North Korea’s list of U.S. human rights abuses includes inequality, racism and marijuana use
Shortly before President Trump used his State of the Union speech to criticize North Korean human rights abuses — even bringing out one remarkable defector, Ji Seong-ho, who escaped terrible conditions in that country — Pyongyang released its own criticism of the United States as a “gross violator of human rights.”
A summary of a report titled “White Paper on Human Rights Violations in the U.S. in 2017″ was released by the Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday. Separately, Reuters reported that North Korean diplomats in Geneva were circulating the report, which is said to be written by the Institute of International Studies in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The KCNA summary begins with a number of pointed criticisms of the Trump administration, noting that members of his Cabinet are “billionaires from conglomerates” and stating that the total assets of “public servants at the level of deputy secretary and above” exceed $14 billion.
“The anti-popular policies the Trump administration pursued openly in one year were, without exception, for the interests of a handful of the rich circles,” the report states.
The report also argues that the United States has experienced a “crackdown on the press” over the past year and says that racial tensions have worsened in the country since Trump took office. Citing statistics about unemployment and homelessness, the KCNA summary says that an “absolute majority of the working masses, deprived of elementary rights to survival, are hovering in the abyss of nightmare.”
A number of other statistics about student debt, sexual abuse and the lack of paid maternity leave in the United States are also included.
“According to data, the number of marijuana users in the U.S. was more than 20 million, a 3 percent increase as compared with that a decade ago,” the KCNA summary noted in a section about drug abuse in the United States. Read More…