Anchor: The United States imposed sanctions on three senior North Korean officials for their alleged human rights abuses and censorship. The State Department’s biannual report released Monday said North Korea continues to censor the media and commit serious human rights violations and abuses, including violations of individuals’ freedom of expression. 
Alannah Hill has this report.

Report: The latest U.S. sanctions list includes Choe Ryong-hae, a top aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and an official of the ruling Workers' Party. 

The Treasury Department said Monday that Choe is the director of the party's Organization and Guidance Department, which is "instrumental in implementing censorship policies, and purports to control the political affairs of all North Koreans."

The other two officials are North Korea's Minister of State Security Jong Kyong-thaek and director of the Workers' Party's Propaganda and Agitation Department Pak Kwang-ho. 

The three officials are now banned from the U.S. financial system and can no longer access assets under U.S. jurisdiction. American citizens and residents are prohibited from any transactions with them.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his younger sister Kim Yo-jong have already been put on the sanctions list because of their alleged complicity in human rights abuses against the North Korean people.

In a separate statement, the Treasury said the sanctions “shine a spotlight on North Korea’s reprehensible treatment of those in North Korea,” and also serve as a reminder of North Korea’s brutal treatment of U.S. citizen Otto Warmbier, the American student who died in June last year after 17 months of detention in North Korea.

A month earlier the Trump administration listed North Korea along China, Eritrea, Syria and others as countries failing to meet minimum standards under its Trafficking Victims Protection Act. 

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers’ Party, on Tuesday lashed out at Washington's human rights sanctions as "vicious and hostile act" that runs counter to the spirit of the U.S.-North Korea summit in June. 

It called on the U.S. to end such hostile behavior, warning the U.S. would "end up embarrassing itself" by taking issue with human rights conditions in the North. 
Alannah Hill, KBS World Radio News.