(Adds detail, quotes)

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, March 27 (Reuters) - The U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday renewed the one-year mandate of its investigator for North Korea, overcoming objections from countries including China and Russia which wanted the post abolished.

The 47 member-state body adopted a resolution presented by Japan and the European Union in a vote of 22 countries in favour and seven against, with 18 abstentions. South Korea, which had abstained in previous years, voted in favour.

The vote came hours after North Korea expelled South Koreans from a joint industrial site north of the border, in retaliation for the new Seoul government's tough tone towards Pyongyang.

Vitit Muntarbhorn, a Thai law professor who has served as the independent investigator since 2004, told the Council two weeks ago that the post provided a "voice for the voiceless".

His latest report on North Korea highlighted serious and systematic violations in the secretive communist state.

"Civil and political rights are severely constrained in the country due to the repression imposed by the regime, coupled with intimidation and an extensive informant system, creating insecurity among the general population," he said.

He also reported "rampant shortages of food" and a "great disparity between access by the elite to food and other necessities and access by the rest of the population to the wherewithal of life".

Slovenia's ambassador Andrej Logar, speaking on behalf of the European Union, said: "The situation merits the continued attention of our Council."

His remarks were later echoed by Japan's envoy.

North Korea's delegation rejected the resolution as "confrontational" and "full of distortions", and accused its Western sponsors of being driven by "political motivations".

"If the EU and Japan persist in resorting to pressure and confrontation it will inevitably block cooperation between the DPRK and the Council," North Korean diplomat Choe Myong Nam told the forum, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Other countries including China, Russia and Cuba had sought to end the post, which they characterised as unnecessary and unduly confrontational. They generally oppose country-specific human rights investigators.

There are about a dozen of these special rapporteurs and independent experts, including ones for the Palestinian Territories, Myanmar and Sudan.

Muntarbhorn has never been allowed to enter North Korea. His reports, rejected by Pyongyang, have been based on information gathered from U.N. agencies, human rights activists and North Korean refugees who have fled to South Korea and Mongolia.

His latest report to the Council, covering 2007 and the first months of 2008, said the human rights situation in North Korea remained "grave in a number of key areas".

Muntarbhorn underlined the "long-standing and systematic nature of human rights transgressions in the country which are highly visible, substantial and exponential". (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Mary Gabriel)

AlertNet news is provided by