The United States Treasury Department issued new sanctions on Thursday on seven North Korean individuals and three entities connected to the Pyongyang regime in conjunction with a new report from the State Department on human rights abuses within the hermit kingdom. The individuals are mostly government officials and the entities include the government and the Korea Workers Party.
A statement by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, "North Korea is run by a brutal regime that continues to engage in serious human rights abuses. We are especially concerned with the North Korean military, which operates as secret police, punishing all forms of dissent. Further, the military operates outside of North Korea to hunt down asylum seekers, and brutally detains and forcibly returns North Korean citizens." He added, "We also are targeting North Korean financial facilitators who attempt to keep the regime afloat with foreign currency earned through forced labor operations."