The Obama administration imposed sanctions for the first time Wednesday on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for his alleged role in perpetuating widespread human rights abuses.
The U.S. also blacklisted 10 other regime officials for allegedly helping Kim run prison camps, torture citizens, hunt down defectors, and maintain a nationwide system of propaganda and censorship.
The new Treasury Department sanctions freeze any of the individuals’ assets in the U.S. and prevent Americans from doing business with the blacklisted officials.
"Human rights abuses in the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] are among the worst in the world," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement announcing the sanctions Wednesday.
"The government continues to commit extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor, 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 the accused," he added.
Senior administration officials predicted during a conference call with reporters that the sanctions would have "a worldwide ripple effect" by making it more difficult for blacklisted North Korean leaders to do business globally.
The sanctions came in conjunction with a State Department report detailing human rights violations in North Korea. The report was the most comprehensive effort yet to publicly name North Korean officials involved in such abuses.
One U.S. official said that "lifting the anonymity" of regime personnel could deter mid- and lower-level officials from committing human rights abuses to avoid sanctions retaliation.
The new sanctions also target five North Korean state entities, including the Ministry of People’s Security, which the State Department report says oversees detention facilities in which widespread abuses occur, including execution and rape.
"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," said Adam Szubin, the acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement.
North Korea is already bound by U.S. sanctions for prior nuclear and ballistic missile tests, but the Treasury Department’s latest freeze is the first time Washington has sanctioned regime officials over human rights abuses.
Both the U.S. and the United Nations have increased pressure on North Korea since Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear weapons test in January. The UN Security Council passed in March the most expansive sanctions to date on North Korea, and the U.S. Congress moved to pass the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016 earlier this year.
The State Department confirmed that the new sanctions list would be updated as the U.S. identified additional officials that may be responsible for abuses or censorship efforts.