North Korea Lists ‘Gross’ US Human Rights Violations, Including Racism, Drug Abuse

Before President Donald Trump had the chance to point fingers at the inhuman regime run by the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the State of the Union on Tuesday, Pyongyang published its annual white paper on a list of human rights violations by the United States, including curbing the freedom of press, widespread racism and rising unemployment among the working class.

The original report titled “White Paper on Human Rights Violations in the U.S. in 2017,” believed to have been written by Institute of International Studies in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was released shortly before Trump delivered his State of the Union speech, while a summarized version was reported by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported.

The report stated that despite Trump’s claims of catering to both the rich and poor, the wealthiest of the society were the only ones who have reaped the benefits so far.

“The anti-popular policies the Trump administration pursued openly in one year were, without exception, for the interests of a handful of the rich circles,” the report said.

It added that the working class were "deprived of elementary rights to survival" and were "hovering in the abyss of nightmare." As a result, unemployment among the youth is in vogue and the rate of homelessness is on the rise with people struggling to pay student loans and afford healthcare.

The report added that on one hand “racial discrimination and misanthropy” became embedded in the “social system of the US,” and on the other hand, “genuine freedom of the press and expression [did] not exist.”

Commenting on the sorry state of the treatment of women in the U.S., the report stated, "A woman is sexually abused every 89 seconds," the Telegraph reported. It is unclear as to which study the statistics were based upon.

The report also mentioned a second study, according to which “the number of marijuana users in the U.S. was more than 20 million, a 3 percent increase as compared with that a decade ago.”

"The US, 'guardian of democracy' and 'human rights champion', is kicking up the human rights racket but it can never camouflage its true identity as the gross violator of human rights," KCNA cited the white paper as saying.

A list of human rights violations by the U.S. was released by North Korea every year, dating back to at least 2014, when Pyongyang said U.S. was “a living hell as elementary rights to existence are ruthlessly violated.”

According to Reuters, the latest report was circulated by North Korean diplomats in Geneva. However, these reports never mentioned about the alleged human rights violations in the isolated nation, which was often criticized by the U.S. and the United Nations.

The report could have been a pre-emptive attack on the president who, during his State of the Union address, warned that “North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland,” adding, “No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.”