At a time when cruel tortures committed by the CIA against inmates in its secret prisons were disclosed recently to come under fire by the international community, the information that European countries had conspired with the U.S. in them was brought to light. This is sparking great uproar.

According to it, 21 European countries including Britain actively cooperated with the U.S. in its human rights abuses as evidenced by the facts that they allowed the CIA to set up secret prisons and interrogation bases and Okayed inmates' passage through their territories and their stay there.

EU and European countries have so far often found fault with other countries over their alleged human rights violations, behaving as if they were a "model" in protecting the human rights. And they have zealously joined the U.S. in its "human rights" campaign against the DPRK.

But, this time, it was disclosed that most of EU member states became servants in the U.S. brutal human rights abuses. This brought to daylight the fact that the signboard of "human rights protection", which was professed as one of its major pillars of EU policies, was only ostentation and proved to be a smokescreen to conceal a political hypocrisy peculiar to Europe.

The European countries are now faced with a strong condemnation and pressure at home and abroad. There come strange voices from several European countries that they only gave a green light to CIA to operate secret prisons but did not grant a right to torture prisoners. There also comes a spate of discontent among them. Those countries grumble that they demanded the deletion of their cooperation in U.S. acts of torture but it was opened to public as it was.

In the final analysis, Europe has been reduced to a servant fated to sit in the dock for acting under the baton of the U.S. It scuttled the human rights dialogue with the DPRK, which had been smoothly under way a decade ago, under the wire-pulling of the U.S. over the DPRK's nuclear issue.

Recently alone, EU recognized the DPRK's will to seek an international cooperation in the field of human rights. But, pressurized by the U.S., EU behaved so recklessly as taking the lead in adopting the "human rights resolution" against DPRK, which is based on lies told by a few human dregs at the UN General Assembly.

European countries should be well aware of their own situations where they have lost even elementary qualifications to peddle the "human rights issue" of somebody. They would be well advised to bear in mind that they would only harm their own interests and lose their faces if they follow others without independent viewpoints.

If European countries are truly concerned for the protection of human rights, they should learn how to behave themselves and stop peddling "human rights issue" in the DPRK peppered with fabrications, though belatedly, and opt for calling the extra-large scale human rights violations by the U.S. into question at the UN and on other international fora.

By doing so, Europe can only redress its past and become a genuine champion of human rights as claimed by it.