A hard-hitting report from the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) catalogued widespread and systematic abuses, including a lack of due process in the entire criminal justice system.

‘Suspects… are regularly held incommunicado,’ the report said. ‘In the eyes of friends, co-workers and neighbours, the person simply disappears and may never be heard of again.’ Summary executions and ‘other cruel extrajudicial punishments’ are commonplace in the country’s extensive prison camp system.