A/HRC/22/57 Involuntary Disappearances; on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People‟s Republic of Korea.2 4. A more detailed analysis of patterns of human rights violations documented by the United Nations through its reports and resolutions since 2004 is presented in annex I. II. Patterns of violations documented by the United Nations 5. The General Assembly and its subsidiary organs have adopted 16 resolutions since 2003.3 A total of 22 reports by the Secretary-General and Special Rapporteur have been presented to the United Nations Member States since 2004. These documents underscore the long-term nature and broad pattern of grave human rights violations throughout the Democratic People‟s Republic of Korea, as well as the awareness of the situation by the United Nations and its Member States. 6. A review of this documentation leads to the identification of nine key inter-linked issues or patterns of violations of human rights that the United Nations has focused on: (a) Violation of the right to food, in particular the effect of State-controlled food distribution policies on the nutritional status and health of the population and the restricted entry of international humanitarian aid to deal with the endemic food crisis; (b) Torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, including inhuman conditions of detention; (c) Arbitrary detention, as a form of persecution and the criminalization of any behaviour deemed threatening or contrary to the official ideology of the Government, the lack of rule of law and the absence of due process or an independent judiciary; (d) Violations of human rights associated with prison camps; (e) Discrimination and the disproportionate or specific effect of human rights violations on vulnerable groups, in particular women, children, people living with disabilities and returnees. Of particular concern is the fact that society is divided into three distinct groups classified according to their political allegiance to the Government. A person‟s place in this hierarchy determines the level of access that he or she will have to basic human rights, including access to food, health, education and freedom of movement; (f) Extensive violation of freedom of expression and other related freedoms; (g) Violation of the right to life, in particular the abusive application of the death penalty and the use of public executions; (h) Restrictions on freedom of movement and abusive treatment of citizens forcibly returned; (i) nationals. Enforced disappearances, including in the form of abductions of foreign 7. These nine areas were identified by reviewing the issues on which the United Nations had expressed the most concern, and point to the existence of a systematic and 2 3 The review does not include the reports of the United Nations offices and specialized agencies, such as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), etc. This includes three resolutions by the Commission on Human Rights from 2003 to 2005; five resolutions by the Human Rights Council from 2008 and eight resolutions by the General Assembly from 2006 to date. 5