WASHINGTON — The U.S. is imposing sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and 10 other top officials for human rights abuses.
The penalties are escalation of Washington’s effort to isolate Kim’s government.
The Treasury Department says it’s blacklisting Kim for human rights violations by his government and the ruling Communist Party.
Treasury official Adam Szubin (ZOO’-bin) says that North Korea under Kim “continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor and torture.”
The department also is blacklisting officials at the Ministry of State Security — which administers political prison camps — and the Ministry of People’s Security’s Correctional Bureau — which supervises labor camps. The penalties also hit North Korean agencies responsible for propaganda.
