The UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning and expressing deep concern over human rights violations in North Korea.
By a vote of 106-21 with 55 abstentions, the assembly backed a November 18 committee resolution on Tuesday condemning "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment .The public executions, extrajudicial and arbitrary detention" in the hermit state.
It also condemned the communist nation's use of capital punishment for political and religious reasons, as well as collective punishment and the many prisoner camps where forced labor is the norm.
The resolution raised deep concerns about "the persistence of continuing reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations" of human rights in the communist nation.
It called on Pyongyang to respect human rights, cease all such violations on its territory and provide unfettered access to the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea.
Two days after the UN General Assembly's main human rights committee passed the same resolution last month, North Korea snubbed what it called "a product of the political plot of the hostile forces."
The UN Security Council said in a report in November that the North continued to export nuclear material and ballistic missiles to countries such as Myanmar, Syria and Iran, in violation of a UN embargo.