North Korea was found to have published a book recently criticizing South Korea’s human rights situation in an apparent bid to counter Seoul’s report on the North’s human rights released early this year.

A publisher under the United Front Department of the North’s ruling Workers Party reportedly published the book on July 21, which is full of malicious criticism of the human rights situation in the South.

This 95-page book claims in the foreword that it examines the realities of human rights in South Korea, the world's worst human rights wasteland, where political freedom and even the basic human right to survive are completely violated.

In the book, North Korea said that South Korean society is suffering from high suicide rates, unemployment, industrial accidents, discrimination against women and the disabled, and that child abuse is rampant.

The book addresses four themes – social and political rights, economic and cultural rights, crimes and disrespect for women, and human rights violations by aggressors – apparently copying the format of a human rights report South Korea’s unification ministry issued in late March.

North Korea has since strongly protested against the South Korean human rights report, calling it slanderous and a fabrication.