Let’s start with the big stuff: As the pioneering judge Michael Kirby demonstrated in his landmark Commission of Inquiry, the North Korean government commits “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights,” through its use of prison camps, torture, and enforced disappearances, among other atrocities. (At a conference in Washington last month, Kirby suggested that little has changed in the nearly three years since his report was released.) The regime’s maniacal pursuit of nuclear weapons is also well documented.
Then there are the crimes the regime commits that are more mafia-esque than nation-state-like. Consider the actions its “diplomats” have been known to partake in, such as drug smuggling and passing counterfeit money. The regime was also implicated in the theft of, last year, of $81 million from the national bank of Bangladesh. Yes, they robbed desperately poor Bangladesh, the equivalent of grabbing a dollar bill out of a panhandler’s cup.
And now comes evidence that the regime commits even minor offenses with impunity. In an interview with the BBC, a high-ranking defector from North Korea’s embassy in Great Britain has said that the embassy failed to pay roughly $125,000 in congestion fees—the tolls that drivers in central London are charged. It’s a small thing, but evidence (as if any more were needed) of the essentially malign character of the regime. They’re probably awful tippers too.
