U.S. sanctions Kim Jong Un over human rights abuses

Kim Jong Un.
(Image credit: KCNA/AFP/Getty Images)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been placed on the U.S. sanctions list for human rights abuses, the State Department announced Wednesday.

The State Department and Treasury spent years on an investigation into North Korea, and said the government "continues to commit serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention, forced labor, and torture." Beyond Kim, 22 other individuals and entities are named, including the director of the Organization and Guidance Department, which enforces ideological discipline, and officials from the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which tracks down defectors after they leave North Korea.

While the sanctions are mostly symbolic, companies would be prohibited from doing business with Kim or any companies he controls and assets he owns in the U.S. would be frozen, international trade attorney Thad McBride told USA Today. Other heads of state previously sanctioned by the U.S. include Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.