UN assembly panel rebukes N Korea on human rights

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 17 (Reuters) A U N General Assembly panel rebuked North Korea on Friday for gross human rights abuses, with South Korea for the first time joining other UN members today in support of the measure.

The draft resolution was passed by a vote of 91 to 21 with 60 abstentions in the assembly committee that includes all UN members, thereby assuring its official adoption by the General Assembly.

Fearful of antagonizing its heavily armed and impoverished neighbor, Seoul has previously abstained or refrained from participating in UN votes on human rights in the North. Its foreign minister Ban Ki-moon has been selected as the new UN secretary-general.

The resolution rebukes North Korea for a wide variety of abuses, such as ''torture and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,'' arbitrary detention, the death penalty for political reasons and the extensive use of forced labor as well as deplorable conditions in prison camps.

North Korea's deputy UN ambassador, Kim Chang Guk called the measure, initiated by the European Union, a ''political plot of the United States and its satellite countries as well as an illegal document.'' REUTERS SY KP2358