A poster of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un behind bars is displayed outside the North Korean Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Wednesday, ahead of the fourth Universal Periodic Review of North Korea scheduled for the following day. Courtesy of Jeski Social Campaign

According to documents obtained by the Ministry of Unification, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was broadly involved in directing the country's response to international criticism of its human rights situation, viewing it as a threat to his regime.

The documents released Tuesday, dating from 2016 to 2023, were provided by Ri Il-gyu, a former counselor of political affairs at the North Korean Embassy in Cuba who defected to South Korea in November last year.

They showed diplomatic cables exchanged between the North Korean Foreign Ministry and diplomatic missions to the United Nations in New York and the U.N. office in Geneva.

"There were about 12 diplomatic cables on human rights issues. If you look at the full text, you can see how sensitive Kim Jong-un is to the international criticism of his regime's human rights record," a senior ministry official said on condition of anonymity. "There were occasions when he ordered specific measures to deflect attention from North Korea's human rights violations and subvert international obligation on human rights."

According to the documents, Kim ordered then-North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong to boycott any high-level panel discussions on North Korean human rights issues at the 31st regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in March 2016 in protest of the panel singling out Pyongyang's human rights issues.

In November 2016, Kim ordered a then-North Korean representative to leave the room after making a statement rejecting the adoption of a North Korean human rights resolution at the Third Committee of the 71st session of the U.N. General Assembly.

"North Korea claims there wasn't a consensus on North Korean human rights because the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the resolution without a vote. But the fact that there was no need to vote reflects that members of the international community agree on the issues regarding North Korean human rights," the official added.

Jo Chol-su, North Korean ambassador to the U.N. office in Geneva, speaks as the representative of the North Korean government delegation during the fourth Universal Periodic Review of North Korea in Geneva, Thursday. Yonhap

Since 2017, North Korea has become more resolute in preventing discussions on human rights issues, calling it a "vicious plot" that causes damage to the "supreme dignity," according to the ministry.

Kim issued an order to carry out campaigns to expose the "falsity" of North Korean defectors' testimonies and threatened to ruin their reputations so they lose social credibility.

"I believe North Korea has become more sensitive to defectors' testimonies after Tae Yong-ho, former North Korean deputy ambassador to Britain, fled to the South in 2016," the official said.

At the International Dialogue on North Korean Human Rights in Geneva last month, Ri talked about Kim's efforts to block the international community's human rights offensive.

During the fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group of North Korea's human rights practices, South Korea pressured North Korea to address the issue of enforced disappearance, condemned the implementation of the so-called "three evil laws," which include the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Thought and Culture (2020), the Youth Education Guarantee Law (2021) and the Law on Protecting the Pyongyang Cultural Language (2023), all aimed at suppressing residents, and urged the repressive country to protect women and girls from sexual violence and human trafficking.

At the UPR session, for the first time, North Korea admitted to carrying out public executions, a form of punishment widely criticized by the international community as a human rights violation, and acknowledged its use of re-education centers for those who commit anti-state crimes.