U.S. 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.
The Obama administration on
Wednesday slammed sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and 10 other
regime officials for their alleged complicity in human rights abuses against
the North Korean people, CNN reports.
The move marked the first
time Washington sanctioned Kim Jong Un personally. Administration officials
said Kim was “ultimately responsible” for what they called “North Korea’s
notorious abuses of human rights.”
“Under Kim Jong Un, North
Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its
own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture,”
acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Adam J. Szubin
said in a statement announcing the new action on Wednesday, July 6, 2016.
The sanctions also extend
to five North Korean state entities, including the ministry of people’s
security, which the report says oversees labor camps and other detention
facilities, where torture, execution, rape, starvation and forced labor takes
place. Choe Pu Il, the minister of people’s security, was also named to the
list, along with several top officials in the agency.
The officials also noted
that this was the first time many of the North Korean officials involved have
been publicly named, citing the secretive nature of the regime.
They also expressed the
hope that the state department report and sanctions will help convince mid- and
lower-tier officials to refrain from committing human rights abuses out of fear
of being blacklisted.
“Lifting the anonymity of
these functionaries may make them think twice from time to time when
considering a particular act of cruelty,” one senior administration official
said.
North Korea is already
subject to heavy U.S. sanctions for its past nuclear and missile activity. But
Wednesday’s action marks the first time regime officials have been sanctioned
for human rights abuses.
Read full story at CNN
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