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US blacklists North Korean leader's sister over rights abuse

WION
Washington, United StatesUpdated: Jan 11, 2017, 10:06 PM IST
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The US state department said that the sanctions corresponded to the release of the department's second report on human rights abuses taking place in North Korea, where rights violations and censorship is the harshest.? Photograph:(AFP)

Seven senior North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un's sister, were added to the US Treasury department's sanctions list over human rights abuses.

Kim Yo Jong, 27, is the younger sister of leader Kim Jong Un and the vice director of the Workers’ Party of Korea Propaganda and Agitation Department.

“The North Korean regime not only engages in severe human rights abuses, but it also implements rigid censorship policies and conceals its inhumane and oppressive behaviour,” John Smith, interim director of the department's Office Of Foreign Assets Control said. 

The US state department said that the sanctions corresponded to the release of the department's second report on human rights abuses taking place in North Korea, where rights violations and censorship is the harshest. 

It issued a statement saying North Korea "continues to commit extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labour, and torture. Many of these abuses are committed in the political prison camps, where an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 individuals are detained, including children and family members of those subject to persecution and censorship,"Reuters reported.

(WION with inputs from Reuters)