By Kang Seung-woo
More than ninety percent of South Korean citizens do not trust the regime in North Korea, according to a survey published Thursday.
According to a poll of 1,000 citizens by the National Unification Advisory Council, 61.6 percent of respondents said they would never trust the military dictatorship under Kim Jong-un, while 29.7 percent were distrustful of the North's government to a certain degree.
Only 0.3 percent of the respondents said they have strong confidence in the regime, while another 4.9 percent were a little trustful.
The survey interviewed respondents nationwide, aged 19 and above, late last month within a margin of error of a plus or minus 3.1 percent.
Most South Koreans think that the totalitarian regime is unstable ― 45.2 percent say quite unstable and 42 percent, very unstable.
With regard to the state of human rights in North Korea, more than 70 percent hold a negative view ― 35.6 percent and 41.2 percent, respectively, regard it as "very" and "quite" serious.
The numbers show rampant distrust among South Korean citizens toward the regime, notorious for its dismal human rights record and capricious security tactics, which often escalate tension on the peninsula.
As for issue of human rights, the international community wants the North Korean leader to stand trial at the International Criminal Court for perpetrating crimes against his own people.
A separate poll by the Korea Institute for National Unification showed nearly seven out of 10 South Koreans think Korean unification is necessary.
The two Koreas are technically at war because the Korean War ended in an armistice, not a truce.
The poll that interviewed 1,000 people from Sept. 22 to Oct. 6 revealed that 69.3 percent concurred on the need for unification on the Korean Peninsula.
Identical ethnicity was cited as the most frequently-picked reason why unification is necessary, followed by removing war threats as well as resolving the issue of inter-Korean families separated by the Korean War, the survey said.