This article was originally published on VOA and translated by OKN Correspondent.
Republican House of Representatives member, Congressman Rep. Chris Smith criticized Kim Jong Un as a dictator who enforces a cult of personality. He welcomed the appointment of the Republic of Korea NK human rights envoy, and urged the Biden administration to fill the vacant special envoy for North Korean human rights position as soon as possible.
Republican Rep. Chris Smith, co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan organization in the US Congress, criticized North Korea’s human rights violations as without parallel.
On August 2nd, Rep. Smith released a statement regarding the USCIRF’s release of a new report on religious freedom in North Korea and stated that “the Report from USCIRF contains horrific information that 70,000 North Korean citizens are in prison for their religious beliefs.” He went on to note that, “The new USCIRF report—based on painstaking interviews with survivors, witnesses and even perpetrators of religious freedom in North Korea—makes it absolutely clear that the situation has not improved since 2014, when a United Nations commission of inquiry found an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.”
Furthermore, he pointed out that, “Additionally, the report—entitled ‘Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism and the Right to Freedom of Religion, Thought, and Conscience in North Korea’—emphasizes the highly organized efforts by the Workers’ Party of Korea to enforce an ideology known as Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism with an almost messianic fervor as a driving force of religious persecution.”
Rep. Smith went on to criticize the North Korean government as such: “The Government of North Korea is a totalitarian, Stalinist regime whose dictator Kim Jong-Un demands idolatrous reverence and brainwashes citizens into following a cult of personality.”
He also compared and contrasted North Korea with its neighbor to the south, saying that “In stark opposition to this evil regime, it is encouraging to see neighboring South Korea’s recent appointment of an ambassador-at-large on North Korean human rights issues.”
Rep. Smith also stressed again that ““With citizens of North Korea living in some of the most brutal and oppressive conditions in the world, the Biden Administration must take immediate action and appoint a Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights—a position mandated by the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004.”
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, federal government commission under the U.S. government, pointed out in a new report on North Korea’s religious oppression on the 29th of last month that North Korea’s Worker’s Party is systematically leading the violation of religious freedom through criminal punishment and compulsory education, and forced ideological training.
