The US imposed sanctions Wednesday on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and 10 other top officials for human rights abuses in an escalation of Washington’s effort to isolate the authoritarian government.
Advertisement
In announcing the sanctions on Wednesday, the U.S. treasury department said Kim and 10 other top officials were behind killings and torture of political prisoners in the country’s system of political prison camps.
“Under Kim Jong-un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labour, and torture”, the Treasury statement said.
The Treasury said Kim, North Korea’s “Supreme Leader”, was responsible for abuses in his roles as head of the country’s Ministry of State Security and Ministry of People’s Security.
Among the other designated individuals, three were implicated for their work for the Ministry of People’s Security or the Ministry of State Security, both of which are involved in the administration of the country’s network of political prison camps.
US officials briefing reporters on the new actions say they expected the sanctions to have “a worldwide ripple effect” making it harder for those on the list to do business with global financial institutions.
“Botswana severed diplomatic ties with North Korea after the publication of the U.N. report, while South Korea and other nations canceled economic contracts with North Korea after the regime’s most recent nuclear test”.
“We have identified mid-level officials responsible for the operation of the prison camp system, for the hunting down of North Korean defectors overseas, and the punishment of those who seek to escape the country, as well as those responsible for maintaining the system of propaganda and censorship in North Korea”, the official added.
However if the political situation in North Korea changed, being on a US blacklist would have a serious impact, the official said.
According to officials in Washington, the Ministry of State Security holds 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners in political prison camps where torture, execution, sexual assault, starvation and slave labor are common.
In a statement released on its website, the U.S. Treasury said Kim held responsibility for rights violations including “extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor, and torture” as leader of the regime.
Other North Korean officials designated in the blacklist include Choe Pu-il, who is the Minister of People’s Security; Ri Song-chol, who is a Counselor in the Ministry of People’s Security; as well as Kang Song-nam, a Bureau Director with the Ministry of State Security.
Banking restrictions were tightened and governments will be required to ban flights of any plane suspected of carrying contraband destined for North Korea.
Those steps froze any property of the North Korean government in the US and essentially prohibited exports of goods from the U.S.to North Korea.
It was the first time Washington put Kim on the blacklist and marked the first US sanctions on Pyongyang over its human rights violations, according to Treasury Department official Szubin.
They are consistent with the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February.
Advertisement
But it’s not because his country claims to have nuclear weapons or because it tests lots of ballistic missiles.
