On December 10, the International Human Rights Day, the U.S. Dept of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated 15 individuals and 10 entities benefitting from systematic human rights abuse and exploitation of surveillance technologies.
Targeting those “who abuse the power of the state to inflict suffering and repression”, the Treasury sanctioned companies involved in malicious use of surveillance tech in PRC and those responsible for human rights abuse in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The Xinjiang Public Security Bureau’s Integrated Joint Operations Platform utilizes AI to keep biometric records of millions of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. Tracking the movements and activities of the population via surveying their interactions, the IJOP uses the data to determine potential threats.
Creators of Ethnicity recognizing tech designated
OFAC has also designated SenseTime Group Limited, purveyors of facial recognition programs boasting the ability to determine ethnicity of surveyed targets, with a particular effort to identify ethnic Uyghurs.
The Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since 2018, Shohrat Zakir, and Erken Tuniyaz, the acting Chairman of the region are known to be responsible for the detention of one million Uyghurs in the region.
The two individuals are designated on the grounds of their involvement in gross human rights violations.
OFAC has also designated SenseTime Group Limited, for controlling Shenzen Sensetime Technology Co. Ltd. the purveyors of facial recognition programs boasting to determine ethnicity of surveyed targets, with a particular effort to identify ethnic Uyghurs.
DPRK’s Export Workforce
DPRK is known to “export” its nationals to work in other countries, to generate revenue in foreign currency for the regime to invest in its internationally sanctioned WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) proliferation programs.
DPRK Nationals working in foreign countries are employed in abusive environments, are forced to work long hours, and portions of their wages are taken away to be transferred to the coffers of the North Korean regime.
In 2018, the UN has adopted a Security Council resolution to urge members to repatriate DPRK nationals working in their jurisdictions.
With difficulties arising in granting work visas, organizations reverted to abuse student and tourist visas to import North Korean workers to work in their facilities.
The Treasury sanctioned the Russian university European Institute Justo and its provost, Dmitriy Yurevich Soin, for arranging hundreds of student visas to import DPRK nationals to work in Russia. The treasury reports that a group of these workers are linked to a WMD entity in North Korea.
Exploitation of Low-Cost Labour: Animation Studio Sanctioned
North Korea’s exploitation of its own citizens’ labour and means to evade sanctions to bring foreign currency to the country are not limited to construction or akin industries. The arts and media has not been exempt from the country’s efforts to generate revenue.
North Korea had been known to export “socialist realist” style statues as a part of its plans to bring in revenue and earn diplomatic backing from smaller states. The statue business, which had reportedly turned over $160M by 2011, had been capped by a U.N. Security Council resolution in 2016.
SEK Studio, based in North Korea and the PRC is known offer unreasonably low cost animation services to international clients. The SEK Studio has instrumentalized numerous front companies to deceive the international financial system.
The Studio is designated for being controlled or owned by, or purported to act for or on behalf of the Government of North Korea, along with Lu Hezheng, the sole shareholder of Shanghai Hongman Cartoon and Animation Design Studio and a former shareholder of Nings Cartoon Studio, who worked with the SEK Studio to conduct wire transfers through front companies in the PRC; and the Moxing Cartoon, for being owned or controlled by Lu Hezheng.
Sanctions targeting the Judicial System in the DPRK
The DPRK Central Public Prosecutors Office and the court system are the main instruments of the state that prosecute and punish nationals for political wrongdoing via fundamentally unfair trials.
The court system often penalizes individuals to forced labour camps run by the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Social Security.
The DPRK Central Public Prosecutors Office is designated for acting as an agency or a controlled entity for the Government of North Korea or the Workers’ Party of North Korea and Ri Yon Gil is designated for being an official of the Government of North Korea or the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Both were already designated by the EU as a part of the Union’s sanctions action in March 2021.
Announcing the designation of instruments of the system in DPRK, the Treasury press release made mention of DPRK’s policy of detaining foreign nationals and the tragic death of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who was arrested in North Korea in 2017 during a touristic trip and died after being repatriated to the United States.
Bangladesh: Rapid Action Battalion sanctioned
The Bangladeshi government’s arm to wage war on drugs, the Rapid Action Battalion founded in 2004, has also been among the designated.
Charged with conducting internal security and intelligence gathering, and composed of members of the police and military powers, the RAB is held responsible for more than 600 disappearances, an equal number of extrajudicial killings since 2018 as well as torture.
The RAB is reported to target dissidents, journalists and human rights activists. While RAB is designated on the grounds of being an entity responsible for gross human rights abuses, the leaders and officials of the group, Director General Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, former Director General Benazir Ahmed, Additional Director General Khan Mohammad Azad, former Additional Director Generals Tofayel Mustafa Sorwar, Mohamad Jahangir Alam, and Mohammad Anwar Latif Khan are sanctioned for engaging in human rights abuses during their tenure; with Benazir Ahmad also being subjected to visa restrictions.