U.S. accusations that North Korea committed a devastating hacking attack.

"Today, we have broken the council's silence. We have begun to shine a light, and what it has revealed is terrifying," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said.

China and Russia, which hold veto power, protested the boldest effort yet to confront Pyongyang over an issue it has long disdained.

The council "should refrain from doing anything that might cause the escalation of tensions," said China's ambassador, Liu Jieyi.

International pressure has built this year on Pyongyang after a U.N.-backed inquiry found grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed under policies "established at the highest level of the State for decades." In a letter to Kim, the commission also warned that he could be held accountable.

An angry North Korea refused to recognize the meeting. "We totally reject the attempt" to bring the human-rights issue to the council, North Korean diplomat Kim Song said shortly after the meeting began. He rejected the idea of dialogue or a visit to North Korea by a U.N. human-rights investigator, and he insisted the council should look into Washington's recently released CIA torture report.

North Korea also has called the dozens of people who fled the North and aided the commission of inquiry "human scum."

Diplomats touched on the inquiry's more horrific details: Starving prisoners picking through cow dung for kernels of corn to eat. Rape. Forced abortions. Mass starvation. "I would not run through the macabre lists of atrocities," Luxembourg Ambassador Sylvie Lucas said. "This would make us all nauseated."

The U.N.-backed inquiry and the U.N. General Assembly have urged the 15-member council to refer North Korea's human-rights situation to the International Criminal Court. Permanent council members the U.S., France and the U.K. said it should be considered, but the council did not take action Monday.

The council has had North Korea's nuclear program on its agenda for years, but Monday's meeting opens the door to wider discussion of abuses alleged in the recent inquiry, including a harsh political prison camp system of up to 120,000 inmates. Pyongyang rejects the inquiry's findings but never allowed it into the country. China did not allow a visit to its border area with North Korea, to which thousands have fled.

North Korea sent a sharp warning last month, threatening further nuclear tests after the U.N. General Assembly's human-rights committee voted to move the issue to the Security Council, which can take binding actions on matters of international peace and security.

Two-thirds of the Security Council this month formally requested that North Korea's human-rights situation be placed on the agenda for ongoing debate, saying rights violations "threaten to have a destabilizing impact" on the region.

"Rarely has such an extensive charge-sheet of international crimes been brought to this council's attention," U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic said Monday. He said North Korea has shown "promising signs of engagement" since the inquiry came out early this year, but he stressed that real change in its human-rights situation "will require not only reform; it demands justice."

China, which has veto power as a permanent council member, could block any eventual action against its traditional but troublesome ally.

But the mere threat of any damage to Kim Jong Un's image has outraged the North Korean government.

Such fury is thought to be behind a recent and devastating hacking attack on Sony, which last week canceled the scheduled release of "The Interview," which depicts an assassination of Kim. That set off alarm among some diplomats who warned of setting a precedent for backing down in the face of future threats. North Korea denied the hacking but has suggested it was a "righteous deed" carried out by sympathizers.

Power on Monday described as "absurd" North Korea's threat of serious consequences if the U.S. doesn't conduct a joint investigation into the hacking.

North Korea experienced sweeping and progressively worse Internet outages extending into Monday, with one computer expert saying the country's online access was "totally down." The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the U.S. government was responsible.

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed.