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North Korea Publicly Executes Six Officials Blamed For Allowing 13 Workers To Defect To South Korea

By Tara West
Published on: 04:51 PST, Jul 29, 2016

Kim Jong-Un reportedly ordered the execution of six state officials after they were blamed for the defection of 13 workers to South Korea. The six officials were executed in front of their family members for “lacking control” over their overseas workers and for allowing them to be “disillusioned” with South Korean television dramas. The executions were reportedly carried out as 80 government authorities and 100 family members were forced to watch.

The Daily Mail reports that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un is not happy about the defection of 13 restaurant workers to South Korea. The dictator ordered the execution of six officials he believed were to blame for the defection, noting that they should have had more control over the citizens. The 13 workers defected to South Korea and were accepted into the country on humanitarian grounds. They entered South Korea through China while they were working in the restaurant industry.

It is noted that North Korea sends workers overseas to raise money for the communist nation with North Korea sponsoring some 130 restaurants in Asian countries. However, before allowing anyone to leave the country and join the overseas workforce, the communist nation forces them to undergo ideological training to ensure loyalty. Workers are also “hand-picked” by families and only people deemed “exceptionally loyal” to the nation are sent abroad.

Despite North Korea’s best attempts at keeping its workers under their thumb, it was 13 of these designated restaurant workers who defected to South Korea against Kim Jong-Un’s wishes, a defection which could result in their execution should they return to the communist nation. However, with the defectors safely in South Korea, it seems that Kim Jong-Un wanted to ensure someone paid for the loss of 13 of his citizens.

Therefore, the dictator demanded the execution of the six officials he felt could have prevented the defection. Included in those executions were intelligence officials. The leader noted that the North Korean defectors were “disillusioned” by watching South Korean television shows and films. Following their entrance into South Korea, the families of the defectors were taken and held prisoner along with the family members of the officials that Jong-Un believed was responsible for the escape. The family members were kept confined until the executions, at which time they were forced to watch as the six individuals were killed.

This is not the first time that a mass execution has taken place in the public in North Korea. The regime also executed some 80 individuals in an execution that was decried around the world.

It is these public executions, humanitarian violations and continued ballistic missile testing that has landed Kim Jong-Un on the United States blacklist. The Express notes that Un was placed on the list for numerous atrocities and for inflicting “hardship” on millions of his own people.

“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.”

Though it is rare for state officials to be listed on the U.S. blacklist, Kim Jong-Un is not the first dictator to be placed on the list. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe are also leaders who have been sanctioned.

What do you think about the latest public execution in North Korea? Should the United States do more to help the people of North Korea?

[Image by Wong Maye-E/ AP Photo]

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