A/HRC/RES/31/18 1. Condemns in the strongest terms the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations and other human rights abuses committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and expresses its grave concern at the detailed findings made by the commission of inquiry in its report, including: (a) The denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression and association, which is enforced through an absolute monopoly on information and total control over organized social life, and arbitrary and unlawful State surveillance that permeates the private lives of all citizens; (b) Discrimination based on the songbun system, which classifies people on the basis of State-assigned social class and birth, and also includes consideration of political opinions and religion, discrimination against women, including unequal access to employment, discriminatory laws and regulations, and violence against women; (c) Violations of all aspects of the right to freedom of movement, including forced assignment to State-designated places of residence and employment, often based on the songbun system, and denial of the right to leave one’s own country; (d) Systematic, widespread and grave violations of the right to food and related aspects of the right to life, exacerbated by widespread hunger and malnutrition; (e) Violations of the right to life and acts of extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape and other grave forms of sexual violence and persecution on political, religious and gender grounds in political prison camps and ordinary prisons, and the widespread practice of collective punishment with harsh sentences imposed on innocent individuals; (f) Systematic abduction, denial of repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons, including those from other countries, on a large scale and as a matter of State policy; 2. Urges the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to acknowledge the human rights violations in the country and to take immediate steps to end all such violations and abuses through, inter alia, the implementation of relevant recommendations in the report of the commission of inquiry, including, but not limited to, the following steps: (a) To ensure the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the rights to freedom of opinion, expression and association, including by permitting the establishment of independent newspapers and other media; (b) To end discrimination against citizens, including State-sponsored discrimination based on the songbun system, and to take immediate steps to ensure gender equality and to protect women from gender-based violence; (c) To ensure the right to freedom of movement, including the freedom to choose one’s place of residence and employment; (d) To promote equal access to food, including through full transparency regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance so that such assistance is genuinely provided to vulnerable persons; (e) To immediately halt all human right violations relating to prison camps, including the practice of forced labour, to dismantle all political prison camps and to release all political prisoners, to immediately cease the practice of the arbitrary execution of persons in custody, and to ensure that justice sector reforms provide protections for a fair trial and due process; 3